Absolutely out of control in a quite literal sense

This striking quote isn't from some angry left-winger. This is Jeffrey Sachs, the cold-blooded economist best known for designing the “shock therapy” reforms that reduced Russia's GDP by 40% between 1991 and 1998:

“Look, I meet a lot of these people on Wall Street on a regular basis right now ... I know them. These are the people I have lunch with. And I am going to put it very bluntly: I regard the moral environment as pathological. [These people] have no responsibility to pay taxes; they have no responsibility to their clients; they have no responsibility to counterparties in transactions. They are tough, greedy, aggressive, and feel absolutely out of control in a quite literal sense, and they have gamed the system to a remarkable extent. They genuinely believe they have a God-given right to take as much money as they possibly can in any way that they can get it, legal or otherwise.

If you look at the campaign contributions, which I happened to do yesterday for another purpose, the financial markets are the number one campaign contributors in the US system now. We have a corrupt politics to the core ... both parties are up to their necks in this.

But what it’s led to is this sense of impunity that is really stunning, and you feel it on the individual level right now. And it’s very, very unhealthy, I have waited for four years ... five years now to see one figure on Wall Street speak in a moral language. And I’ve have not seen it once.”