Den of Vipers and Thieves

The quote below from our seventh president, Andrew Jackson, came to mind when I read in the news how corporate bankers, after begging billions of dollars of taxpayer money from the federal government to avert going under, proceeded to hastily give themselves billions of dollars worth of executive bonuses:

“Hey buddy, can you spare a few billion in chump change for a poor banker?”

Here’s what Andrew Jackson had to say to a delegation of bankers in 1832:

“Gentlemen, I have had men watching you for a long time, and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the bank. You tell me that if I take the deposits from the bank and annul its charter, I shall ruin ten thousand families. That may be true, gentlemen, but that is your sin! Should I let you go on, you will ruin fifty thousand families, and that would be my sin! You are a den of vipers and thieves. I intend to rout you out, and by the eternal God, I will rout you out.”