It is vogue to heap scorn on Wall Street. Wall Street bankers took the economy to the brink of Armageddon. Wall Street bankers destroyed trillions in wealth and millions of jobs. Wall Street bankers turned America into an international pariah. Wall Street bankers then blackmailed taxpayers into paying unconscionably big bailouts.

A year later, the big banks are raking in record profits and paying out record bonuses, just like nothing ever happened—with barely a “thank you.”

It is therefore understandable that some people might be more than a little upset with Wall Street bankers.

But hold on. Are the Wall Street fat cats really so bad?

Financial Leaders

The Financial Times doesn’t think so. Out of the 6 billion-plus people on Earth today, guess upon whom this respected newspaper bestowed its Person of the Year award?

Lloyd Blankfein, ceo of Goldman Sachs.

Oh how a little money and a little profitability can make the memories and supposed lessons learned disappear so quickly.

Lest we forget: Goldman was a leader in packaging and selling the subprime financial bombs that blew up the global economic system. Then, as the system was being ripped apart, Goldman made a killing by shorting (i.e. intensifying) the housing market meltdown that it played an integral role in creating. Then, when the U.S. Treasury Department (run by another former Goldman Sachs ceo, Henry Paulson) was deciding which of the big five investment banks would be saved, Goldman Sachs was one of two banks that were given precious government flak jackets.

After allowing the competition to get wiped out, the United States government went to unprecedented extremes to give Goldman (and the remaining banks) even more aid. It rewrote the rules to allow them to dump their status as pure investment banks and become bank holding companies backed by the full faith and aaa credit rating of the U.S. government. It relaxed accounting regulations so the banks would not have to recognize losses on bad investments. It handed out free money and made available virtually unlimited amounts of almost-free money. Then to top it all off, when the government took over bankrupt insurer aig, it decided to pay out aig’s lenders (of which Goldman was the largest) 100 percent on the dollar even though they normally would have received pennies. Without this backdoor bailout, Goldman’s record profits would have been record losses—and there would be no bonuses.

Yet despite the extreme privileges afforded this bank, Blankfein has told investors that Goldman Sachs never needed any government help and would have easily survived on its own. Now that it has paid back its $10 billion in Troubled Assets Relief Program (tarp) bailout money, Goldman has no responsibility whatsoever toward taxpayers.

And making the slap in the face sting a bit more, in his faux apology to America for Wall Street’s role in the financial crisis, Blankfein said that America shouldn’t really be angry with the bank, because by lending money to people that need it, it is really just “doing God’s work.”

The Financial Times is not alone in its absurd selection for Person of the Year. Time magazine chose perhaps the only other person both symbolically and literally more responsible for the financial crisis than Blankfein. Time crowned the man who never saw the housing bubble coming and who claims that it is impossible to tell whether or not a bubble exists until it pops. Time chose the biggest failed chief executive officer of them all: Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke.

Is it possible the Financial Times and Time magazine are right? Are the pin-striped suits that got us into all this trouble in the first place not really that bad after all? Are they actually the People of the Year?

By that kind of logic—greed plus failure plus moral breakdown equals People of the Year award—a case could be made that the suits on Capitol Hill are even more qualified.

Political Leaders

Health-care reform is a case in point. No matter your opinion on the need for national health care, it is clear that the political process is completely corrupt.

The headline “Stocking Stuffers: Payoffs, Kickbacks and Sweetheart Deals Abound” succinctly sums it up. “Big payoffs” was what the Washington Examiner says it took to purchase the 60 Senate votes needed to pass the bill.

When Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was asked about what really amounts to political bribery, he said that deal-making was just part of how legislation gets done in the Senate. “It’s not different from other pieces of legislation,” he said. “We work compromises. That’s what legislation is all about, the art of compromise.”

He added that for those senators who did not grab something for themselves, “it doesn’t speak well of them.”

Judging by the bribes, America has some very successful politicians. Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu’s vote was worth $300 million in federal money to pay for extra Medicaid expansions in her state. It took a whopping $10 billion to purchase the votes of Michigan Sens. Ben Nelson and Carl Levine. It only took $100 million to buy Chris Dodd of Connecticut.

Others sold their votes for other reasons. Illinois Sen. Roland Burris voted for health-care reform in return for a provision that would funnel money to (the corrupt organization) acorn through the health-care bill. Sen. Bill Nelson got a special deal for Medicare recipients in his state. Approximately 800,000 voters in Florida will get to keep their extra benefits that will be lost to seniors in other places.

This is what the political process has come to in America. Ever wonder why America is in such huge debt? Senators regularly use your tax dollars to pay bribes to pass economically crippling legislation that would never pass without the buy-offs. Worse, senators are actually considered failures if they can’t or don’t sell their votes for money.

Maybe worst of all, these same politicians self-righteously say that bank ceos can’t have bonuses, because America wants them to be held accountable for their actions.

The implications for America’s continued existence are profound. And not just economically speaking. Can a society based upon such naked “get-get-get” and fueled by bribery survive? Corruption breeds alienation and disintegration. How long before we get to Third World-style bribe-as-you-go systems? Or are we already there?

Leaders at All Levels

But wait. Unfortunately, bankers and politicians are not unique—even if their faults are more blatantly and publicly obvious. We all do it. The same sorts of actions are growing at all levels of society because the whole system is critically flawed. Because we ourselves are flawed.

The problem with the system is not something that any billion-dollar bill or power-hungry politician can fix. It’s far beyond simply increasing regulation or adding oversight committees—the most popularly espoused reforms. That is because the most fundamental underlying problem with the system lies in the nature of man himself! Human nature!

Mankind is not naturally law-abiding, unselfish, or giving. In fact, mankind is naturally the opposite! But that doesn’t mean mankind is doomed.

The hope—the only hope—for mankind lies with his potential to have that nature changed. That is something mankind does not willingly subscribe to—though deeper thinkers, such as Gen. Douglas MacArthur, have. As MacArthur once stated, “Men since the beginning of time have sought peace. … Military alliances, balances of powers, leagues of nations, all in turn failed …. We have had our last chance. If we will not devise some greater and equitable system, our Armageddon will be at our door.”

“The problem,” he continued, “basically is theological and involves a spiritual recrudescence, an improvement of human character …. It must be of the spirit if we are to save the flesh.”

Mankind needs leaders that can bring real change—not the kind the Financial Times and Time magazine promote, but the kind only God can bring. Only then will mankind be able to permanently solve its problems.

For more on the subject of human nature, request our free booklet Human Nature: What Is It?