There are tens of millions of people without jobs, trying to pay the rent or mortgage and put food on the table while the rich crooks who caused this economic disaster keep scamming and committing even more crimes, free as birds, rewarded by both the Bush and Obama administrations.

Regular Americans are disgusted and angry at the economic inequality and the unfairness and injustice of the political and economic system in this country that causes them to struggle and suffer while the super wealthy criminals continue to enjoy their stolen gains.

Jonathan Tasini at Working Life weighs in:

"We are missing part of the anger that I think cuts across the political spectrum--and it goes right to the question: why is Angelo Mozilo not going to jail for a very long time? Because the political system still is not willing to jettison our coddling of the vast array of people who committed deep economic crimes on the country and round them up and put them behind bars.

"I meant to write about this when the deal Mozilo cut with the government was announced almost two weeks ago:

Angelo R. Mozilo, the former chief executive of Countrywide Financial, once the nation’s largest mortgage lender, agreed to pay $67.5 million on Friday to settle a civil fraud case brought by the Securities and Exchange Commission last year.     

Countrywide itself is paying $20 million of Mr. Mozilo’s $67.5 million payment as part of an indemnification agreement he has with the company.

As part of the settlement, Mr. Mozilo, 71, also agreed to be permanently banned from serving as an officer or a director at any public company.  

"And:

Mr. Mozilo and his colleagues neither admitted nor denied the government’s charges. The payment by Mr. Mozilo will consist of $22.5 million in civil penalties and $45 million in disgorged stock profits... Bank of America has been paying Mr. Mozilo’s legal fees, and the $20 million Countrywide is paying on his behalf applies to stock profits he was forced to give up.[emphasis added]

"This guy is a crook. He was a central player in the mortgage scam that has rocked our country and the world, causing millions of people to lose their jobs and their retirement.

 "Here is a little about Mozilo from my book "The Audacity of Greed":

" 'On the backs of desperate homeowners, Mozilo made himself a fortune, mainly on huge annual stock option grants; from 1984 through 2007, he pocketed $406 million by cashing in those options.

'However, he never showed much faith in his own company, failing to buy a single share in Countrywide after 1987. Instead, he was simply a leech on the company’s equity. Indeed, as the company hit the rocks during the mushrooming subprime crisis in 2007, Mozilo was making sure that he would not personally take the financial hit that hundreds of thousands of his costumers were facing, as he pocketed a third of his $406 million overall stock options in 2006 and 2007.

 'Mozilo, in fact, kept up his personal enrichment even as his company was falling apart. By the end of 2007, as the Countrywide crisis was spiraling out of control, Mozilo had tucked away $121.5 million by exercising stock options. He also banked $22.1 million in pay in 2007—a year when the company lost $704 million, its shares slid 79 percent and it cut 11,000 workers from its payroll. So, while the customers, shareholders and workers of Countrywide were drowning, Mozilo was flying high.' "

"The man was a cancer.

"Rather than serving out the rest of his days in prison, however, Mozilo will pay a fine--a large part of which will be paid by the shareholders of Countrywide!!!--and live the life of stupendous wealth--while most of his victims struggle to make ends meet.

"But, a question worth asking is this: if regular people, who have been hurt deeply by the Mozilo-type scams, had been able to see CEOs like Mozilo led away in shackles, consigned to a future that every regular, non-insider person would face had they perpetrated a vast scam, would that have made a difference in the way people view who is fighting for them, and who isn't?

"Cutting deals with crooks and allowing them to not even admit their guilt simply exacerbates the deep feeling among people that something has gone deeply wrong in America.

"And letting Mozilo off the hook is pretty vile proof that the people are right."

For the filthy super rich, the crooks on Wall Street and sitting in corporate board rooms it's business as usual.

As Down With Tyranny adds: "..... everyone else's tough economic times has been a financial bonanza.  Many of these people, if not all of them, are social parasites. They don't CREATE anything-- including employment (other than for servants and golf caddies); they suck the blood of working people.

"David Cay Johnson, a Pulitzer Prize-winner NY Times journalist covered this story on his blog, Tax.com and he pointed out that many of them are "most likely Wall Street traders who earned bonuses or corporate executives cashing in deferred compensation that accumulated over the years, or even highly paid athletes," though not hedge fund managers "because much of their 'investment' [gambling] income is not counted as wages.

" 'This systematic destruction of the working class and middle class has come during an era notable for celebrating the super-rich just for being super-rich," Johnston wrote. "From the Forbes 400 launch in 1982 and Robin Leach's Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous in 1984 to the faux reality of the multiplying Real Housewives shows, money voyeurism has grown in tandem with stagnant to falling incomes for the vast majority. There has also been huge income growth at the top and the economic children of income inequality: budget deficits and malign neglect of our commonwealth.

" 'This orgy of money exhibitionism has created a society in which commas-- it takes three to be a billionaire-- count more than character," Johnston continued. "We have gone so far down this path that we bailed out bankers, allowing them to keep the untaxed wealth in their deferral accounts and, with a few exceptions, retaining shareholder value, while wiping out investors in General Motors and Chrysler as a condition of their bailouts. And while autoworkers had to take severe pay cuts, bonus time on Wall Street is at new record levels.' "

"And now they're buying themselves a Congress to cement their power in place. That's the conservative way."