Updated January 22, 2014, 2:19 PM

I admire the move by the European Union to restrict the bonuses of that class of privileged civil servants called “bankers” — a recognition that the taxpayers have the right to control the income of those they subsidize and bail out, just as they set the salaries of other state-sponsored workers.

Restricting the bonuses of bankers would be correctly recognizing that taxpayers have the right to control the income of those they subsidize and bail out.

Alas, bankers in their current status are an offense to capitalism; they are in a strange situation of having upside without downside, no skin in the game. As an additional insult to the taxpayer, bankers paid themselves the largest bonus pool of their history in 2010 — thanks to Troubled Asset Relief Program…

via We Need to Stop This Banker Bonus Madness – NYTimes.com.