Quote of the Day – 12.05.08

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QUOTE OF THE DAY….From Matt Yglesias, on the argument that the collapse of Wall Street was a systemic problem, not a personal one:

If nothing the CEOs and top fund managers are doing makes them worthy of taking the blame when the crash hits, then they also don’t deserve nearly the share of the credit — and money — that they got while things were going up.

Quite so. Street crime might be a systemic problem caused by drugs or poverty or whatnot, and that means that it makes sense to attack those root causes. But we still put muggers in jail while we’re working on the other stuff.

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BEFORE YOU CLICK AWAY!

Mother Jones was founded to do journalism differently. We stand for justice and democracy. We reject false equivalence. We go after stories others don’t. We’re a nonprofit newsroom, because the kind of truth-telling investigations we do doesn’t happen under corporate ownership.

And the essential ingredient that makes all this possible? Readers like you.

It’s reader support that enables Mother Jones to devote the time and resources to report the facts that are too difficult, expensive, or inconvenient for other news outlets to uncover. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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