President Andrew Jackson warned the American people:
“The bold efforts the present bank has made to control the government, the distress it has wantonly caused, are but premonitions of the fate which awaits the American people should they be deluded into a perpetuation of this institution or the establishment like it.
“You are a den of vipers. I intend to rout you out and by the eternal God I will rout you out.
“If the people only understood the rank injustice of our money and banking system, there would be a revolution before morning.”
The German people have taken a much more serious and suspicious tack toward the economic crash of 2009.
Dirk Kurbjuweit at Spiegel calls it The Broken Pact with the People:
Trust capitalism and shun government interference we were told.
But irresponsible bankers saw a chance to get rich quick and went for it.
Their failure has become ours — and the promise of a common good has evaporated along with faith in democratic capitalism.