Joe Nocera:

They just want theirs. That is the culture they have created.

Michael Osinski:

When you're close to the money, you get the first cut. Oyster farmers eat lots of oysters, don't they?

Etay Zwick:

At the best of times, Wall Street provides white noise amidst entrepreneurs' and workers' attempts to actualize their ambitions and projects. We are still learning what happens at the worst of times.

An exchange:

"In other words, you found that your view of the world, your ideology, was not right, it was not working," Mr. Waxman said. "Absolutely, precisely," Mr. Greenspan replied.

Peter Schiff:

I think things are going to get very bad.

Nouriel Roubini:

Things are going to be awful for everyday people.

Viktor Chernomyrdin:

We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.

Simon Johnson:

The crash has laid bare many unpleasant truths about the United States. One of the most alarming is that the finance industry has effectively captured our government. Recovery will fail unless we break the financial oligarchy that is blocking essential reform. And if we are to prevent a true depression, we're running out of time.

Zwick:

During the last economic "expansion" (between 2002 and 2007), fully two-thirds of all income gains flowed to the wealthiest one percent of the population. In 2007, the top 50 hedge and private equity managers averaged $588 million in annual compensation. On the other hand, the median income of ordinary Americans has dropped an average of $2,197 per year since 2000.

A blogger at The Economist:

By some measures, America already has a lost decade in its rear-view mirror. A couple more would mean a lost generation. Worst of all, it would mean my generation. I thought I was unlucky graduating into the tech bust. I had no idea.

Of course, the past ten years hasn't been lost in the way that the next ten years might be.

Chris Dixon and Caterina Fake:

"We're helping save the next generation of college grads that would have gone over to Morgan Stanley."

"We're pulling them back from the dark side."

Zwick:

One senses that the goals of the avaricious aren't really their goals -- can they really want those ugly mansions or gaudy cars? -- but a way of not confronting their lack of goals, desires, hopes and joys. Who believes that traders are truly happy?

John Bird and John Fortune:

They thought that if they had a bigger mortgage they could get a bigger house. They thought if they had a bigger house, they would be happy. It's pathetic. I've got four houses and I'm not happy.

Decius:

Life is too short to spend 2300 hours a year working on someone else's idea of what the right problems are.

It's important to understand that it isn't Congress that must change -- it is us.