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Wall Street has lost billions because of bad decisions by executives in top positions. Thousand and thousands of layoffs are coming, but what happens to those individuals at the top who are responsible for the losses? It seems that they become highly sought after executives by their competition:

Under the stewardship of Dow Kim and Thomas Maheras, Merrill Lynch and Citigroup built positions in subprime-related securities that led to $34 billion in write-downs last year. The debacle cost chief executives their jobs and brought two of the world's premier financial institutions to their knees.

In any other industry, Kim and Maheras would be pariahs. But in the looking-glass world of Wall Street, they - and others like them - are hot properties. The two executives are well on their way to reviving their careers, even as global markets shudder at the prospect that Merrill and Citigroup may report further subprime losses in the coming months.

How is that for responsibility? These men are responsible for billions of dollars of losses, causing much pain to investors and laid-off employees, and they are in high demand now? How can that be?

"It is always an assumption on Wall Street that it is not the individuals that lose money; it's the system," said Charles Geisst, a Wall Street historian and a finance professor at Manhattan College, in New York. "You can fail big time, but you can also succeed big time."

"They think it's bad luck," he said, so the attitude is "let's give them another chance."

The article goes on to detail other examples of executives through the years who have lost millions and gone on to successful careers. It's very illuminating...

Supposedly, this country is all about redemption, so it makes sense that these men are given a second chance. But do you think this idea of "second chances" are given to those at the bottom rung of the economic ladder? It's doubtful...

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