The following passage is from Matt Taibbi's book GRIFTOPIA,  'a story of bankers, politicians, and the most audacious power grab in American history '.
"We live in an economy that is immensely complex and we are completely at the mercy of the small group of people who understand it -- who incidentally often happen to be the same people who built these wildly complex economic systems. We have to trust these people to do the right thing, but we can't, because, well, they're scum. Which is kind of a big problem, when you think about it."    (pps 154-155)
This statement doesn't only apply to America though, as can be seen just by looking around you at the financial turmoil in the eurozone, and increasingly in Britain. Taibbi uses the American term 'grifters' (basically a con-artist) to describe financiers and the politicians who slot comfortably into place around them. He puts massive investment bank Goldman Sachs in the role of a "vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity". Goldman and their like, the 1%, are without doubt the root cause of the crisis happening now. Taibbi indicates the top financiers are manipulating prices and markets, with food, energy and mortgages being controlled in their own interests. Also, he is adamant that the media assist in this life-threatening con, often deliberately steering attention away from the real causes of an issue while they discuss bullshit instead. Classic smokescreening, and generally very effective.
Though it is probably already too late to stop this now, we can at least try to fight back against these bloodsuckers. The 'Occupy' protesters are right in what they're doing, and our trade unions are right in facing up to the government's intransigence on issues like pensions. Support them in any way you can, before our lives are altered drastically for the worse.