I've been reading some Reddit comments regarding the banks and the ongoing Greek crisis. I've seen this statement thrown around a couple of times and was wondering how true it was?
Well... Look at the way our tax systems are set up. If you haven't, find out how much in taxes large corporations, banks, private billionaires and so on are paying relative to their income and how they achieve that. Compare this to what happens if an average citizen doesn't pay their taxes properly. Compare what happened to the banks (universally acknowledged as having acted entirely recklessly) in 2008 to what happened to their home owning debtors. Noam Chomsky argues that we live in a system which offers socialism for the rich and capitalism for everyone else. I have yet to find a valid counter-argument.
It's possible to argue that the 2008 bailout was a manifestation of that idea. When the banks were making profit, everybody didn't get some money in the mail or anything. Hell, they didn't even really get a break on bank fees or anything. However, when they started failing the government bailed them out, and that money came from taxes, which were a collection from the people.