FINALLY, SOME SHARED SACRIFICE

I want economic justice to be attained through peaceful means. I want the institutions of government to identify the parties responsible for destroying the global economy and hold them accountable. I want those who benefit the most from the way we've structured our society to pay the most for the maintenance of those structures. I want all this to happen through the proper channels.

Some people in England don't see any possibility that any of this will happen if they just ask politely. It would be a hell of a lot easier to dismiss them as thuggish brats if it were possible to identify any real penalties doled out recently to the cosseted, comfortable, and guilty through conventional means.

Over 200 people were arrested as extremists brought violent chaos to central London yesterday after hijacking the much-heralded trade union protest against public spending cuts....

Campaign group UK Uncut claimed around 200 of its supporters forced themselves into luxury store Fortnum and Mason -- known as the Queen's grocer....

After forcing themselves through the ground floor doors into the area selling luxury cheese and chocolate at around 4pm, the mob ran amok....

A spokesman for the demonstrators said the target was chosen because 'they dodge tens of millions in tax'....

Campaigners claimed they targeted the 300-year-old store because its owners are at the centre of a £40million tax avoidance row. Protesters also occupied Vodafone, Boots and BHS stores on Oxford Street for the same reason....

Around 300 extremists tried to storm a branch of HSBC in Cambridge Circus.

They threw paint at police officers and smashed windows. Some of the group painted slogans such as 'smash the banks' and 'thieves' on the building before trying to get inside....

I don't want to see it happen in England or in any other country. But what I do want to see happen -- a real reckoning for the worst abusers in the global financial system, accompanied by "shared sacrifice" that's actually shared, all the way to the top -- apparently will never happen through peaceful means.

(If you think I'm exaggerating, consider the wrist-slaps that have been doled out in America for large-scale economic crime, and then read Joe Nocera's New York Times story about a guy who's doing serious time for taking a "liar loan" during the economic boom. Think of this as like the drug war, except we've made a conscious, overt decision not to jail any leaders of the cartels, or even mid-level soldiers -- only the customers.)

Yeah, the riot in England was awful. Want to avoid more of it, authorities? Do the right thing. (And yes, I say that knowing you won't.)