[Photo: VanityFair

Thought the following column by NYTimes columnist Gretchen Morgenson is quite perceptive.

There are many facets to the populist, anti-establishment anger that swept Donald J. Trump into the White House in Tuesday’s election. A crucial element fueling the rage, in my view, was this: Not one high-ranking executive at a major financial firm was held to account for the crisis of 2008.

As millions of foreclosures and job losses followed, the failure to go after fraudsters confirmed the suspicion that the powerful got protection while those on Main Street were kicked to the curb. When Mr. Trump asserted that the system was rigged, he tapped directly into such misgivings.

Many readers of The New York Times, particularly if you live in Manhattan, San Francisco or another affluent enclave, may not see how an accountability failure of years ago could still resonate. But the failure to prosecute even one or two high-profile bankers - or force them simply to pay fines and penalties out of their own pockets - left millions of Americans believing that our justice system was unjust.

Recall that more than 800 bankers went to jail after the savings and loan crisis of the 1980s. And that mess wreaked nowhere near the devastation that the housing debacle did on the overall United States economy.

Embarrassed, perhaps, by their passivity, Justice Department officials recently pledged to take a more aggressive approach to white-collar crime. But the memo issued last September by Sally Quillian Yates, deputy attorney general, outlining new ways the department would hold individuals to account, has not translated into results.

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