Sin Eater

I was reading the New Yorker this last week, which is just all kinds of cheery about how the current economy is a whiter shade of ghastly, and something that's going to have fairly permanent and long-reaching effects. (And just when you thought the worst was over, probably because you, personally, aren't unemployed. You unfeeling bastard.)

Anyway, the writer makes the point that part of our problem with the current crisis is that we have no villains to blame. Sure, you can scapegoat Bernie Madoff, or the Detroit auto CEOs, the AIG bonus babies or any number of watchpuppy people in the press and SEC... but none of these people are all that satisfying, and the punishments are far from visceral.

It reminds me of the steroid situation, really.

Even the most disgraced roider -- your Sosas, your McGwires, your Palmeiros, your Bonds, your Clemens, etc., etc. -- is more or less free to enjoy the grotesque amounts of moolah that they made from breaking the rules. Sure, their retirements may not be willing, their legacies might be tarnished, and they might be bitter and unhappy about various aspects of how it ended... but it's not like any of them were doing time in the crossbar hotel with Dog Lovin' Michael Vick and friends.

Maybe this eventually changes if Bonds is held up on perjury charges. Maybe someone famous going to jail and/or having their assets seized really wouldn't make anyone feel or act any differently about steroids.

But then again it might, right? And it might even be a deterrent? I'm not asking for much here, really...