Let's see if I can expose this metaphor as the tattered thing it is.

Emphasis added to the part I want to address:

" Dimon told CNBC after the meeting "we know mistakes were made" around executive compensation -- an issue which has spurred a wave of public fury across the United States, and Bank of America's Lewis said everyone understood the "golden age" of bank compensation was over. "

Oh. The Irony.

Let's see now:

A few nuggets from Wikipedia.

For the second link, the moneyquote is: "It is one of the coinage metals and formed the basis for the gold standard used before the collapse of the Bretton Woods system in 1971."  Spelling it out: it was over longer ago than it lasted. Note also what party was in power during that time.

For the third, we can begin to compare the Golden Age of Compensation for bankers with what they don't tell us about the current Age of Compensation for bankers.

You could also check here:

http://www.thebulliondesk.com/

Or here:

http://www.metalmarkets.org.uk/metals/platinum/

These bailouts are not cheap. What the hell are these "journalists" , bloggers, and assorted talking heads smoking?

If this entire thing is not a perennial set of maladministrations, then WTF is?

Do ANY of these people typing or uttering "...cheap populist outrage..." have an actual, genuine, clue?

This "industry" being bailed out is lopsided at best; it is an open secret that it is, and has always been a siphon for redistributing wealth from communities creating wealth to a minority outside the communities; now: for how long it has been lopsided? How did it get that way?

These kinds of questions have been answered, you know; mostly if not solely by economic historians.

Yet the populace being asked to grasp the shit end of that stick is described with the sensational statement  "...cheap populist outrage...";  a statement set afloat in the newspapers and now, unfortunately, the blogosphere to hoax that same public.

It's called a canard. Look it up in a dictionary. Or maybe in a book about the history of journalism.

That's politics. You're welcome.