Check out this video.

The cozy relationship between the government (I don't cal it 'our government' because it is clearly not ours), big business, and the wealthy elite is illuminated in this not-so-funny video that explains in plain language what complex terms like "Quantitative Easing" mean - besides serving to completely and utterly confuse anyone outside the finance industry loop.

The fact that taxpayer money is literally being given away to these elite bankers is made plain when you look at the Feds process for buying treasuries to "stop deflation." To do this the Fed does not simply go out and buy Treasuries itself at the lowest possible price. Instead, it buys them through its "primary dealers," who include  banks like Goldman, Sachs, Chase, and Citicorp. Yes, the same folks who first recklessly collapsed the global financial system, and then used political influence to get taxpayer funded bailouts to clear their books; and then proceeded to post record profits and pay record bonuses. But here's the part that violates every conceivable ethical notion - the Fed announces when it’s going to buy and in what quantity before it does it. This allows the banks to buy these securities at lower prices and then sell them to the Fed at significantly inflated rates plus commissions.

Kinda like the relationship the government has with the insurance industry. If you want to buy health insurance, you can’t choose to buy either the cheapest possible private plan, or a public-run health plan. Instead, you have to buy private insurance from a group of companies that all  have a special anti-trust exemption from the government, which allows them to artificially set higher prices without any scrutiny or oversight.