Though at opposite ends of a spectrum, both the Wall Street financier and the sub-prime borrower are subjects and objects of an economic idiom at once beyond their control and driven by their actions. Both are trapped, though one in a more gilded cage. In short, both have seen their own social reproduction become dependent on the capacity to which they, in their unique and specific ways, reproduce financialized capitalism. While corporatized media outlets have been quick to castigate sub-prime borrowers for “living beyond their means” and for taking advantage of the system, they hold very little power.

Max Haiven, Cultures of Financialization, loc. 208