When money managers are asked why they deserve tens of millions of dollars for pushing around other people’s money, the answer is always, “the risk.” They took the risk; they made the bet and won. To the victor go the spoils.

That makes a lot of sense. When you take a big risk, you deserve to make a lot of money. You deserve the beachfront house, the private jet, the second home in Aspen. Sure, that’s the same thing drug kingpins say, but there’s one big difference: When drug dealers make the wrong bet, they go to jail. When money managers lose a bet, they get a bonus.

“Oh,” you might say, “but the money managers didn’t break the law.” Really? Who told you that? Oh, the money managers.

I had a friend who chased down a purse-snatcher in Manhattan once and tackled the thief in a busy midtown crosswalk. The first thing out of the purse-snatcher’s mouth was, “I didn’t do anything!” He kept yelling that at the top of his lungs. When the police arrived, they wanted to arrest my thief-tackling friend instead, until the woman whose purse was stolen finally set them straight.

So all the Wall Street money managers are yelling that they didn’t do anything. I keep wondering, when are all the people whose purses were stolen going to set them straight?

It seems to me that if you’re going to be rewarded for taking a big risk and winning, you should be punished for taking a big risk and losing. Even if you’re a banker or a stockbroker. Even if you went to Harvard or Yale.

There’s a reason we don’t give gold medals to the people who come in last at the Olympics. It doesn’t mean they are bad athletes – after all, you have to be pretty good just to compete in the Olympics. But they didn’t win. So why is it that if you’re a money manager, you can come in last place and win a golden parachute?