So have both sides won, as they claim, or has the taxpayer been quietly fleeced?

ECONOMIST: Goldman��s booty

They are often fleeced by people they trust, including advisers, bankers, brokers and lawyers.

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The public would think they were being "fleeced", he said, and that MPs were living in a "another universe".

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Convicted fraudster Bernard Madoff has blamed others for being "complicit" in his scheme, which fleeced investors of billions of dollars.

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The problem there is that the government only possesses the means to purchase those mortgages insofar as hapless taxpayers are fleeced.

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Giant fans were already feeling like they are being fleeced in the new stadium and this should only make it worse.

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The international organized crime enterprise known as the Mirzoyan-Terdjanian fleeced the healthcare system through a wide range of money-making criminal fraud schemes.

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Dumb money is the term Hollywood uses for people from outside the industry trying to finance movies because they are often fleeced.

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This would increase their value to biotechnology firms who are trying to raise money and prevent run-of-the-mill stock buyers from getting fleeced.

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But they'd already been fleeced once by a fake online ticket company.

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But when such an investor owns more voting rights than he does shares, valuations are lower, suggesting that minority shareholders are being fleeced.

ECONOMIST: Protection money

If government were earnestly trying to right past wrongs all would be well, but as the cesspool of corruption surrounding Pigford suggests, taxpayers will probably be fleeced.

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While Bernanke and company try to stimulate the economy by allocating credit and holding rates low, U.S. savers are being fleeced and induced to take on more risk.

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The simple point is that the public is being fleeced.

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Participants in defined benefits plans are also being fleeced.

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The former may protect small investors from getting fleeced.

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Spitzer drew attention to the fact that the writers of investment research were incentivized to write glowing reports about investment banking clients of their firms and, as a result, the public got fleeced.

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It is now common knowledge that participants in these plans have been getting fleeced by mutual fund companies and other service providers for over three decades, yet there has been no meaningful governmental or regulatory response.

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