WS:
Autre temps, autre moeurs. The financial gains ore losses are due largely to the position of labor in the structure of the US economy, rather than dealings of gangsters or fund managers. The neo liberal fund managers do not steal, for the most part at least. It is the system that robs people of their wealth.
But if you want to relate your example to the point I was actually arguing, a different analogy is in order. The labor loved the Hoffas despite their thuggishness, or rather because of it. The Hoffas might have stolen millions from union coffers and maimed or killed rank and file members - but they were tough-speaking, ass-kicking, red-blooded ruffians, which had a certain sex appeal to low class males. Neoliberal fund managers, otoh, tend to be effeminate, wimpy and nerdy eggheads - who the red-blooded male loves to hate no matter what they do in the financial markets and elsewhere.
If you look at the objects of much of the social protest nowadays, even on the left, you will find that the best predictor of being such an object is not what the person or organization actually does or thinks - but whether it projects an image that is effeminate, wimpy, intellectual and urbane, cf. yuppies, Starbucks, liberal elites, gentrification, Whole Foods, Borders, Bill Gates, etc.
Wojtek