Do we care if Wall Street is "Happy?"

[Cyrano]

The president's press secretary just finished speaking about a "spending freeze." And the first pundit to comment on this news indicated that "Wall Street may be happy with this."

How thrilling.

Why is it that Wall Street's "joy," usually seems to enhance Main Street's misery?

I've spent most of my life believing that Wall Street and Main Street inhabit two different "planets."

Perhaps someone can explain to me why we should care about what makes Wall Street "happy."

I know that if they go down, we'll probably go down with them. And to me, this seems to be the crux of what's wrong with "capitalism," or the version of it practiced in today's America.

Why does the quality of our existence depend on those who create nothing?

[blindpig]

1. I will not be happy until

Wall St is weeping blood.

[Cyrano]

6. Unfortunately, the blood they will be weeping will be ours.

Our system has become so complex, interwoven, and generally fucked up, that we peasants end up paying the price no matter what happens.

Then again, if we were to view the history of the world, it was always thus.

[blindpig]

14. The real bottom line is that we can live without them...

but they cannot live without us.

Labor precedes and is superior to Capital. The sooner we peasants come to grips with that bedrock reality the sooner we right things.

[Little Star]

17. +1

[FiveGoodMen]

8. Yes! I like your answer.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

2. Despite many breathless shouting to the contrary...

Wall Street and Main Street are joined at the hip.

That's why Main Street took a fall after Wall Street took a fall. And that's why Wall Street has to recover before Main Street can recover.

[arcadian]

10. When was the last time you saw a building boarded up on Wall Street?

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

12. You familiar with a business called Lehman Bros.?

I think their landlords found new tenants, but the analogy still works.

[Turbineguy]

3. Since something higher

than 55% of Americans have investments in stocks or mutual funds, I would not like to see "wall street" suffer.

What Wall street needs to do however is go back to what they are supposed to be doing. Matching investors with investment and not cooking up exotic financial instruments that create no value, in fact undermine what value there is.

If nobody had money in the stockmarket it would have been in the banks and banks would have still written dangerous loans and the result would have been the same.

[TheKentuckian]

11. Only because they scammed our pols and a fair number of people into believing

they had joined the investor class, principally to separate us from our money, eliminate pensions, and to do exactly as you said to tie people in mentally to the pyramid scheme.

I think they need a crashout since they refuse proper regulation and oversight and in the end the people will on the whole be better off when Wall Street reemerges to be about investment rather than a casino.

You also are ignoring that without the insane derivatives and bogus securities that the bad loans would have just been bad loans instead of being multiplied and spread throughout the entire economy. Wall Street was at the very least pouring gasoline on the fire. Without question the casinos made a problem into a complete systemic meltdown.

[rucky]

4. How does this shit even affect Wall Street

and Vice-Versa?

[Desertrose]

5. Yeah, but does Wall Street care if WE'RE happy?

I doubt it.

[blueworld]

7. Wall St & Main St USED to be joined at the hip, now it's just at the checkbook

When Wall St. primarily reflected the growth & health of traded companies, yes we should have cared. Some company improved efficiency, developed a new product, acquired an award...

I worked at Warner-Lambert when medical studies were published proving Listerine reduced plaque. Previously, I had used it to clean my desk & dumb terminal. Apparently consumers felt the same way until they became aware of the dental benefits, then sales jumped & so did our stocks.

Now stocks jump when companies slash staff, outsource jobs, invest overseas and aggressively acquire former competitors. If the company benefits but real living Americans are destroyed, hey that's bizniz. God bless St. Ronnie.

[Cyrano]

9. Hi, blueworld. Thank you for making my point far better than did I.

Not to mention the elegant, informative content of your post stated in such a brief, concise manner.

[blueworld]

13. I thought you did great! And as for those adjectives...

I'm printing your kind compliment as evidence to prove to my husband that there IS someone in the world who called me "concise". He won't believe it without the paperwork! :rofl: :rofl:

[OHdem10]

15. Cross Wall Street and you pay dearly. Never forget who really

runs things.

[Cyrano]

16. I guess that's why pitchforks were invented.

And it's way past time to get them out of storage.