Eugene Robinson:The Wall Street Casino, Back in Business

[deminks]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/09/14/AR2009091402709.html

It's been a year since the financial system collapsed like a botched souffle, and the sense of acute crisis has eased. The wizards of Wall Street are raring to get back to business as usual -- and if we let them, we'll have only ourselves to blame when the next meltdown comes.

In the process, though, the behemoth financial firms have gotten even bigger. And now that the economy has begun to revive, the stock market is getting happy again. I'm as pleased as anyone else to see a rising Dow, but somebody needs to slap the incipient grin off Wall Street's face.

For one thing, the rest of the country is hardly smiling -- not yet, at least. The "good news" is that, in total, "only" 200,000 or so American jobs are lost each month, compared with the more than 700,000 monthly job losses we were seeing earlier this year. Unemployment is at 9.7 percent and still rising, albeit more slowly, and may peak above 10 percent. The stock market rally is cold comfort to a worker who just got a pink slip.

(snip)

Even with the reforms the president is proposing, we will still have a situation in which the tail wags the dog -- the tail being the financial system and the dog being the economy. Wall Street's theoretical role is to allocate capital most efficiently to the companies that can make the best use of it. Wall Street's actual role is more like that of a giant casino where the gamblers are rewarded for taking outrageous, unconscionable risks with other people's money. If the bets pay off, the gamblers win. If the long-shot bets turn out to have been foolish, we're the ones who lose.

(end snip)

Again, the money never seems to trickle down, does it? 'Give the money to the rich, there will be more jobs.' 'Give the money to the rich, they will take care of us with healthcare.'

And the rich are never accountable. It is always the poor working peoples' fault. Notice who loses, it is never the gambler.

Hogwash.

[Skink]

1. Now is the time to adjust your 401k into money markets and bonds.