To hear the story while standing on Wall Street, our troubles will soon be over.  Barely a year after the “Great Recession” began, the perpetrators of the first global financial meltdown seem to be doing alright.  The Dow again reached the psychological milestone of 10,000 points.  Goldman Sachs reported they have tripled their profits in the past year.  And the unwieldy big-risk, big-reward mergers and acquisition business seems to be back after a long and noticeable absence.

Wall Street seems to be headed to a very merry Christmas this year after the humbug holiday they designed.  It’s a turnaround nothing short of pure miracle.  Many predicted Wall Street wouldn’t survive the winter, let alone the year.  The resurrection of that financial Lazarus proved that money can buy miracles.  The going market rate is about two and a half trillion dollars.

However, for millions of Americans still out of work, this miracle on Wall Street is not the holiday season heartwarmer they are going to flock to theatres to see.  The spectacular reports of stunning profit and rebounded value have yet to translate into jobs for the double-digit percentage still unemployed.  While growth has returned to 37 metro areas, the hiring outlook for states like California, Ohio, Michigan and Rhode Island remain bleak and, to make matters worse, unemployment benefits for many are about to run out.

If it were even possible for the American taxpayer to be *more* fist-fucked after last year’s bailout of Wall Street, it seems a year later we went from elbow- to shoulder-deep.  The unique and unprecedented lengths we went to save their necks – requiring the federal government to flush dump trucks of money onto Wall Street’s problem -  were sold to us as in keeping with our best interests.  We *had* to give them the bank, they told us, otherwise we were going to be using our currency for wallpaper and lining up our children in bread lines.

And now, the same people who said we were in such extreme crisis, are now ready to collect the biggest bonus payout ever recorded. What did this stimulus stimulate, apart from the bank accounts of the same irresponsible hoods that got us in this mess?  A year after we inject cash into “shovel-ready” projects, were are the great public works that should be employing the taxpayers who bore the brunt of the mortgage crisis?  And where is Obama’s Treasury Department with a pair of uniformed officers and handcuffs for each of these villains who ripped off an entire country this year?

They are likely already planning their Christmas vacations.  Before they ship off for their Maui holiday in your Hawaiian shirt Santa Claus suit with a fat sack of presents we bought, perhaps they could toss us another lump of coal on the way out.  For Christmas’ sake.

» You can leave a comment, or trackback from your own site.