Current Article

Wall Street vs Main Street: The Great Divide Widens

By Larry Doyle on August 5, 2009 at 8:00 AM in Current Affairs

Please rank the following professions in terms of commanding respect:

1. used car salesmen
2. lawyers
3. bankers/brokers
4. dog catchers
5. burglars
6. politicians

Plenty could argue that dog catchers would command the most respect, with burglars a distant second. How so? At least you know exactly what their intentions are, admirable or not, and manage accordingly.

With all due respect to quality individuals in the other professions, those industries as a whole have always suffered from a very poor public perception.

Moving to the fully serious part of my writing this morning, I would venture to say that the chasm which has always existed between Wall Street and Main Street has never been wider and is widening by the day. How so?

I am being inundated regularly with comments and questions as to whether the market is truly representative of the fundamentals in the underlying economy. Others have asked me how an industry that is supposedly once again making sizable profits can shamelessly impose credit card rates of upwards of 30%!!

It is my sense that the American consumer and investor feels woefully neglected at this point in our country’s history. As such, I have little doubt that many people have exited the markets with the intention of NEVER returning.

I would not pretend that I can appreciate the level of anxiety and disgust of everybody in our country today, but I share your contempt for a crowd both in Washington and on Wall Street that has done little to nothing to protect your interests.

This contempt welled up this morning as I read The Wall Street Journal’s, Geithner Vents at Regulators as Overhaul Stumbles:

Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner blasted top U.S. financial regulators in an expletive-laced critique last Friday as frustration grows over the Obama administration’s faltering plan to overhaul U.S. financial regulation, according to people familiar with the meeting.

The proposed regulatory revamp is one of President Barack Obama’s top domestic priorities. But since it was unveiled in June, the plan has been criticized by the financial-services industry, as well as by financial regulators wary of encroachment on their turf.

While I could wax poetic on the topic of regulatory reform, I will abbreviate my remarks with a very succinct and direct statement. I strongly believe “THESE PEOPLE DON”T GET IT!”

The fact remains, “Future Financial Regulation: Not a Question of Sufficiency, but of Transparency and Integrity.”

Does the American public understand how thay have been abused by both their political and banking representatives? I strongly believe they are gaining a greater awareness of this phenomena every day.

In coming full circle, my respect rankings from top to bottom would be:

1. dog catcher
2. burglars (at least you know their intentions)
3. used car salesmen
4. lawyers
tie for 6th between politicians and bankers/brokers

How about you? Please share your thoughts and rankings!!

Astra14

Good article, Larry. The 401k through my employer was the only “investing” I ever did in my life because I never trusted Wall Street – and obviously it appears to be with good reason. There is no more money going into that 401k, it now has to survive or not on it’s own.

My rankings:
1. dog catcher
2. used car salesmen (I’ve known some honest ones)
3. lawyers (again, I’ve known some honest ones)
4. burglers
5. dishonest lawyers & used car salesmen
6. tied between politicians and banks/brokers
mountainaires

I think the American people “don’t get it.”

I’m more cynical than you, LD. I completely believe Geithner, Bernanke, Summers and their bankster cronies all “get it” very well; they just don’t want us to know what they’re “getting.”

The way I see it, they’re still trying to create the illusion of doing something, and it’s all just a bunch of movement for movement’s sake. Nothing whatsoever will change; Goldman Sux will still own the US government AND the Fed; and the American people will slide slowly and surely down the black hole of poverty. We are all peasants now. And, I think someday–too late–it will dawn on Americans that their way of life is O_V_E_R.
avwrobel

Right on the mark Larry! The problem is that the wealthy at the top are stealing too much, so much that its hurting the overall economy. Also, check out the Joker-picture of Obama at AOL’s home page. LJ, get it posted!
fif

NEWS FLASH: LIVE ON CNN, the plane with Clinton & the two journalists has landed at Burbank airport, and there is going to be a press conference.
tzada

Were not the bankers behind the 16th Amendment? The one that created the IRS? The one that that was voted on at Christmas time, after most of Congress had left? The one which an insufficient amount of states ratified? The Constitution Amendment that may be NOT?

bankers/current federal administration ranks last, even if the list stretched to the ends of this earth.
Patience

LD, what’s your take on the SEC’s proposal yesterday to ban flash trading? Do you think it should be banned? Considering your low opinion of Mary Shapiro, I presume you feel the devil will be in the details of actual legislation/regulation.

Do you think this is just a knee jerk, a$$-covering reaction to recent stories about Goldman Sachs?
mountainaires

Was Geithner’s “lashing out” just a set-piece of political theatre designed to pave the way for
THE FED as REGULATOR?

Inquiring minds take a look:

Run for the Hills

http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/08/run-for-hills-fed-plans-to-build-on.html
Hank

The people in Pelosi’s district in CA need to fire her in the next elections. She and the White House are now blaming Insurance companies for manufacturing the protests against the Democrat Health Care bill.

With that said I place the majority of politicians last. Obama’s Health Sec. is saying we have one of the worst health care systems. I think we have the worst system for checking people that don’t pay their taxes. It is so easy to catch most of them, since they work for the Obama administration or at Congress.
lisan

great post! politicians and bankers want your money. period. whether or not you get anything in return or not is increasingly a matter of luck or personal connections. i don’t see much honest work out of either group and neither deserve the benefit of the doubt.
Al

Funny this should come up a day after the BBC reported on how…
“China’s prostitutes are better-trusted than its politicians and scientists, according to an online survey published by Insight China magazine.”

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/8183502.stm
Painted Pastures

1. Burgulars
2. Dog catchers
helenk

http://www.rollcall.com/media/37552-1.html

could this be one of the reasons people think that
half a dollar hookers have more integrity then congress?

WOMEN WITH INTELLIGENCE AND EXPERIENCE,MEN WHO SUPPORT THEM AND COUNTRY BEFORE PARTY ALWAYS

PUMAS,BUBBAS,EQUALISTS AND THOSE PEOPLE RULE
http://firefox Annie (Whitey) Collier

I’d put Dog Catcher at #1. In our town, dogs on the loose are taken to the PD, and if there’s a tag or microchip, are held there in the kennel until the owners are called and doggie is picked up. So they are good guys.
2. Used car salesman (known a few good ones)

3. Burglars and Lawyers…same thing
Come to think of it, Politicians and Bankers/Brokers are burglars too.
jwrjr

Geithner and Ozero’s other idiots don’t unserstand (probably intentionally) that if consumers have spare money, they will, uh, consume. Business owners wll create jobs if, and only if, there is demand for what they manufacture. As it is, many would-be consumers don’t have the money to pay the bills and eat regularly. Shoving money at the business owners who can’t sell the products they already make will result in fat bank accounts – for the business owners. But no new jobs.
Patrick Henry

Larry…

I love reading your Articles up here..what a nice and Interesting Change of Focus..

Your article reminds me of something I was just thinking about this Morning..

The “Cash for Clunkers” Program is nothing new..

We Have had another Program that worked well too..

Its been the “Cash for Congressmen” Program..

too bad we can’t pour something down thier throats and send them to the scrap heap for Newer more efficient Models..

Make that Transparent models..without “Gas Guzzeling Regulators” that cause all that Low Market Mileage..
jwrjr

America’s prostitutes are its politicians.
Larry Doyle

Patience…this should only be the beginning in a never ending war to keep our markets free, fair, and balanced.

My feelings are as such:

http://www.senseoncents.com/2009/08/flash-orders-ready-to-burn-out-but-high-frequency-trading-still-red-hot/
Patrick Henry

And this morning watching the Ticker..go by..Why The Leaders are..and few Inbreed Financial Institutions..

Citi…Bank of America..and good old Goldman is anticipating a really good quarter too..hmmm.

Just how does that happen..?
Patrick Henry

Went to your link Larry and article on future financial regulations..

Good Article..”INTEGRITY”..??

With Barney Frank chairing the hearings…??
Ellen D

Interesting diary by Ellen Brown:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ellen-brown/the-public-option-in-bank_b_252161.html

If a public option works in health, why not banking? I urge you to read it all but especially about the state that’s already doing it:

In the United States, the trendsetter in public banking is the state of North Dakota, which has owned its own bank for nearly a century. North Dakota is one of only two states (along with Montana) that are currently not facing budget shortfalls. Ever since 1919, North Dakota’s revenues have been deposited in the state-owned Bank of North Dakota (BND). Under the “fractional reserve” lending scheme open to all banks, these deposits are then available for leveraging many times over as loans. Other banks in the state do not see the BND as a threat because it partners with them and backstops them, serving as a sort of central bank for the state. BND’s loans are not insured by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) but are guaranteed by the state. North Dakota has plenty of money for student loans, makes 1% loans to startup farms, has the lowest unemployment rate in the country, and is generally not feeling the pinch of the credit crisis at all.