People are protesting on Wall Street. At first, there was only a handful of ragtag college kids. No one paid them much attention. I took notice. Then their numbers grew. Now they're in the thousands. And they're still protesting. And it's getting harder to ignore them. What are they protesting about? Federal bailouts of the very banks that 
caused the economic collapse of 2008. Seems these banks played fast and loose with the rules, made outrageously risky investments. Granted, the return on those investments was high...for a while. When it all started to go south, the banks threw good money after bad, until they had nothing left to throw. Then they went to Uncle Sam, hat in hand. "You gotta save us," they cried. "If we fail, the entire country will go down the tubes." The government bought it. And why not? Most of the lawmakers in this country are so deep in the pockets of Wall Street that they'll do anything to keep them afloat. Hundreds of billions of dollars were funnelled to the banks to keep them afloat. The economy shifted from bad to worse. People were laid off in droves. People lost their investments, their homes, their self-respect. Meanwhile, those very bankers who caused all of the mess used their government funding to pay themselves astronomical salaries and bonuses. They argued they deserved it for saving the economy. John Q. Public didn't buy it. And now, three years after the economic collapse, with the economy still sputtering along on one cylinder, with tens of millions of people still out of work, with home foreclosure rates still in the clouds, the public is starting to wake up to the fact the the country got taken to the cleaners. A lot of people are finally realizing that "trickle-down economics" simply doesn't work. The idea was that if you cut taxes on the wealthy and on corporations, if you put more money in the pockets of the rich, then that money would somehow "trickle down" to the poor and the rising tide would raise all boats. Well, we've had over three decades of trickle-down economics now, and people are finally beginning to see that the wealth didn't trickle down; instead, the poverty trickled up. The only thing we accomplished by putting more money into the pockets of the wealthy was that the wealthy became even wealthier, while the middle class shrank and the ranks of the poor grew by several percentage points. Seems that if you give rich people more money, they don't go out and spend it all over the place, thereby creating jobs. No, they just invest it and make even more money for themselves. 
And they get richer still. The late George Carlin said it best. "The people with the money won.... They own everything, and they don't give a [bleep] about you!" And average folks are figuring it out. At last. And they're angry. And they're starting to take to the streets. Not just ragtag college students either. Bus drivers and nurses and construction workers and shop keepers - the people who actually make the country run, the ones whose boats aren't rising with the rest, the ones who are treading water and that just barely. They're chant? "Wall Street got bailed out. Main Street got sold out."How big will this thing grow? That's anybody's guess. Maybe it'll sputter and die out. Or maybe we'll have something like the Arab Spring right here at home.
caused the economic collapse of 2008. Seems these banks played fast and loose with the rules, made outrageously risky investments. Granted, the return on those investments was high...for a while. When it all started to go south, the banks threw good money after bad, until they had nothing left to throw. Then they went to Uncle Sam, hat in hand. "You gotta save us," they cried. "If we fail, the entire country will go down the tubes." The government bought it. And why not? Most of the lawmakers in this country are so deep in the pockets of Wall Street that they'll do anything to keep them afloat. Hundreds of billions of dollars were funnelled to the banks to keep them afloat. The economy shifted from bad to worse. People were laid off in droves. People lost their investments, their homes, their self-respect. Meanwhile, those very bankers who caused all of the mess used their government funding to pay themselves astronomical salaries and bonuses. They argued they deserved it for saving the economy. John Q. Public didn't buy it. And now, three years after the economic collapse, with the economy still sputtering along on one cylinder, with tens of millions of people still out of work, with home foreclosure rates still in the clouds, the public is starting to wake up to the fact the the country got taken to the cleaners. A lot of people are finally realizing that "trickle-down economics" simply doesn't work. The idea was that if you cut taxes on the wealthy and on corporations, if you put more money in the pockets of the rich, then that money would somehow "trickle down" to the poor and the rising tide would raise all boats. Well, we've had over three decades of trickle-down economics now, and people are finally beginning to see that the wealth didn't trickle down; instead, the poverty trickled up. The only thing we accomplished by putting more money into the pockets of the wealthy was that the wealthy became even wealthier, while the middle class shrank and the ranks of the poor grew by several percentage points. Seems that if you give rich people more money, they don't go out and spend it all over the place, thereby creating jobs. No, they just invest it and make even more money for themselves. 
And they get richer still. The late George Carlin said it best. "The people with the money won.... They own everything, and they don't give a [bleep] about you!" And average folks are figuring it out. At last. And they're angry. And they're starting to take to the streets. Not just ragtag college students either. Bus drivers and nurses and construction workers and shop keepers - the people who actually make the country run, the ones whose boats aren't rising with the rest, the ones who are treading water and that just barely. They're chant? "Wall Street got bailed out. Main Street got sold out."How big will this thing grow? That's anybody's guess. Maybe it'll sputter and die out. Or maybe we'll have something like the Arab Spring right here at home.
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