Main Steet vs Wall Street.

[kentuck]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/2009-the-year-wall-street_b_404889.html

<snip>

But if 2009 has proved anything, it's that the bailout of Wall Street didn't trickle down to Main Street. Mortgage delinquencies continue to rise. Small businesses can't get credit. And people everywhere, it seems, are worried about losing their jobs. Wall Street is the only place where money is flowing and pay is escalating. Top executives and traders on the Street will soon be splitting about $25 billion in bonuses (despite Goldman Sachs' decision, made with an eye toward public relations, to defer bonuses for its 30 top players).

The real locus of the problem was never the financial economy to begin with, and the bailout of Wall Street was a sideshow. The real problem was on Main Street, in the real economy. Before the crash, much of America had fallen deeply into unsustainable debt because it had no other way to maintain its standard of living. That's because for so many years almost all the gains of economic growth had been going to a relatively small number of people at the top.

more....

In truth, most Americans did not spend too much in recent years, relative to the increasing size of the overall American economy. They spent too much only in relation to their declining portion of its gains. Had their portion kept up -- had the people at the top of corporate America, Wall Street banks and hedge funds not taken a disproportionate share -- most Americans would not have felt the necessity to borrow so much.

The year 2009 will be remembered as the year when Main Street got hit hard. Don't expect 2010 to be much better -- that is, if you live in the real economy. The administration is telling Americans that jobs will return next year, and we'll be in a recovery. I hope they're right. But I doubt it. Too many Americans have lost their jobs, incomes, homes and savings. That means most of us won't have the purchasing power to buy nearly all the goods and services the economy is capable of producing. And without enough demand, the economy can't get out of the doldrums.

[xiamiam]

1. they let the bottom tier fall..thinking they wouldn't be affected

those in the middle also refused to believe they could be affected..these are forced lessons in consciousness ..until we really get that we are community, more of the same...it appears to be about money and possessions but ultimately, it is not..

[inna]

2. Key sentence:

As long as income and wealth keep concentrating at the top, and the great divide between America's have-mores and have-lesses continues to widen, the Great Recession won't end -- at least not in the real economy.

[AllentownJake]

3. 2010 is going to be an interesting year

The low rates on Treasuries can't last, when they start to increase, we will be living in interesting times.

[jotsy]

4. A series about the hyper rich in the NYT from the summer of '05 left me with questions I still have

Isn't it a short sighted society that allows itself to bleed so profusely from the mid section and believe it won't collapse? Or the basic kindergarten question of don't big fish in little ponds who've finished eating everything in sight ultimately starve?

These pilfering pioneers apparently didn't learn much long term, big picture thinking in rich kids 101. Lastly, I would ask them if the sky hasn't fallen, why are you so obsessed with making yourselves heaven here on earth, but only for your kind?

Their ill gotten gains are tokens of imaginary value and will never be worth what it can cost the tangible soul.

Happy new year everybody, may it be filled with the kind of forward moments 21st century progressives have come to facilitate.

[truedelphi]

5. There was this great guy running for President in October 2008

He said he ws going to keep a most careful eye on what happened after The Great Bailout Monies were received by Wall Street.

And that if the Bailout monies did not help Main Street, he promised that he would re-write of the Regulations.

Maybe his New Year resolution could be to keep that promise?