Pissed On, Pissed Off

I feel like I’m pissing into a cold headwind, and I wonder if you feel the same. JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs each raked in more than $3 billion in profits in the third quarter. Stop a moment and take that in. $3 billion each. In the fallout from the financial crisis last year, some firms, like Goldman and Morgan, actually got bigger -- and with transfusions of no-strings-attached taxpayer money -- stronger, while others emerged weaker, less able to compete. Incredibly, financial power in this country is now consolidated into even fewer hands, making firms like Goldman and Morgan “too big to fail, ever,” which is almost the same thing as a license to print money. These firms now have nearly unlimited latitude to take enormous risks because they know that Washington politicians will always intervene to save their bacon.

A year after the global financial system nearly plunged over the cliff, the boom is on for politically connected firms whose alumni prowl the corridors of Congress or hold influential positions in the Obama Administration. Of course, bust is the flip side of boom and for millions of Americans the bust shows no sign of abating. Obama’s stimulus package did little for working Americans once Congress was done gutting it and re-arranging its priorities to placate nay-saying Republicans. Unemployment remains stuck in the double-digits, state governments struggle to provide services to a growing population of needy human beings, and small businesses scrimp to make ends meet. Wall Street may be celebrating its recovery with champagne brunches and gargantuan bonuses, but Main Street is still eating Spam and waiting for the kind of assistance that was lavished on the financial industry.

Don’t hold your breath. The real deal is jobs and wages, putting people to work, but don’t expect to hear much about either on ABC, NBC or Fox – or from the Obama Administration for that matter. All mainstream media outlets care about is Wall Street and runaway balloons.

The joke is on you and me, on every taxpayer, and every person who still believes the American Dream is attainable.

What’s the average wage slave to do? The political system is indifferent to our needs and desires, unaccountable even as we foot the bill, and the financial system is rigged against us. As the poet Allen Ginsberg is reported to have said, “You can’t win, can’t break even, and can’t even quit the game.”

But I can sure feel the spray in my face.