It's a lucky thing these kids tried only to "occupy" Wall Street.
If they'd been really radical they would have done something much more dangerous.
They would have just imitated Wall Street.
Everyone now knows the rules down on America's Street of Shame. These are almost the exact opposite of the rules in the real, normal, moral economy the rest of us inhabit.
On Wall Street, you take every nickel and dime you can get your hands on. If it's not nailed down, it's yours. You take without conscience or shame. If you see a blind man selling pencils on the street, steal the pencils. Steal his pennies. Steal his dog.
On Wall Street, you gamble. You gamble big. But you gamble with other people's money.
Borrow as much as you can. If it doesn't work out, too bad -- for someone else. Heads you win, tails they lose.
MF Global, anyone?
There is no limit to how much money you should take. As P.T. Barnum might have said, if he had had the benefit of an MBA, "there's an investor born every minute."
And "never give a bondholder an even break."
After all, it's not stealing if you get away with it. And because you -- or your cronies -- write the laws, you get away with everything.
You think I'm exaggerating. But reflect that the top 10 people at Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers walked away with nearly $1 billion before those banks collapsed. A billion dollars. That money went to yachts and mansions and mink coats. The people who ran subprime firms like Countrywide Financial walked away with fortunes. Ditto all those mortgage brokers who got paid to sucker people into dangerous loans.
Do you think they're giving back a nickel or a dime? Do you think they are staying awake at nights? Lehman Brothers creditors lost their shirts. Little old ladies who had been sold Lehman Brothers "principal protection notes" as "safe" investments for their life savings lost everything. They're eating cat food, while the former honchos eat foie gras. Do you think those honchos could care less? And do you think they look at this economy as a "recession"?
You dummy. They're laughing into their martinis. Ha, ha! Yes, let the good times roll.
Reflect, too, that the bonus bonanza has been back on Wall Street for at least two years now.
Meanwhile, if you're waiting for politicians to get tough on the bankers, you will wait in vain. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks campaign contributions, Big Finance has already given $122 million to the candidates for the 2011-'12 races. That's with a year still to go.
That's more than any other group. It's three times as much as the entire health care industry has given, and six times as much as labor. These candidates are bought and paid for. They know who they work for, and it isn't you.
"The banking lobbyist is on line two, Senator. He says it's urgent."
Which brings us to "Occupy Wall Street," and the protest movement.
Wall Street couldn't care less about this nonsense. The really rich and powerful aren't commuting in to offices every day on the subway. This doesn't affect them at all. They're riding into work in heated limousines, laughing at the cold, damp kids in the park.
There's only one thing that terrifies these people. Only one thing that keeps them up at night.
Riots? Revolution? Nah.
Credit cards.
The banks may be greedy. But they are also really, really stupid. They will send out credit cards to anyone, based only on a "credit score" that's easy to manipulate.
(The credit scores are a joke. Mine isn't perfect, a bank told me, because I "haven't borrowed enough." In other words, they'd prefer I owed more money before they lent to me. Really, you couldn't make these clowns up.)
