Stand By Me

The Bush Government and the Fed have clearly signaled that they will stand by their friends in the finance sector, even if their actions shift the enormous burden to an already tired, overworked, flattened but passive and non-protesting tax payer.

The question is- why isn't the public making a big deal out of this? Why aren't there any major protests in the streets? James Grant, the editor of Grant's Interest Rate Observer, writes in the WSJ that Wall Street firms are run to maximize employee compensation by taking on high leverage. He should add that it is not employee compensation but top management compensation, especially those of the CEOs and CFOs.

It is also surprising that while the polls indicate that the public 'gets it' - that the economy is in a tough spot and that jobs are tight- the public apparently does not want to do 'anything' about it. In other countries there would have been protests in the streets.

Perhaps people are so busy trying to make ends meet that they do not have time to protest. This hypothesis does not hold water, given the advance ticket sales for "The Dark Knight." It is time to take the wraps off the Joker in real life.

* 'Stand by Me' - a great movie with River Phoenix and an inspiring song by Ben E. King.