The Difference is One of the Problems
Perhaps you’ve seen all the articles online and in business rags about “Main Street versus Wall Street”, or how “Main Street” has finally become fed up with corruption on Wall Street and is rejecting the greed that has fueled the system, or how blah blah blah. That Fortune article even goes as far as to refer to this as a “class fury”. Only on Wall Street can widespread yet logical objection to a massive bailout plan be called “class fury”. Maybe, probably not in my or my child’s lifetime, there will be a true revolution in the way we deal with massive corruption and greed. Until then, I will be buying the most extravagant version of Iron Man on DVD tomorrow.
Nonetheless. Not to put too fine a point on it, but since when are these two groups so different? Actually, they are not - as this NY Times article sums it up quite nicely. Denial about how you are pulling money out of your ass is universal; whether it be buying a new TV on high-interest credit, or borrowing money from a loan that ceased to exist in 1956.
OK, but I have an even more specific example: Jack Welch is one of the wealthiest, most successful businessmen on the planet. White, older than dirt, married to a woman 25 years his junior - he fits the profile of Wall Street fatcat. Anywhoo, in a recent BusinessWeek column he was asked his opinion of the obscene income of business leaders, and why it irritates many investors. Mr. Welch was unapolgetic. His response is that there is a “difference in philosophies” between investors and the business leaders. This struck me as funny, because investors are just that - the money source of the businesses. If there is a difference of philospophies, you tell me who should prevail.
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