What appeared to be "growth" was nothing but massive inflation in the value of all marketable securities (including those based on real estate mortgages), and commodity futures contracts based on nothing but rampant speculation. That speculation, itself, was fueled by regulations which made it impossible for even experts to accurately judge what they were bidding up, while at the same time, allowing people to think they could leverage themselves to the end of the universe and not have to worry about losses because of these neat little (invisible, unregulated and, as it turned out, not worth the words it took to arrange them over the phone) "credit default swaps."

There was no growth; there was only bubble (best understood spoken in a tone identical to "There is no Dana, there is only Zuul.)."

The world economy still has a long way to deflate before we're back on the kind of solid ground on which we can safely begin to rebuild, hopefully this time, based on what's real and actual and provable, using mathematical calculations rather than gambling on "risks" and "rewards" based on numbers from giant spreadsheets of borrowers ("marks" in the old film-flam terminology); spreadsheets whose underlying assumptions no one bothers to consider let alone investigate the accuracy of.

Perhaps it sounds cruel, but since the folks at the very top of Wall Street got exactly what they wanted out of the government over the past twenty years, since it was they who led us into this mess, ridiculing anyone and everyone who questioned what they were doing in the process; it is my earnest hope that it will be those same folks (and their financial analyst and financial press "free market" supporters) who will suffer the most as the result of what they've done to the rest of us.

The only thing Wall Street reflects is Wall Street itself. It does not reflect the vast majority of the population of this country but is, in fact, the enemy of the vast majority of the population of this country.

Has demanded exactly the changes in the regulation of financial institutions and the skewing of compensation for "work" performed in the direction of those at the top of the income scale as well as making sure those same folks didn't pay taxes,...

while, at the same time, making the poor and middle class pay an ever greater share of the necessary cost of government in the good old USA, as well as paying far more of their income to financial institutions than ever before, massively increasing their "productivity" by working harder and longer hours with no increase in compensation while their wages were continually forced downward by the effects of "outsourcing" and the "global economy," I say it's time to shut down Wall Street for the good of the nation and the general public.

I say if Wall Street doesn't like the stimulus package, that means the package must be good. It's likely their objections are based on the fact that it doesn't hand Wall Street itself billions of new dollars of the poor and middle class's future tax money with which to continue to pursue their gambling addiction.

It would be good for the entire country if the economy shifted in such a way that all the denizens of Wall Street were forced to leave the New York metroplex, move to the midwest and do some actual work for a few years, maybe after that they'd be able to buy a clue.

The same applies to Wall Street's reaction to the automotive bailout package. The only thing "Wall Street" cares about is whether or not they can figure out a way take advantage (by hook or by crook) of what the government is doing to further enrich the denizens of Wall Street.

Is that it's a complete conflict of interest for them to be invested in the market. Their previous practice in this area has been about as sound as a restaurant critic reviewing a restaurant in which he's heavily invested or a theater critic reviewing a play for which he's put up a great deal of the money.

Stock analysts and market reporters have been so heavily invested in the market that they simply would not risk telling the truth of this massive bubble as it became clear to outside observers that the value of everything was being inflated, often to near double or even higher, by speculation rather than any justifiable increase in value.

For these analysts and reporters to tell the truth would have been to risk losing their own fortunes.

NO ONE one who reports on the market or who analyzes the value of stock should be allowed to be invested in anything but a nice safe, good-old-fashioned defined-benefit pension plan.

Anything beyond that and their advice is likely to be what most financial advice over the past thirty years has been: B.S.