We are Wall Street

[Land_Owner]

 Post from a financial blog:

 "We are Wall Street. It's our job to make money. Whether it's a commodity, stock, bond, or some hypothetical piece of fake paper, it doesn't matter. We would trade baseball cards if it were profitable. I didn't hear America complaining when the market was roaring to 14,000 and everyone's 401k doubled every 3 years. Just like gambling, its not a problem until you lose. I've never heard of anyone going to Gamblers Anonymous because they won too much in Vegas.
 
 Well now the market crapped out, & even though it has come back somewhat, the government and the average Joes are still looking for a scapegoat. God knows there has to be one for everything. Well, here we are.
 
 Go ahead and continue to take us down, but you're only going to hurt yourselves. What's going to happen when we can't find jobs on the Street anymore? Guess what: We're going to take yours. We get up at 5am & work till 10pm or later. We're used to not getting up to pee when we have a position. We don't take an hour or more for a lunch break. We don't demand a union. We don't retire at 50 with a pension. We eat what we kill, and when the only thing left to eat is on your dinner plates, we'll eat that.
 
 For years teachers and other unionized labor have had us fooled. We were too busy working to notice. Do you really think that we are incapable of teaching 3rd graders and doing landscaping? We're going to take your cushy jobs with tenure and 4 months off a year and whine just like you that we are so-o-o-o underpaid for building the youth of America. Say goodbye to your overtime and double time and a half. I'll be hitting grounders to the high school baseball team for $5k extra a summer, thank you very much.
 
 So now that we're going to be making $85k a year without upside, Joe Mainstreet is going to have his revenge, right? Wrong! Guess what: we're going to stop buying the new 80k car, we aren't going to leave the 35 percent tip at our business dinners anymore. No more free rides on our backs. We're going to landscape our own back yards, wash our cars with a garden hose in our driveways. Our money was your money. You spent it.
 When our money dries up, so does yours.
 
 The difference is, you lived off of it, we rejoiced in it. The Obama administration and the Democratic National Committee might get their way and knock us off the top of the pyramid, but it's really going to hurt like hell for them when our fat a**es land directly on the middle class of America and knock them to the bottom.
 
 We aren't dinosaurs. We are smarter and more vicious than that, and we are going to survive. The question is, now that Obama & his administration are making Joe Mainstreet our food supply...will he? and will they?"

[Conan The Librarian]

There's a lot of truth in that.
 
A lot of smart people have changed the way they make money, and often it is without employing Americans. They are leaving welfare magnet states like Minnesota and going to more friendly states. Minnesota, for example, remains a regional welfare magnet, but it has declined economically relative to other states, and continues to decline because businesses are leaving. Some big banks have a large presence here, but operations are increasingly done in other states.

Some of this is irreversible. Just on a small scale, the recent changes in bank regulations, which were driven by the government made us change the way we do our banking. A 25 year relationship with a local bank disappeared because they tried to chisel us out of some fees, and they charged too much for checks. We simply went away and won't go back.

[dukkillr]

Well written, and true.  The smartest, hardest working people in society can do about anything they want, that's the nature of being the smartest and the hardest working. 
 
I like the shot at the teacher's union too.  He's right, for too long we've looked with tolerance, and even reverence, to those who complain constantly about a job they chose to take (for the pay they knew to expect) when the reality is that a great many educated intelligent adults could do the job quite well.  Teachers, in general, are not CC Sabathia or Steve Jobs, most could be replaced. 
 
It would be fascinating if some of that top .1% of people did quit and become teachers.  What do you think would happen with those students?

[Conan The Librarian]

I don't blame the teachers. They simply responded to incentives intelligently by dedicating their professional lives to a system that had a lot of good incentives to enter it. I wish I had done it. I'd be retired with a good pension by now. Makes me feel stupid for working nights and weekends the way I do. They did a smart thing. The problem is not the teachers, it's the compensation. This was legislated and lobbied during a period of fifty years at least. So blame the politicians and the unions, not the teachers themselves.
 
My brother in law had a state job, and he just retired with a fat pension. He's a pretty young guy, and will probably live another thirty five years. It's not his fault he got a good deal. I wish I had gone that route. I'd be out fishing now.

[DalesCarpentry]

First off it was very well written and if I didn't know better I would have sworn those words came out of 45-70.gov's mouth. We have many conversations about these types of things. I also happen to agree with you LO. What really got my goat a couple years ago the  Pa Turnpike Commission went on strike saying they wern't making enough money. There were a couple days there we did not have to pay tools because there was no one to collect the money. These guys sit in a heat booth during the winter and collect money and at the time they were making I think around $20.00 an hour. I would have killed for a job like that but the only way to get a job there is to know someone. The strike did not last to long and they are making even more money for sitting on their fat arses. Dale