Check this out.

Putting Obama on Hold, in a Hint of Who’s Boss

President Obama didn’t exactly look thrilled as he stared at the Polycom speakerphone in front of him. “Well, I appreciate you guys calling in,” he began the meeting at the White House with Wall Street’s top brass on Monday.

He was, of course, referring to the three conspicuously absent attendees who were being piped in by telephone: Lloyd C. Blankfein, the chief executive of Goldman Sachs; John J. Mack, chairman of Morgan Stanley; and Richard D. Parsons, chairman of Citigroup.

Their excuse? “Inclement weather,” according to the White House. More precisely, fog delayed flights into Reagan National Airport. (In the “no good deed goes unpunished” category, the absent bankers were at least self-aware enough to try to fly commercial.)

That awkward moment on speakerphone in the White House, for better or worse, spoke volumes about how the balance of power between Wall Street and Washington has shifted again, back in Wall Street’s favor.

I can’t even believe this. No wait, I can. They can get away with it, so they do. As they say, them who has the money makes the rules, and for the period of time where We The People had the money, we failed to make any rules at all. Wall Street is better at it than we are.

The rest of the article is a really good read. I recommend it.

I know I have some devoutly Christian readership. Guys, please, you *have* to do something about this. I got it from Matt Taibbi’s blog, which is excellent:

Goldman One-Ups Gordon Gekko, Says Jesus Embraced Greed

“The injunction of Jesus to love others as ourselves is an endorsement of self-interest,” Goldman’s Griffiths said Oct. 20, his voice echoing around the gold-mosaic walls of St. Paul’s Cathedral, whose 365-feet-high dome towers over the City, London’s financial district. “We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieving greater prosperity and opportunity for all.”

via Profit `Not Satanic,’ Barclays Says, After Goldman Invokes Jesus – Bloomberg.com.

I didn’t believe this story was true at first — thought it had to be a spoof. But it turns out to be true. The great banks of the world have gone on a p.r. counteroffensive in Europe, and are sending spokescrooks in shiny suits into churches to persuade the masses that Christ would have approved of the latest round of obscene bonuses.

Go ahead, read the whole thing. I’m not even Christian, and I found myself being offended beyond belief.

Every day, I read a little more about the financial crisis, and I get angry.

Every day, I read a little more about someone near me becoming homeless due to foreclosure, and I get angry.

Every day, I read another story about someone who has lost their job and can’t find another one, and I get angry.

Every day, I get closer to the end of my own unemployment benefits, and realize that the clock is ticking, while bankers and financiers make millions, billions, in bonuses for having done this to us.

And I wonder, where is Robin Hood?

I’m sure you remember the story. Robbed from the rich? Gave to the poor? Kept hope alive for the downtrodden when the upper class decided that bleeding the poor to death was the best way to finance themselves? Short guy, floppy hat, big bow and arrow?

So many folks thought Obama would save us. He hasn’t. He hasn’t even made a good start. Every single bailout has been for the rich; an increasing transfer of cash from the bottom to the top.

Every theoretical economist I can find out there sees civil war coming. Most of them see it coming by 2011 or so, when food and water and fuel and housing are no longer affordable for most Americans.

Most Americans. Did you read that? Most of us will be cold and hungry and on the streets, pretty much as soon as the first tax bill for the bailouts hits. Or just after that, when the business we work for collapses. Or when the business our neighbor works for collapses, which means he can’t pay his taxes, which means more of the bill comes to us… and strangely, none of it goes to them who got bailed out.

Will our generation provide us with a Robin Hood? Is there anyone out there brave enough, mad enough, dangerous enough, to take them on, and get a little back for the little guy?

Poossibly. Possibly not. But it’s a lot nicer than thinking about what I really think is going to happen, which is more like the French Revolution and less like Merry Olde England. I like arrows better than guillotines, and I like heroes better than bloodthirsty mobs. But if we can’t have one… hey… maybe we can have the other.

Moms Rising is collecting stories of mothers and the economic fall. You can find those stories here.

My tirade is there, under the same title as this blog. And as far as I’m concerned, I was pretty darned restrained.

It is ludicrous, nay, ridiculous, perhaps egregious, that “our” policymakers (they are NOT lawmakers, folks, they are our servants) keep giving the very rich more of our money, and we keep letting them. They cry about pay cuts, but how many of us are laying awake at night wondering how we’re going to feed our children?

I think we’ve moved past the days of public guillotines. But I’m not sure how much people are gonna take. When tax refunds are made in IOUs, but we’re expected to still pay, when the bill from the bailouts comes due and most of us have lost our homes, our jobs, and our hope… what exactly do the very privileged think is going to come next? It only takes a casual review of history to see what always comes next.  When the masses have nothing to lose, their ability to conceive of, and execute, drastic relief solutions, manifests.

Guess I better learn to knit.