The Inconvenient Meme: Wall Street Folds

Letting Wall St. hang ... It's one thing for President Obama to attack Wall Street as the place fat cats roam free as proof, a class warrior justifying all the mainly useless banking regulations he's imposed since the 2008 financial crisis. It's quite another thing for New York's elected officials to let him get away with the big lie that's costing New Yorkers jobs and squeezing our finances. In other words, where's Chuck Schumer when you need him? MIA, it turns out. Ditto for our other senator, Kirsten Gillibrand, and Gov. Andrew Cuomo. As new banking regs continue to take effect, Wall Street keeps shrinking, wreaking havoc on local employment and the state and city budgets. And it's likely to get worse. – New York Post

Dominant Social Theme: These Masters of the Universe shall expand forever. They are despicable and all-powerful.

Free-Market Analysis: Wall Street – an intermediating industry – has been cast lately as the cynosure of evil, the center of maleficence. Whatever is wrong with the world springs from Wall Street – or so some think, especially the Occupy Wall Street crowd.

But now it appears that Wall Street has come on tough times, brought down by a combination of regulatory overkill, economic malaise and over-capacity.

Wall Street, that deal-making machine everyone loves to hate, is going through massive shrinkage. It's not what it used to be, and soon it will be even less than that. Here's more from the article above:

Last week, JP Morgan announced that it will shed 17,000 jobs over the next two years. That follows similar cuts announced by Morgan Stanley , Citigroup, Bank of America , Barclays and even the hyper-profitable Goldman Sachs .

Yes, these cutbacks are spread over offices around the country and the world, and Morgan is saying many of these job losses won't be local. But New York City still gets hit hard: Banks employ more people in New York than anywhere else in the country, so New York will take much of the pain.

It's already taken plenty. Just a few years ago, Wall Street accounted for 20 percent of the state's tax revenues and 12 percent of the city's; now those figures are down to 14 percent and 7 percent.

And the people I speak to say the job cuts will keep on coming until executives can figure out exactly how many people they can afford to employ in this regulatory environment.

We are not reproducing parts of this article to evoke a sense of sorrow or even melancholy reflection. The shrinkage of Wall Street is one of only a few blessings to come out of the country's endless recession. But it is noteworthy because Wall Street has been such a big target of both Washington, DC and the mainstream media .

We've always pointed out that Wall Street is mainly a business, and that its power and profitability stem from central bank money printing. Without never-ending waves of monopoly fiat money , modern Wall Street – modern finance, in fact – would not exist.

When economies go into meltdown, the securities industry gets blamed and financial centers fall into disrepute. Money Power is loath to accept blame. And thus bankers and financiers are trotted out – unwillingly, of course, and usually in astonishment. Wealthy and often arrogant patsies, they make great villains. Washington regulates them. The media vilifies them.

And as we've pointed out in numerous articles, this allows the blame to be shifted away from where it really belongs, which is with monopoly central banking itself and the handful of individuals and families that have set up this current dysfunctional and brutal money methodology.

Imagine someone told you that you would live under a regime where a tiny group of unaccountable individuals had the lawful right to print trillions of dollars and make other financial decisions unilaterally that would affect your savings and even your ability to find and keep employment.

You might find such a system difficult to fathom; you might wonder how such a system would ever become law, and having become law, how it could be sustained. And yet that is the system we have. And surely that is the system you would want scrutinize when your economic environment fell to pieces.

But that is not what has happened. This time, as last time (in the 1930s), the engine of worldwide commerce – the central bank – has escaped significant scrutiny, at least thus far. Instead, the very individuals that helped cause the current crisis have been empowered. In the US, the Federal Reserve has received significant NEW powers.

Meanwhile, an entire new movement has sprung up. It is not called Occupy Central Banks. It is called Occupy Wall Street. And Wall Street, the designated target, has been hit from all sides. It's been regulated, maligned and reduced. Its methodologies have been called into question and its business practices have been ridiculed.

Yes, large central banks like the Fed have actually received MORE responsibility and power. And this is just how Money Power likes it. Central banking is the engine of Money Power. Without central banking the power elite that is apparently trying to establish global governance would lose its war chest.

The fallback mechanism, the failsafe gambit, is always the same: Blame the money industry when something goes wrong. Let billionaire bankers go to jail. Let financial firms like Lehman Brothers collapse. But don't touch the main engine of money, which is central banking.

This article points out that "Washington is choking the golden goose that pays for New York's big government." But that is exactly what is supposed to happen in these perilous, depressed times. Wall Street is supposed to take the hit. It's no coincidence.

Sooner or later (and we are surprised they haven't happened already), there may be what we call Neo-Pecora hearings that will further reduce Wall Street's clout and deal-making ability. Money Power may eventually achieve its goal of a perfectly regulated securities industry that does not make a deal or draw a breath without DC's approval.

And this is Money Power's dream scenario. The top elites control Washington, DC from behind the scenes. They control government via mercantilism and once Wall Street is totally regulated, they will have still more power. The average person will not have a chance in hell at gaining access to elite deal-making machinery. Entrepreneurs will be entirely minted by Money Power (yes, even more than now). If you want to achieve you will have to ask permission.

This is the reason, of course, that Money Power funded Occupy Wall Street and its myriad offshoots via George Soros , its apparent bagman. And this is the reason that there is a constant drumbeat of discontent aimed at Wall Street, London's City, etc.

It will probably suit the top elites, in fact, if Wall Street and the City are permanently diminished. The idea is to shift the center of financial gravity from West to East, from the Anglosphere to Europe and thence to the Middle East and China.

It is easy to "hate on" Wall Street, which is a convenient and approved target. But as we can see from the shrinking employment and revenue numbers, Wall Street is at least in part merely a business. It is the handmaiden of Money Power, not the power itself.

Conclusion: People who take satisfaction in Wall Street's demise or at least diminishment are perhaps missing the reality of what is occurring. And the reality is that nothing has changed. Or not yet, anyway. Not so far ...