Wall Street shitting itself again. Late night thoughts...

I know just a wee bit more than jack diddly about the stock market (and rumor has it jack diddly knows jack squat) so don’t pay much heed to it’s highs and lows. That said since running a small private school here and having smarts enough to know if economy is good more moms and dads have cash to spend on things like English lessons for their kids, so like most other first world country dwellers I like to see economy running strong as that increases chances we’ll have more students—more money in our pockets. 

So not excited to click on news before calling it a Monday night here only to see stock market taking yet another nose dive as Monday starts across the sea. I can’t help but wonder as I do though…. The stock market was falling so bad there was a 15 minute halt put on trading. It was the third time for this emergency break to get pulled in the past six days. I also recall reading that the Federal Reserve bank injected 1.5 trillion bucks into the market last Thursday. One point freak’n five trillion? I can’t even count that high! 

True I don’t pay that much attention to Wall Street but I do read quite a bit about how things are going on main street, especially about the average Joe and Jolene workers there. Enough I’ve read to know that a booming stock market isn’t a sign that everyone is booming.  e.g. The stock market's record high can have absolutely no effect whatsoever on Julio the cook and Melissa waitress’ hourly wages. I’ve been around long enough to know, too, that if their funds start plummeting for a myriad of unforeseen personal tragedy reasons, they have no 15 minute emergency brake to pull. What’s more is a good portion of the population screams “Socialism!” if or when there’s talk of increasing minimum wage, giving them affordable healthcare or housing assistance, forgiving student loans they can’t pay off, etc and on and on ad infinite heartbreak. And then of course there's the Republicans constant hewing away at the few programs there are to give the lesser off a fighting chance. 

These are just observations that make me wonder. I was going to say ask, but I think I know the answer. I wonder or want to ask why some see government injecting ungodly amounts of money into Wall Street as appropriate or even expected, but injecting far lesser amounts into helping “the least of these” not so well off backstreets of Main Street folks isn’t.  

I think the answer though is they’re valued about as much as that woman at the well or those stigmatized Samaritans of eons ago. They’re the marginalized. For far too many far more financially secure folks, those people just don’t matter enough to think about or, worse yet, anyone who does think of them—who asks for fair treatment for them, like say a fraction of a fraction of a fraction of the bailout that Wall Street gets—anyone saying things like that will get about the same as that Jewish Carpenter rebel got so many years ago.  Maybe not physically nailed to the tree but figuratively for sure. It’s two separate standards—one for the rich and one for the living paycheck to paycheck.  It’s far from fair. It’s just not right. And so I write.