WHY WALL STREET SHOULD STOP COMPLAINING!

This morning I read in The Daily Beast a story about Goldman Sachs employees unhappiness over their bonuses because they are receiving less cash and more stock, which they cannot sell immediately. The result is the bonuses are wrecking havoc with their personal budgets. Well excuse me. How about a few very large and loud truths here:

1) You're lucky you have jobs that pay you so well.

2) We bailed your sorry asses out of the mess you put the rest of us in.

3) How about you start living within your means. The rest of us have to make do with unemployment, savings, and loss of equity that you haven't been forced into.

4) Clearly banks and investment house employees have no shame. They think it's okay to complain when others are suffering so badly. How would you like to lose your home, your job, your sense of self worth?

5) You think you are entitled to receive this money. The American public bailed you out and the stock market has recovered (for the moment). What guarantees do we have that you have truly earned these outrageous bonuses? Will you give that money back if the stock market begins to falter (as many economists predict) and we once again lose the few dollars we have gained back?

I think the US government needs to kick some major Wall Street butt. I don't buy the given story that if you don't give these greedy pigs their bonuses they will go elsewhere. Where the hell are they going to go? Unless I'm mistaken, there is no place to go. It's time to call their bluff. Show them the door.

It's time greedy bankers got a taste of their own medicine. My 401K assets have been frozen for the past 20 years. I couldn't touch them without paying a severe penalty. And while I could have put them into extremely conservative funds, etc., I still would have experienced some rough and tumble years such as the stock market beating in '88 (because of the savings and loan debacle), 9/11 and now last September's market meltdown (because of real estate derivatives and other bogus financial instruments). I figure over the last 20 years, I've made very little money in the stock market. My gains periodically get wiped out by these "vicissitudes" of the market, and while my savings does go through some restoration because I leave the money alone (I don't panic--because I've seen my friends lose even more by removing their money from the market), the time lost waiting for my funds to regain some of their old value is also money never realized.

Lately I've been hearing that the past decade has been a disaster for investors who have gained precious little for putting their money in the hands of Wall Street thieves. This is why I won't give them another penny. I'm nearly eligible to take out what little I have left and it will now be up to me to figure out where I have to put it, that is after the government has taken out its share. Perhaps the American tax payer should be given some sort of tax credit for the loses we have absorbed.

How much longer is the American public expected to put up with banks that say no to qualified people seeking loans, endure their usury practices on interest rates and late fees for credit cards (I agree late fees should be charged to late payers, but to jack up their interest rates is utter nonsense), and get precious little for savings? How many more times will we be robbed by one more Wall Street scheme to separates us from our money?

Instead of complaining, I think its time that the bankers just shut the hell up!