What do you have against Wall Street?

[Lyin' Steve]

I despise the parts of Wall Street that screw innocent people over.  F**k Bank of America and their deliberate schemes to frustrate their customers into making poor financial decisions with endless phone mazes and lies and misleading offers and accidental errors.  F**k scammers who take advantage of the elderly or anyone who damages 401Ks.  F**k CEOs who make risky decisions for their companies knowing that they win either way because of golden parachutes into their contracts.

I don't despise the financial homework parts of Wall Street.  First of all, some people (like me, although I don't work on Wall Street) really enjoy the high-stakes, high-consequences math and technology that it entails, and we like working with variables that represent components of the real economy in real time.  It's exciting and feels impactful.  Second, because traders and fund managers and analysts are so good at their jobs, we push the upper margin of returns on the economy, and thus the average American investor can beat inflation by 4-5% every year.  In the old days, you bought bonds or invested in property just to keep up with inflation.  If it wasn't for Wall Street, ordinary middle-class Americans wouldn't be able to save $5-10k a year and have enough money when they retire at 65 to be able to live a fulfilling life well into their 90s.