Yes, it’s a loaded question. Wall Street these days is wall-to-wall Gordon Gekko, Dick Fuld, and UAW freeloaders. In other words: greed, avarice, incompetence, highly compensated incompetence, and other supposedly un-American activities.
Main Street, of course, is none of these things. It may be harder to pinpoint the right adjectives (shuttered? underfunded? doomed?). But Main Street is clearly where good Americans live: the small businesses, the hardworking (or hardworking wannabes), the single mothers (the kind that work their fingers to the bone, not that other kind), and, of course, the most virtuous and victimized of all, the American Taxpayer.
This imbalance in values may explain why the crime rate (not just white collar) is rising on Wall Street, where, it was recently alleged, former Lehman CEO Dick Fuld was punched in the face by a stranger. But this stark contrast between Main and Wall (as useless as Labor or Capital, imho) is confusing.
So, here’s what I want to know about both streets and their residents. When you answer, please let me know where you’re writing from.
1. Where was the trick-or-treating better?
2. If I took a walking tour of Wall Street (fyi, reservations required), would I see both red and blue Americans?
3. How are the schools?
4. Does the Oracle of Omaha live on Wall Street or Main? And doesn’t his $34 billion deal for Burlington Northern show bias? (Just look at the route map!)
5. If you’re a parent and you live on Wall Street, would you want your kid to marry someone from Main?
6. If you’re a parent, and you live on Main, do you tell your kids, “It’s just as easy to marry someone from Wall Street as someone from Main Street.”
7. If you live on the border between Main and Wall and your kids go to an integrated school, how do you teach them not to stereotype?
7. Do you like your neighbors?
Please post answers as soon as possible. I’m thinking of relocating.
Wall Street image by Flickr user David Paul Ohmer, CC 2.0
