A Recovery for the Rich

As an economic indicator, the Dow Jones industrial average always is problematic, but never more so than last Wednesday, when it closed above what analysts call the "psychologically important" 10,000-point mark for the first time since Oct. 3 of last year. Wall Street was jubilant.

But we wonder how jubilant folks were in the unemployment lines. We wonder how psychologically important the 10,000 mark was to the thousands of Americans who lost their homes last week.

The economic recovery, such as it is, continues to be a jobless one. Indeed, one of the key factors in the 10,000 Dow was that many companies are being rewarded for laying people off. Hooray.

The Labor Department reported last week that 514,000 Americans filed first-time unemployment claims in the week ending Oct. 10 — 10,000 fewer than in the previous week. But here in Missouri, 1,441 more people filed for unemployment.

The state's unemployment rate may be closing in on the national rate of 9.8 percent.

Also lost amid the jubilation was a report from RealtyTrac, which markets foreclosed properties, that said home foreclosures in the third quarter reached an all-time high of 937,940. Nearly 10,200 American families per day stand to lose their homes.

But Wall Street, fueled by corporate cost cuts and trillions of dollars in federal support, is bouncing back - led by Goldman Sachs, which last week reported third-quarter profits of $3.19 billion.

The giant investment bank has set aside $16.7 billion so far this year to pay year-end bonuses, which could mean 10-figure paydays for some of its executives.

And, as if Goldman didn't already have Washington wired, the Securities and Exchange Commission's enforcement division announced Friday that a 29-year-old Goldman whiz kid named Adam Storch will become its chief operating officer. As Daniel Indiviglio of The Atlantic's business channel put it, "All of (Bernie) Madoff's former employees must have already been busy."

There was some bad news: Bank of America reported it had lost $2 billion in the third quarter and had set aside $11 billion to cover bad loans. This is what it gets for being a commercial bank and lending money to regular folks who default on loans and credit cards instead of a well-wired investment bank.

To top it off, President Barack Obama and Vice President Joe Biden went on a spin tour — Mr. Biden was in St. Louis on Thursday — touting the job-creating effects of the stimulus program. Things would have been a whole lot worse without it, they said.

No doubt that's true. But unless you're on Wall Street, things still look awfully bleak. Better Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden should stay home and drop the hammer on the mortgage industry. Better they should light a fire under their regulators.

A lot of Americans don't have time to wait for the benefits to trickle down to them. When middle America figures out how much they paid so the Dow could return to 10,000, they're going to be very angry.

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