(Melchizedek Communique, MC122909) "Prosperity is just around the corner." This was part of the propaganda in the 1930s. In the 1935 movie, "My Man Godfrey," the "forgotten man" (William Powell) and his friends sneer at this: "I keep looking for that corner... You know, the one that prosperity is just around."

This propaganda is echoed today: "Things will be picking up... Wall Street is bouncing back..."

But what is really around that corner?

The best laid schemes o' Mice an' Men,
Gang aft agley,
An' lea'e us nought but grief an' pain,
For promis'd joy!

Robert Reich, former Secretary of Labor, foresees that although Wall Street seems to have bounced back, "the everyday lives of large numbers of Americans continue to be subject to overwhelming trauma, chaos and disruption." [1]

"It is commonplace among policymakers," observes Reich, "to fervently and sincerely believe that Wall Street's financial health is not only a precondition for a prosperous real economy but that when the former thrives, the latter will necessarily follow. Few fictions of modern economic life are more assiduously defended than the central importance of the Street to the well-being of the rest of us, as has been proved in 2009." [1]

This "trickle down" theory is not new. In 1896, William Jennings Bryan, in his "Cross of Gold" speech, criticized the "trickle down" theory:

"There are two ideas of government. There are those who believe that, if you legislate to make the well-to-do prosperous, their prosperity will leak through on those below. The Democratic idea has been that, if you legislate to make the masses prosperous, their prosperity will find its way up through every class that rests upon it."

We are all supposed to cheer as stock markets rise. After all, the prosperity will trickle down to us eventually -- right? Good times are "just around the corner" is the subtext.

A different subtext is that the so-called "Federal" Reserve will be "tightening the noose" in March 2010, as reported yesterday by Melchizedek Communique. [2] This is corroborated by an AP report hinting at the "Fed" about to "mop up money pumped into the economy." [3] Wall Street got theirs. For the rest of us, well, prosperity is just around the corner.

------- Notes -------
[1] "2009: The Year Wall Street Bounced Back and Main Street Got Shafted", by Robert Reich. Dec. 28, 2009
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/2009-the-year-wall-street_b_404889.html
[2] "Bernanke Tightens the Noose?", Melchizedek Communique, Dec. 28, 2009
http://www.shout.net/~bigred/mc122809.html
[3] "Fed exit strategy: Let banks set up CDs", by Jeannine Aversa. AP, Dec. 28, 2009