I was watching the news ticker and saw the Goldman Sachs earnings report (and ensuing bonuses) come across the screen. I have spent the last five years as a financial planner/entrepreneur, the previous five years on Wall Street as an Equities Trader, and before that was in school majoring in Finance…my first reaction was a very happy reaction. My free market/capitalistic side couldn’t help but to feel overjoyed with this news that could possibly signal brighter days to come for the economy.

However, when reality set in I began to think to myself, “Brighter days for who?”

This economy has faltered because of one word…GREED. Every level from the Government, Wall Street, and the individual was guilty of biting off more than we could chew. The individual was guilty of purchasing homes and using excessive debt to fund a spendthrift lifestyle. Wall Street was guilty of pushing high-profit, junk loans to uneducated homebuyers and slicing/dicing fancy securities and instruments to create false images of profits on financial statements. Also, the Government was guilty of caving into the funds of lobbyists to allow the economy and everyone in it to continue like children at recess playing dangerous games without any supervision.

So now the people of America are ticked off and who can blame them. We have one in six people in this country who are either without jobs or are working at a job that only serves to barely pay the bills (if at all). People are losing sleep thinking about how they can keep their homes across this country if they haven’t lost it already. These are the very same people Goldman and all of Wall Street tapped for funds when Wall Street needed saving.

Let’s look at Goldman, one of the firms who took large unmitigated risk without any thought or concern to what would happen if they failed. When they did fail they were allowed to borrow money from the people to stay afloat. So not only did Goldman get $10 billion of our money at rates that individuals could only dream of, they were able to insure $30 billion of Credit Default Swaps to the tune of 100 cents on the dollar. They got money from the pockets of the people, they profited because they took unreasonable risk with a payout from AIG (which we paid $175 billion to and $30 billion of that went to Goldman), they were given another $20+ billion dollars worth of cheap money because they were granted rights to become a holdings company, excess bank reserves are at record levels across all of Wall Street as banks are not lending (as they were supposed to with our money), and now as a penalty for leading us into a recession with their poor decision making they are rewarded with record earnings and what equates to a $700,000 bonus for every employee at Goldman.

So I get back to my original question, “Brighter days for who?”

The people are not upset with the fact that Goldman made money this quarter; they are upset at the way that profited and that IT WAS ALL LEGAL. It seems as if the administration is content with allowing Goldman and the other Wall Street Crusaders of Greed to continue without any reform or regulation. Now that Wall Street knows that they have the tax payer as yet another buffer of risk there is no question of whether or not they are going to take on more or less risk in the future. Not only was money given with no strings attached, but the strings are not even closed to being created to stop this crisis from happening again. Without regulation Wall Street will continue to operate under the guise of privatizing gains and socializing losses. Goldman and all of Wall Street will continue to think, “Heads we get paid…tails the people pay.”

Obama, I love you, respect you, and voted for you; however, this Mr. Nice Guy is getting old and we need your administration stand up to these Wall Street lobbyists for the sake of our country!

Written by Ryan Mack, President of Optimum Capital Management, LLC