The Devil comes collecting

The wages of sin must be paid:

Wall Street is dead. According to its Journal, The Wall Street that was "a coterie of independent brokerage firms that buy and sell securities, advise clients and are less regulated than old-fashioned banks" died last night when the Federal Reserve agreed to convert Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley, the last remaining mega brokerages on Wall Street, into bank-holding companies. In exchange for access to more Federal loan money, and not having have to mark its assets at market value, the two companies will be subject to much more government regulation and oversight about how they do their business.

This is only the beginning of the collection, mark my words.

On the bright side, the harder they push to control the market, the grayer it becomes. While having a truly-free market would be ideal, it seems like it is entirely unlikely to manifest in any legal incarnation any time in the near future.

If anything, desperately lean years are ahead, and I cannot overstate the importance of being prepared for coming trouble. It's moot if it doesn't happen, but it may make the difference between comfortable living and utter disaster in the future.