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Dear Wall Street,

I would like to request a few things back. My money would be a great place to start. I don’t even mean my investments that I lost, but the taxes I paid you after you lost my investments. I would also like to regain a sense of security that scum bags don’t succeed in the world because good-hearted people always win. I would like that back with interest of course. I would like my subway system running “normally” again and I would like the golden surcharge for stepping into a cab to be taken away. I would like my faith in humanity and my general belief in karma to be restored but I don’t see that happening any time soon.

I think that the fact such big bonuses are being distributed, or are even in question, is a pretty obvious sign that there is no remorse for any of the irresponsible actions taken in the past decade and that Wall Street has not only lost touch with “Main Street,” but with an entire sense of reality. Humbleness and a sense of humility has long been gone in the big banks. Integrity has been replaced with selfishness and sense of arrogance and entitlement that is shameful and flat out disgusting. Whether we are technically in a recession anymore or not does not change the fact that thousands of people are still without jobs, or have lost their homes and millions of Americans are in a debt where they can not foresee a way out. All of this is due to the greed and the actions of the same people who are now reaping the benefits of a recovering financial market while the “little” people are left to suffer. No one asked us if we wanted our tax money to go to rescue banks that were “too big to fail” (I laugh because they DID fail and we bailed them out). The government did not step in and give me or my parents the thousands of dollars we had lost with our investments. Investing is a risk with no guarantee. It is legalized gambling. Wall street opposes a new tax that would cost them a few million dollars a year out of the billions of dollars they bring in. Well here is what I say to that: If you want the government to stay out of your business, stay out of theirs. People criticize Obama for trying to regulate Wall Street. They claim that is inherently against capitalism and free markets. Maybe it is. But if we were purely capitalists, we would have let those banks fail. Some operations succeed and some fail. I understand why banks that have repaid their government bail out loans with interest are bitter that they are making up for the funds lost by companies that did not repay their TARP loans. However, the government took a gamble on all of those companies that it has to save. There was no guarantee that Goldman Sachs would rebound so quickly or so lucratively- they could have just as easily failed. And it is for that reason that those banks are responsible for helping the companies like AIG that haven’t rebounded. The government gambled with the people’s money and they deserve it back- no matter who has already repaid their fair share.

I am willing to give Wall Street their bonuses- when they actually deserve them. I ask you Wall Street- where is my bonus? Where is my bailout? Where is the money I lent you (with interest of course), because I sure as hell don’t have it. I am ashamed that people in this country, although few in number, could be so ruthless and selfish. The level of ignorance that they have displayed in thinking that they deserve a bonus more than the national salary average, especially considering they led the country, and the world, into a global recession, is beyond pitiful. Politicians keep claiming we have entered an “age of accountability”, but somehow, I feel that the regular people are the only ones being held accountable.