The Wall Street Journal (ironically) published an article stating that Wall Street for all intents and purposes no longer exists. Now that the investment banks are commercial banks Wall Street is not the same.
With Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley becoming commercial banks, and the other three big investment banks/brokerage houses being acquired by commercial banks, politicians and the press won't have Wall Street to kick around anymore. Headlines now shout about a $700 billion "Bailout for Wall Street." Yet strictly speaking, Wall Street as we knew it no longer exists.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122212959612065505.html
The point of the article is that the separation between commercial banks and investment banks never made sense anyway. So this change really isn't that big of deal. At least that's what I got out of it.
In this whole mess, I'm just a mildly interested speculator. Sure I have money in the stock market but there isn't much I can do now.
The most important thing I can do is to limit my losses now. The second is to take this as a lesson. Risky investments (like the stock market) are risky for a reason. I'm not against people investing in high risk ventures, I'm against 401(k)'s who get people into such ventures. How many people would be in the stock market right now without 401(k)'s and Roth IRA's?
I'm not convinced that broader participation (the ownership society) is a good idea. The jury's still out. Unfortunetly, only time will tell if it's a net positive or negative.
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