The political idea of 'main street' compared to corporate wall street is attractive. Both 2008 presidential campaigns have taken up this idea fervently and continued it with the 'joe the plumber' barrage.
Certainly 'blue collar' america is the foundation of this economy - anyone, working hard, working honestly, should be able to become successful and own their own business. More than anything else this is what Sarah Palin stands for, and another Joe, Joe Biden, does a pretty darn good job at.
The shining light of main street Wasila is a compelling vision., Who wouldn't want to live in a town with a Moose ambling it's way down main street street under a backdrop of community businesses, green forests, and crystal capped mountains?
And make no doubt this is the foundation not only of our economy, but also of our nation and our culture. Movie Stars, Software Executives and Jet Airplanes do not, unto themselves make our nation great - what makes our nation great is the ability of main street to afford to buy quality movies, software, and plane tickets.
But Main Street is also not without blame in the current crisis. ACORN is getting attention right now, for election registration problems, though this is motivated by the perspective that it is loans to first time low-income home buyers that is behind the current crisis. I don't buy that argument, though undoubtedly there have been loans made to low-income home buyers that should not have been made.
The lower reaches of the mortgage broker profession take as much responsibility for this as anyone - making a loan at an unreasonable price could be construed as a fraud, and is a factor.
But if we are talking of real culpability it is on the hands of the speculator - who has benefited from the same credit standards developed under the Clintons to buy not one house for themselves, but many, many houses in order to extract monies from a mortgage system corrupted under the Bush administration.
The solution to this mess is on Main Street, though it MUST avoid these local folks. The solution may well be to give, to use Sarah Palin's term, 'community activists' some actual financial responsibility to put it together themselves - with, of course, the appropriate amount of local, state, and federal oversight.
