Signs of the Times?

I will admit to you I am confused by a lot of the reactions I am noting to the current financial mess we are in.  I know a few educated/professional types who are reasonably worried about losing their retirement funds.  We are worried at our house, too.  Difference is, they seem to feel strongly that less regulation is somehow going to save the day.

Really?  The unregulated, nobody minds the store mess we are in now isn't bad enough?  

Taking furniture to the Goodwill store on South Lamar today I spotted a billboard that had originally been whited out - in between ad campaigns - to which a free lance editorialist had taken a paint can and written out a complaint noting the injustice of a $700 Billion bailout for Wall Street when others are trying to get by on $7.00/hour.  

I found myself wondering -  what (if anything) will South Lamar drivers find offensive when they see that? The truth behind the complaint or the fact that the billboard was defaced by graffiti?

I was confused again by the comments section on an article in the Times noting chef Tom Colicchio's plans to have a year long series of every other Tuesday dinners that would be limited to 32 diners, booking their reservations 6 weeks ahead, all paying $150 minimum in advance to hold that reservation (more depending upon the menu which would not be released in advance).  The chef had noted the original name for the enterprise, Tom: Tuesday Dinner, was up for grabs if a better name was suggested.  

A lot of folks apparently felt the entire proposal was fairly tone deaf in light of the current economic crisis.  

Some of the names suggested reflected that:

Let Them Eat Bailout

Tomfoolery

The Emperor's New Clothes

Other calmer heads noted that Colicchio's various restaurants in NYC cater to every price point.  And, nobody is forcing anybody to make a reservation anywhere.

It fascinated me that, as the recognition of the ever widening gap between the haves and the have-nots sinks in, the foodies were venting their spleen on a chef who, love him or hate him, worked diligently for years to get where he is.  

I certainly haven't seen that much ink spilled in comments expressing similar fury over the CEOs who waltzed away from trashed corporations with profits in their pockets.  If Colicchio's food is not up to par, his reputation and his bottom line will certainly suffer.  Can we say the same about those "Masters of the Universe" hedge fund managers who apparently safely removed their money before the bottom fell out of the market?  Where's the anger towards them?

Why would we turn on a working stiff like Colicchio (albeit yes, a very successful one) and hold his success against him and not against those financial wheeler dealers and complicit politicians who cooked up this financial mess we find ourselves in?

I really don't get it.  Maybe they ate something that didn't agree with them?