Here’s some numbers worth contemplating. After the federal government gives 700 billion dollars as a direct bailout to big banks, and lends (and is still lending) upwards of two trillion dollars more at zero or near-zero interest to these same banks, these institutions’ own lending to small businesses, which account for two-thirds of this country’s employment, dropped more than nine percent.

Here’s some more numbers to contemplate. These same bailed banks are now reporting record profits, paying record bonuses to their people ($140 billion last year), and the biggest four of these institutions recently achieved the seemingly impossible, going the entire first of quarter of this year making money every trading day— a feat not as difficult as it sounds because they not only get free money from the Fed to flash trade, they can borrow from the Fed for nothing and then turn around and get a guaranteed 3.5 percent buying bonds issued by the Fed.

To sum up the meaning of these numbers. The government gave public money (our money) to banks to “save the economy,” an economy dependent on the health of small businesses. But instead of lending to small businesses, banks used this money (our money) to enrich themselves to an astonishing extent.

In considering these numbers and their meaning, it’s terribly important to heed the following warning: Do Not Attempt This On Your Own! Do not attempt to go to a local bank, say you blew your own money on incredibly stupid and venal activities, and now expect this bank to give you more money so you can play the same games to your own advantage, without the bank having any control over this loan. Do not attempt this on your own (though it is essence what our government did with big Wall Street banks) because the local bank may not simply laugh you out the door. It might well call guys in while coats to haul you away because no sane person would ask a sanely run bank to lend on these terms. Only our government would do such a thing with public money. Our money.

It’s now clear to just about everybody that the government not only failed to regulate the banks, but that banks successfully regulated the government. It’s also clear why President Obama and his party are going to get creamed in the next election. While they didn’t initiate the great bailout rip-off, that was done by Paulson at the end of the Bush Administration, they did bring in the same Geithner-Summers team that were a party to this huge heist as their own economic policy mavens. The same team that thought they needed “to save the economy” by massive gifting to big banks without demanding anything in return; without understanding that when you put the country in hock to such a great extent, you actually have a right to control how the money is used. You know. The way a local bank does it.

Oh. By the way. The same cunning rascals who concocted this economic salvation are the ones now telling us the recession is over. Check the ballot boxes this November to see why this latest dose of Beltway and Wall Street wisdom rings hollow on Main Street.

For more commentary from this author: http://www.wallstreetpoet.com