I do like those ironic coincidences that happen in the media. Generally speaking, when it comes to economic issues, I don’t think the editors have a clue that they have captured unintentionally the gist of our crisis. And, so, let me turn to today’s New York Times. The front page has two stories headlined:

"Deepening Cycle of Job Loss Seen Lasting Into ’09"

and

"Stock Exchange’s Ex-Chief Wins Battle to Keep Pay"

  What do we learn from each story? First, you ain’t seen nothing yet–and we’ve been saying that all along here:

As automakers dropped their latest batch of awful sales numbers on the market on Tuesday, reinforcing the gloom spreading across the economy, the troubles confronting American workers seemed to intensify.

Plummeting home prices have in recent months eliminated jobs for hundreds of thousands of people, from bankers and real estate agents to construction workers and furniture manufacturers. Tighter lending standards imposed by banks in the wake of huge mortgage losses have made it hard for many Americans to secure credit — the lifeblood of expansion in recent years — crimping the appetite of consumers, whose spending amounts to 70 percent of the economy.

Joblessness has accelerated, and employers have slashed working hours even for those on their payrolls, shrinking the size of paychecks just as workers need them the most.

   No great surprise. When you have an economy that hasn’t generated real increases in wealth for most people over the past two decades–because of meager, if any, raises in wages, increasing loss of health care and an ever-rising on faux pensions also known as 401(k)s–people are not going to be in a happy place. Why does that seem so obvious to us but seems to escape the notice of pundits, prognosticators and politicians who were all happy-go-lucky during the time when bubbles that would pop expanded and wages that didn’t expand contracted? It makes me long for the days of the guillotine…

   And, then, right below that story comes this:

   For nearly five years, Richard A. Grasso was vilified for the riches he reaped while running the New York Stock Exchange.

  But on Tuesday, a court ruled that Mr. Grasso could keep the $139.5 million he was paid.

   Mr. Grasso, who symbolized for many the exuberance and excess of the now-faded bull market, won the final round in his long legal battle over the compensation he amassed during his eight years as head of the Big Board, when the New York State Court of Appeals threw out the remaining claims against him.

   Only in America would there be a fight over whether $139.5 million is too much money for one person to be paid, and there is an additional $48 million he was to be paid in subsequent years that apparently he will also get so, far be it for, Grasso to have to scrimp by like the rest of us–it looks like a nice figure of $187 million, give or take half a mil. Thank god for Grasso because we have now saved the glorious free market where anyone can earn obscene amount of money. Long live America! Ironically, the case ended not so much in a vidication of Grasso but because of a technicality:

The appeals court concluded that the attorney general has no standing to sue Mr. Grasso since the exchange has been converted from a nonprofit entity to a for-profit corporation, negating the attorney general’s ability to sue on behalf of the public rather than for private shareholders.

   But, still Dick–yes, Dick–gets to count his millions.

   So, there we have it, in a nutshell. Most Americans are headed for a very dark future, certainly in the short term, in part because Dicks like Grasso, who fancied themselves as great managers of American capitalism, could, and can, only see one goal in the American enterprise–how do I get the most for myself, regardless of the pain being felt my 99 percent of the people?

   Okay, so, I wasn’t being entirely comprehensive: there is also another story on the very same front page of the paper of record that says that Leona Helmsley (I assume no one needs to be reminded who she was) directed that her $5-$8 billion trust be used for the care of dogs and cats–this is the woman who left $12 million to her dog. I’m just going to leave that one  in the "mentally ill rich person who hated people" category.