Dow 10,200-plus, soaring unemployment, and Wall Street’s case of the chafes

A couple of weeks ago when the Dow Jones Industrial Average closed above 10,000 points for the first time since the economic crisis, I joked that it was ‘Bottle Service for Everybody Tonight!’

Now the Dow has finished above 10,200:

Bottle service and lap dances for everybody tonight!!!!!!!!!

What I really had to say the last time around was that the contrast between the high stock market and the high levels of military recruitment illustrated the complete irrelevance of Wall Street to most of America at this point in our economic life.

And when you contemplate last Friday’s jobless numbers, 10.2% conservatively, 17.5% more realistically, you see even more how ridiculous it is for anyone to be pointing to the stock market and talk like our economy is happy and healthy because some central bankers somewhere have decided to keep interest rates in the toilet.

But what’s so scary to me about what we’re seeing today is the reminder of this ugly fact: The periodic trainwrecks we count on Wall Street to engineer when they’re performing “God’s work” can poison Main Street while giving the guys circle-jerking all around the Bowling Green Charging Bull sculpture nothing more than a little bit of chafing. While they’re wigging out about whether or not they’re going to get their bonuses, and talking about how there aren’t going to be any safe bets for a long time, the market in commercial paper locks up. Then there’s no liquidity for small and medium-sized businesses to rely on, but Big Crapital dusts itself off and beats its own record for bonuses.

I guess the useful reminder here is not that some of these banks are too big to fail: it’s that they’re too big to let the rest of us succeed. They keep saying, “Stop us before we make all the money disappear again!” But somehow, when the freak out is over, they always know how to find the buried treasure all over again, and the rest of us just get hope that someone in suburban Connecticut isn’t drinking our milkshake tonight.

If that gland in your brain that produces all the populist adrenaline is tingling right now, seriously, just let it flow. You’ll feel a lot better after you let yourself experience the rage.