A friend is reiterating his point: The stock market is nothing more than an elaborate Ponzi scheme that if perpetrated by ordinary citizens would be cause to send the whole bunch to jail. But investment banks and corporations go untouched. You can’t explain the difference; he’s delivering a full-throated rant.

At home, some neighbors stop you to offer their two cents about the financial crisis, the broad elements of which even you, without a degree in economics, saw several weeks earlier as similar to those that led to the 1929 crash. The proposal to create an entity like the Resolution Trust Corporation that rescued the savings and loan industry has enraged these working and middle-class citizens. (Wasn’t Neil Bush involved in the S&L? Didn’t Daddy — President George H.W. Bush — sign off on that rescue?)