THE PARTY NEVER ENDS ON WALL STREET...

After sucking up billions from the US taxpayer, the fat cats on Wall Street look like they are returning to the lavish lifestyles they are accustomed to.

Having royally screwed up the US economy - and the global economy - the financial geniuses are,staggeringly, set to pay themselves more bonuses then ever before.

So far this year, the top six US banks have set aside $74 billion to pay their employees, up from $60 billion in the corresponding period last year.

All six banks have received federal bailout money from the $700 billion rescue package adopted by Congress last year

With unemployment continuing to rise rapidly, the shameless self-interest of Wall Street has raised the ire of Congress. Congressional leaders have denounced Wall Street for returning to its old ways and legislation to curtail executives is being talked about - but only talked about.

Goldman Sach have, unbelievably, have set aside a record $6.6 billion for 'compensation expenses' in the most recent quarter, bringing the total for the first six months of the year to $11.4 billion.

According to the Washington Post if that pace continues for the rest of the year, Goldman's employees will earn an average of about $773,000, more than double the figure last year and even exceeding the $700,000 paid in 2007.

Barack Obama, under pressure to deliver tangible policy benefits to ordinary Americans, was questioned about the behaviour of Wall Street this week.

"With respect to compensation, I'd like to think that people would feel a little remorse and feel embarrassed and would not get million-dollar or multimillion-dollar bonuses," he said.

He said that he was not happy that the culture of Wall Street had not changed.

He was probably unhappy with the comments of some bank executives that it should come as 'no surprise that set-asides for compensation would rise as performance recovered.'

But having bent over backwards to help the American capitalism, Obama has offered little to the US working class.

There has been much media hype about Obama but, in the end, he remains a politician of the system.

Beyond Wall Street, the innocent victims of the capitalist meltdown are doing it tough.

Noted American journalist Barbara Eihenerich writes:

The recession of the '80s transformed the working class into the working poor, as manufacturing jobs fled to the third world, forcing American workers into the low-paying service and retail sector. The current recession is knocking the working poor down another notch - from low-wage employment and inadequate housing toward erratic employment and no housing at all. Comfortable people have long imagined that American poverty is far more luxurious than the third world variety, but the difference is rapidly narrowing.

The misery just keeps piling up. While the Wall Street clowns get money thrown at them by the Obama Administration, ordinary American gets nothing but more bad news.