Which Main Street?

Ben Bernanke is in trouble.

Ben Who?  And what does he have to do with Main Street?

Ben Bernanke is the Chairman of the Federal Reserve, affectionately called The Fed.  The Fed is different from "a Fed", who is a guy or gal who wiretaps your phone, reads your emails and contributes names of undesirables to TIDE.  The Fed is a big printing press that used to be America' only source of money. That was before credit cards, mortgage-backed securities and the Chinese.  It also controls the banks, or doesn't, depending on your election year status.  Nobody knows how it controls the banks, of course.  It sure doesn't seem to control bankers' hours or NSF fees at all.

Ben's term ends at the end of the month. You'd think Ben would want desperately to retire to the obscurity of a desk at Goldman Sachs or the hut in the North Woods.  President Obama wants him back, which makes him The Big O'lone on this one.  All of the House and the unlucky third of the Senate are up for reelection this year and they all sound like Ben personally favored AIG and Goldman Sachs over us plain old mortgage-happy folk.

That was Hank Paulson, George III's Exchequer Secretary, not Ben.

Even those who realize that last part, don't want to vote for Ben.  It turns out that he is a pointy-headed academic, which must be worse than a derivatives salesman.

An example is Senator Barbara Boxer (no, I did not make that up to make you giggle, but you can this once).  She is from California.  Why is that important?  Wait a second and you'll see. The Senator won't vote for Ben.  She claims to want for "Main Street to have a champion at the Fed."

Does she mean champion, like Derek Jeter or Big Ben Roethlisberger (no, I did not make that up to make you giggle twice)?  She didn't say who.  I guess she does not mean a guy from Wall Street or Princeton.

More importantly, does California even have a Main Street?  I thought it was all freeways, Golden Gate bridges and streets named Sepulveda.

You are way ahead of me.  You have a Main Street in your city, town, borough, village or ungated community.  We all do.  Some have more than one.  Does anybody live on yours?  Okay, maybe, a few, next to Wendy's.

But you know what?  Mine has three big frakkin' banks on it.