If you take their money you will take their direction

President Obama took another shot at Wall Street today. "I saw an article today that indicated Wall Street bankers had given themselves $20 billion worth of bonuses. That is the height of irresponsibility. It is shameful."

We are uneasy about the anti-business tone being taken by the new administration and Congress. There's a ready market for this kind of populism, but after the bankers are burned alive on pyres of corporate jets and commodes, the economy catches no rise thereby.

American businesspeople are facing a world in which all their contracts and undertakings are examined line-by-line by government officials, second-guessed by PIRGs, NGOS, and the media (which is doing such a bang-up job managing its own affairs after all), and subjected to subpoena or prosecution by career-making politicians.

To advance themselves, they will not scruple to destroy you.

If you take their money, you will have to take their direction. Simple as that.