Ben Stein's Tunnel Vision

Ben Stein in the Sunday Times, First, Tame That Envy. Then Give Thanks, writes about all he has to give thanks for. He then segues into this ode to investment:

"Because we little people are allowed to invest in the nation's growth, we can become big people. We no longer have to save under a mattress or in a bank. We no longer have to manage our money actively by buying and running a farm or an apartment building. Instead, we can flick a few buttons on a computer or make a call, and all the resources of the nation's best and brightest are at our command to let us hitch our wagons to the capitalist star.

IN the last 70 years or so, for the first time in history, the little guy has been able to invest with some assurance that he is not being ripped off, that he is being told the full story and that if his investment does well, he will reap the rewards, or at least a lot of them. (Don't let the hedge-fund hoopla fool you. By and large, they are not outperforming funds open to the little guy at vastly lower cost.)

Yes, there will be some rip-offs. There is too much money floating around and too much temptation for the system to be anything like tamperproof. But in general, that much-maligned Wall Street makes it possible for anyone with some savings, some sense and some discipline to have the engine of capitalism anywhere in the world roar for him like my Cadillac STS-V. Wall Street, for all its faults, makes it possible for any of us, like the fictional television character George Jefferson, to finally get a piece of the pie."

Of course, the reference to "70 years" slyly glides over the uncomfortable idea that a government bureaucracy was and is responsible for making Wall Street relatively safe for the little guy. It's too much to expect that a libertarian/conservative would give thanks for the SEC.