JP Morgan Chase - Thin Air Specialists

Wall Street bank JP Morgan Chase has reported profits of $3.3bn (£2bn) for the last three months of 2009. Considering they got a hand-out from the American taxpayer, this seems like they are living in a land where "bust" is not in their vocabulary for themselves but it is for the poor American entrepreneur.

Banks can make money out of thin air - literally. It's called fractional reserve banking, whereby some invester places $10,000 in at the front desk only for a whizzkid to lend it out on the basis of it being $100,000. It's not exactly banking. It's more like Monopoly meets cyberspace. Only those crunching the numbers (or the angel dust) at the money shops know what's going on. The American government thinks it is dealing with businessmen when it invites the four squaddies from the banks to testify. They are nothing of the sort. It's about time we reigned these characters in.

The real question for us all is who exactly is in charge. Is it those guys on Wall Street or is it the President of the United States and Congress? Because if it's "those guys" we've been trussed up like a chicken, allowing them to feed off our bones!