New York and Wall Street. Or, More Cocaine Please.

What does cocaine make you feel like? Comic George Carlin supposedly once said cocaine makes you feel like having some more cocaine.

Money, especially money from Wall Street, and in this context “Wall Street” means the financial sector generally, is like cocaine for politicians. It makes them feel like having some more.

Wall Street's big money came largely during the Governor Pataki, President Clinton years, when legal and regulatory changes rendered the finance sector largely unwatched. We've seen the results. Wall Street cash flooded New York State's coffers in the form of tax revenues. What does a big influx of questionable Wall Street money make a New York politician feel like? Like having another, bigger influx next year.

No intelligent, reasonable, well-informed person can possibly think that Wall Street should remain as largely unregulated as it has been. The only halfway-reasonable argument for it, at this point, is that regulation itself is bad, and that almost nothing should be regulated, let the market rule. Sometimes, extreme libertarians on college campuses call themselves "anarcho-capitalists," and at this point only those people can possibly look at an unregulated Wall Street and nod their heads in approval.

Wall Street, unregulated, would bring the capitalist system itself to the brink. And how do we know this? Because it did, at least twice now. The Great Depression, and just a few short years ago. And please don't tell me that Wall Street needs another Sheriff, like Eliot Spitzer. Spitzer hurt, not helped. Wall Street doesn't need a Sheriff, it needs an adult.

How does cocaine make you feel? Like having some more cocaine. How does having all that Wall Street-driven tax revenue make a politician feel? Like having some more Wall Street-driven tax revenue. And spending it. And keep spending it, even when it's no longer there to spend.

New York State Governor David Paterson and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg like to point out the degree to which New York State and New York City depend upon Wall Street for revenue. Both politicians have emerged as champions of Wall Street even when much of the rest of the country has turned on it. Don't the people understand, they ask, that New York State and City depend on Wall Street? We need more bonuses. Less regulation. More revenue.

New York has a right to be proud of the financial industry. But what are Mayor Bloomberg and Governor Paterson really championing?

What does cocaine make you feel like? What happens when you have no more money to spend, and you have the need to feel that way again. Is your drug dealer still your best friend when your money's gone? Anyone remember that movie from the 80s, Less Than Zero?

I am no fiscal conservative. But a State needs a tax base that's stable in order to do expensive, liberal things. Derivatives, naked short selling, wild speculation, huge bonuses to CEOs who don't do anything resembling their jobs, and the like, the stuff of unregulated Wall Street, are not a stable tax base.

Recent Marist polls show that New Yorkers have largely turned on Wall Street, see it as part of the problem, not the solution. I'm not one of those who always sees “the wisdom of the American people.” More often than not I share James Madison's fear of mobs.

But on this one, I think the voters have it right. Wall Street is the problem in that they conned everyone into mistaking a semi-legal ponzi scheme, which is really all Wall Street was since the middle- to late-1990s, for stable growth. There's plenty of blame to go around, of course. Politicians are paid to know better, yet ignored the warning signs, and voters have consistently favored politicians who have told them what they wanted to hear rather than those who sound alarm bells.

But, at the end of the day, having an unregulated Wall Street is simply asking for trouble. The federal government cannot continue to play the part of the cocaine addict's rich uncle, taking pity and paying off the dealer while the addict makes vague promises about getting back into rehab for the fifth time.

Have we learned this lesson yet? Or do we still feel like having some more cocaine?