Trading on Wall Street yesterday was one of the weakest performances of the last two weeks. The S&P 500 had a relatively strong day finishing up 0.12 percent (1.31 points), but the other markets were in the red. The Dow Jones lost 0.07 percent (7.41 points) while the NASDAQ lost 0.03 percent (0.76 points) on the day.

Analyst with CNNMoney.com expected a rough day of trading to open the morning, but the extent of the early drop took many traders by surprise. Even with a rather sharp opening fall, most investors do not see the financial economy falling into a so-called “double dip” recession. The same cannot be said for the rest of the economy.

According to MarketWatch, one of the factors pushing markets down Friday morning is a disappointing earnings figures from America’s major banks.

In other news, one of the leading bits of news this morning is the settlement between embattled firm Goldman Sachs and the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). According to CNNMoney.com, the bank paid $550 million to the government as part of its legal settlement for defrauding investors during the run up to the financial crisis a few years ago.

Despite this settlement, Goldman Sachs’ shares jumped nearly 8 percent on Wall Street; a sign that investors believe Goldman still got the strong end of the deal, and a sign that in finance raking in corporate profits still trump rules and mutual benefit 100 percent of the time.

Rounding out the news, for Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan has come out in support of letting the Bush era tax cuts expire. Both the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts, which are largely responsible for the enormous debt accumulation of the past few years, are set to expire at the end of 2010.

President Obama, wanting to maintain his populist image, does not want to fall into the tea party portrayal of a socialist, communist, Nazi plague seems to support keeping them in place.

Americans cannot afford to keep taxes so disastrously low. When Reagan cut taxes in the 1980s the marginal income tax was nearly 70 percent for top earnings. Now, thanks to cuts, the top earnings pay roughly 35 percent. Thanks to more Republican tax loopholes top earners can end up paying even less. Meanwhile, social safety services like Medicare, social security, and unemployment, are losing precious tax revenue every day.

The last thing this country can afford is to keep the tax cuts. But in a nation full of people who must have their cake and eat it too that is probably what we will be left with.

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