If anyone doubts the complicity between the mainstream media and the titans of finance, one simply needed to watch Meet The Press with David Gregory yesterday. The seven plus minute segment started with David Gregory stating the obvious: An economy five years ago that was on the brink of collapse is now a high flying economy for the 1 percent and on the brink of collapse for the working middle class.

His guests were then-Secretary of Treasury and past CEO of Goldman Sachs Henry Paulson, CNBC mouthpiece and apologist Maria Bartiromo, and ex-Congressman Barney Frank. Most of the segment was the standard blabber of nonsensical statements on the economy.

There was Paulson stating that the economy is recovering but at a slow pace. He attempted to attribute that to a tax system that needed revamping. Ironically that is true but for a reason different than what Paulson would agree with. The economy needs a tax system that extracts more from those hoarding unearned money from capital manipulation that is not recirculated in the economy in the form of wages and reinvests it into the real drivers of the economy, the working middle class.

After Gregory enumerates the false excuses given by the titans of finance, the hoarders of America’s capital, he asks the important question: “Did Wall Street win in all of this?” Wall Street’s most verbose apologists immediately deflected. Maria Bartiromo said that we needed to get beyond the conversation of whether Wall Street or the bankers are evil. She said we need to talk about how you create sustainable growth. She said that would answer the issue of inequality because with growth comes jobs.

That was the most disingenuous answer possible. First, if one defines evil as knowingly harming a fellow human being, then evil correctly defines bankers and Wall Street. Secondly, of all the jobs that are being created or that would be created, the wages are normalized because of policies that allow outsourcing and because of the decline of the power of unions. In other words, the American worker is working for less and with little recourse or representation. This increases profits for the titans of capital which adds to income and wealth disparity even further. The American worker has not benefitted from their increased productivity. It has almost entirely gone to the top 1 percent.

The zinger of the segment however came from Barney Frank’s comment about the bankers. He said:

I do want to add one thing though to your question about those poor beleaguered bankers who have been forced to do so much to keep from not being able to pay their debts, that they can’t lend money. If they really are running businesses that are so stressed that they can’t do their basic work, why are they paying themselves so much money?

That statement left Bartiromo, Paulson and Gregory temporarily speechless with facial expressions that said it all. They were trapped and unable to speak to acknowledge the fact laid out by Frank. Their enslavement to the plutocracy was evident. Gregory had a nervous laugh as Bartiromo again deflected.

This is what America has become. The mainstream media and our politicians are nothing but wards of the plutocracy.