A View From Wall Street
                                         Eduardo Porter

I went to Wall Street on Monday afternoon to see what the agonies of American-style financial 
capit alism would look like close up. As I watched the lines of suits marching grimly up the 
street, I was taken aback by the normality of the scene.

News that the Bush administration's $700 billion bailout package had been slapped down in the 
House of Representatives did seem to add to the excitement around the New York Stock Exchange. 
There was a couple holding up signs observing that "Capitalism is Dead" and suggesting that a 
"Workers Revolution is the Solution."

A large, white-bearded man in a green robe and a skull cap who called himself God's "warner" 
angrily lectured a dozen or so people waiting for their dates on the steps of the Federal Hall 
National Memorial, pointing to a hamburger he recovered from a trash bin as proof of America's 
moral failings.

On the corner of Broadway, a man in boxing gloves and a derby hat harangued the throngs making 
their way up Wall Street while balancing a large slice of watermelon on his head. "I am not a 
Democrat. I am not a Republican. I am an American," he said, adding something about smoking, 
drinking and Google. I overheard a pin-striped man confessing into his cellphone: "I'm sorry I 
didn't tell you to buy puts."

I'm not sure what I thought I'd find on my pilgrimage. Who knows what to expect of a financier 
who just saw the Dow drop 777 points? What I didn't expect was a scene that looked pretty much 
like any busy street in Manhattan around 5 p.m. Indeed, to me the most salient feature was the 
proliferation of TV cameras and the throngs of tourists snapping pictures of what, I assume, 
they thought was a historic occasion.

I don't know quite what to make of the routine quality of this commotion. The financial crisis 
sweeping across the world still has a ways to run. Spilling over from Wall Street to Main 
Street, it threatens to drag the world economy into a steep recession. Chances are that the 
world that will emerge from this will be unlike the world we know.

But the sense of everyday bedlam did impress upon me just how many conversations can be going on 
at the same time. And they are all going on here.