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Thanks for the response Bill...glad we're not throwing stones

As far as the wage disparity, as I understand it, it's a couple of things.

One is, what is a living wage or a good wage in a country?, which has to do with purchasing power of the local currency.

Another is the exchange rate of currencies, which in China's case does not float as other currencies do, but is artificially set by government.

Another is the degree to which a country requires imports to manufacture things they then send abroad.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Mac_Index
Follow the link for a neat way The Economist looks at purchasing power and the relative valuation of exchange rates.

As far as blaming Wall Street, they are in fact to blame for much of the mess the world finds itself in, along with much of the American banking system. The rest of the blame is on the Bush administration that de regulated the financial system, and on the Obama administration (Bernanke et al) who "did not get it right". In hindsight (good old MM quarterbacking), they should never have allowed Lehman Brothers to fail because that was the final straw.

Wall Street packaged bad mortgage loans that banks passed on to them (remember when everyone could get an easy low upfront cost mortgage...even those with bad credit ratings??)and sold them all over the world as prime securities. When the world found out these financial instruments were basically worthless, no bank wanted to lend to another which basically caused the world financial system to close down. This caused first Bear Stearns to fail (it was rescued by JP Morgan...bought them for $2 per share) and the eventual failure of Lehman Brothers, and the almost failure of AIG.

We are still dealing with the repercussions today, and mark my words, those that caused it WILL be brought to account. It's just taking time, but I understand that the American justice system is currently preparing its cases.

And some of those protesting on Wall Street today are protesting because of it. Don't you find the fact that public monies used to bail out Wall Street were used to pay Wall Street executives millions and millions of dollars in bonusses absolutely repulsive??