What recession?

31,700 Goldman Sachs employees are about to receive the largest employee bonuses in the company's 140-year history. With an estimated average end-of-year payout of more than US$700k each, it's a great time to be part of the firm's remuneration fund.

But what about the trillions of dollars poured into Wall Street bailouts by American taxpayers? What about the global surge of unemployment, mortgagee sales and business collapses? What about the G20 summit calling for restraint within the financial services industry?

It's business as usual in the capital and money markets, and Goldman Sachs is not alone. JP Morgan Chase and other Wall Street investment banks are collectively forecast to pay out a record US$140billion in bonuses this financial year.

Ironically, the very solutions to alleviate the collapse of the financial markets have cleared the way for an even more lucrative playing field. Market rationalisation, public rescue packages and government guarantees have excited investors. Secondary debt markets are hives of activity, with investment banks clipping the ticket on every trade.

Have we learned nothing off the back of the worst financial meltdown since the Great Depression of the 1930s?

Stephen Learner, a campaigner on financial issues for the US Service Employees International Union says it's both absurd and obscene.

"The same guys who crashed the economy and got bailed out by taxpayers are now giving themselves even bigger bonuses than before they crashed the economy."

For the favoured few, it's a case of: "What recession?" But the vast majority, the ordinary folk around the world, have endured a much tougher time, with many commentators warning it's not over yet. And certainly, if current Wall Street activity is anything to go by, we may yet slide back into the economic abyss.

The old regimes are alive and kicking with parasitic resilience. The sub-prime mortgage collapse was just a symptom. The real issue is the continued commoditisation of equities and securities, where financial houses reward the next bright young thing for coming up with new ways to interpret the rules and regulations - pushing the envelope with dubious hedge funds and doubtful debt securities.

Stock markets are played like a marionette, with market analysts from a handful of elite banks yanking the strings to encourage activity - any activity, up or down, - it's all about the number of trades.

And too many of us fall for it. It's greed, plain and simple.

Closer to home, there are personal stories of sacrifice and loss. Where real people have invested their life-savings in high-risk investment schemes, seduced by promises of crazy rates of returns - often backed by nothing more than a property developer's vision of a gated community in the South Pacific.

These are the stories that make the headlines - the David and Goliath hallmark of journalism. But what we don't hear about is the 'every day' operations of the capital and money markets - the name of the game and our place within in it.

Until we are prepared to concede our ignorance, focus on redressing our lack of knowledge and demanding a better, less hyped, more rigorous system; then we will continue to be at the mercy of the financial market leviathans - for our sense of well-being, our jobs, the roofs over our heads.

It all spins on their dime.