We have met the enemy's stock portfolio, and it is ours

It's weeks like that just passed that we realize what we may have missed in not electing Ralph Nader or Pat Buchanan to the White House.

Nothing gets the blood circulating like taking on those bad boys of big business. How many of us cheered for the street protestors in Quebec who tried to shut down the Summit of the Americas last week? Or rolled our eyes every time one of the Western Hemisphere's leaders droned on about "free trade" – as if we don't know that these deals are being struck in order to appease their corporate masters?

Like me, you'd probably like to sit the owners of big business down and tell them that laying off good workers just to show a higher quarterly profit is wrong. That eliminating jobs of blue collar and middle-class people in order to find cheaper labor overseas is unjustifiable.

That putting the bottom line above the human cost is ... well, it's immoral, that's what it is.

The ironic thing is, even with all the armed cops keeping the protestors away from the different trade meetings, it's really not so hard to deliver the above message in person.

All you need is a mirror.

While it's eminently satisfying to get on our high horses and condemn "big business," the truth is that over the past decade, "big business" has been acquired in large part by middle America.

Do you have a 401k? Invest in a mutual find? Have a government or union pension? Stash some cash away in an IRA?

Then you, too, are now an owner of corporate America, one of those same bosses shipping jobs overseas, fighting increased environmental protection and putting profit above all else.

What, not you? Really? Then exactly what do you look for when you choose a fund for your 401k or IRA? Results, most likely – as in a good return last quarter.

Maybe you're one of those "moral" investors, someone who only buys "socially conscious" funds. Of course, you still want a 12 percent return every year. I mean, you want to retire and put the kids through college, after all.

What was most ironic about the latest round of protests is that ownership of publicly traded firms has never been more populist. When the Great Depression hit after the stock market crash, very few Americans owned any stock. Today, almost everyone with a 401k, pension or IRA does.

In fact, odds are that many (if not most) of those protesting in the streets of Canada were in fact demonstrating against ... themselves.

What they – and we – don't want to face up to is the fact that the real pressure for obscene profit rates – the pressure that drives jobs overseas and causes perfectly profitable companies to lay off employees anyway – doesn't come from the rich.

It comes from the competition among various investment funds to attract more investors – and there is a lot more money to be had from 401k accounts than from the idle rich.

Oh, it's good fun to rail against the "richest 1 percent" or "richest 10 percent" or any small group. Set up a straw man, and then proceed to tear it down.

It's always easier to attack a "them" than it is to attack an "us."

The only problem is that when it comes to Wall Street, them has become us.

Billions of dollars are being pumped into 401k plans. While different 401k plans invest in different vehicles, certainly one of the most popular is the stock market. There are hundreds, probably thousands of different investor funds out there. I've had two different 401k plans at my last two jobs: each one offered a variety of stock funds to invest in: high-tech, blue-chip, foreign. All riskier than, say, real estate or government bonds, but all also holding out the promise of a much larger return on my investment.

The old-school rich may not have been enlightened by our progressive suburban ideals on such feel-good issues as global warming or sweatshop labor, but they were content with their 3 or 4 percent return a year on their investments. They had money, after all, and wanted only to see steady growth in their holdings. It was security they were after – the same thing we all are after, they were just better at it than most of us.

It's the middle class that's pressuring their 401k managers for a larger return. If American corporations feel the need to show unrealistically high profit and growth margins – 20 percent annually and up in some cases – that pressure is coming from the stockholders.

And increasingly, those stockholders are comprised of the various investment funds whose own money comes from the retirement and 401k funds of us. The great unwashed, who want someone somewhere to do something about all this greed.

Now shut up with your protesting so I can see how Microsoft did today.