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Most people are happy that the Dow is rising again because it's considered a leading indicator. But for middle class people in their 50s and 60s who managed to save for retirement, it's a rueful and wary eye they are keeping on the market right now. Between their house losing half of its value and their retirement accounts taking a stomach churning nosedive, they would love to enjoy this stock market rally, but they have a long way to go before they are back to where they expected to be at this point in their lives. They're watching, but I don't think there's all that much pleasure in it quite yet.
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Of course there isn't because last year, people saw how fast it could all go to shit. Now they see the profits on the Street skyrocketing once again, yet their home value is nowhere near what it was 18 months ago (I got news for you, it'll never be that again.).
Until there is comprehensive regulation of the financial services industry, most people expect nothing but a cycle of bubble and bust for the foreseeable future. It's time to roll back the lassiez faire attitude of government toward business, cultivated in the Reagan years. As we've seen with health care, energy, the news media, or any other corporatized industries, big business does not know best and the 'free market' is the first casualty of deregulation.
If Congress and the President want to do anything to ensure a stable economy, reinstating the regulations put in after the Great Depression would be an excellent start. They can throw as much money as they want at the problem but with out a strict set of rules for business to follow, the financial industry will continue to remain nothing more than a high-stakes, high-risk gambling house with taxpayer money as their stake.
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