Hacker News Reader

Comment by mattmcknight | Hacker News Reader

The generic reference of "Wall Street" in the title, but then not referring to financial firms but transportation, manufacturing and other firms located across the country seems to be a misuse of the term. Like many other things the meaning drifts into "things I don't like".

View on HN

It's a metonym, and you're right it refers to finance. But, many corporations over the past 30 years have kind of evolved into financial companies. Look at GE. The criticism, relevant to this very article, is that (many) companies focus far too much on maximizing shareholder value, at the expense of other investments.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/ge-powered-the-american-century...

I've always took "Wall Street" to mean all parties involved in the U.S. financial market, publicly traded companies in particular.

I thought "Wall Street" meant financial firms and exchanges.

Those two words have an extremely fluid definition depending on who you talk to.

Having worked on Wall Street, it essentially boils down to public/private businesses and financial institutions/firms/banks/exchanges are considered "Wall Street"...

Everyone one else is considered "Main Street"...

They have their own language and culture that exhorts greed and profit above humanity and peace. ie. "Wolf of WallStreet"...

It’s not the transportation firms who are owed the money, my understanding is the airlines took on debt to financial institutions (to buyback stock, held by other financial institutions), and the bailout money would ultimately go to those obligations to financial institutions (“wallstreet” here).

Reply on news.ycombinator.com