Where's the Hope?

Question: Why isn't everyone mad? Why aren't we all foam-spitting, fist-pounding, eyes-rolled-into-the-skull apoplectic? Is it the learned helplessness of the times, or have we all succumbed to a strange new type of group mental illness? Or perhaps our corporate friends are putting saltpeter in the water supply.
Two things happened this week.
1) Goldman Sachs--knowing news of its record-high bonuses will ignite the rage of the un- and under-employed taxpayers everywhere--tried out a new PR move. The company suggested it may force its executives to put at least a percentage of their bonus pay into charities. (New York Times story here. Check out the last line, where a recruiter speculates that Wall Street execs will no doubt be told to keep a low profile.)
2)People in Kansas City continue to lose their jobs or to be downsized.
The word was out for the past week or so that the Kansas City Star would do another, smaller, round of layoffs. So our family--and no doubt many others--woke up in dread every day until the ball dropped yesterday.
Sachs bonuses/Kansas City layoffs
Sachs bonuses/Kansas City layoffs
Sachs bonuses/Kansas City layoffs
Clueless executives have to be told to help out the needy and to avoid being seen lighting cigars with $500 bills. Meanwhile good people who did nothing wrong will have trouble feeding and clothing their families.
What does it say about you when you wake up after only 3 hours and cannot get back to sleep because of the song you're writing in your head? (It would be a country song, with space for the bar patrons to shout out rude phrases. Why, oh why do all the angry ones want to be country songs?)
Being angry has become my default emotion lately, and I have the stiff neck and sore jaw from grinding my teeth to prove it. But it's no doubt removing years from my life, and I don't have that many left to give to Wall Street or anyone else.
I've tried to find some positive way of thinking about it all but it's no use. There is no good in any of it. Yes, I've already lived the worst year of my adult life and it's behind me. But where's the joy in that? And how many more "worst years" are ahead?
Something, my friends, has gotta change.