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Perhaps you've been imagining that if Barack Obama becomes President of the US, he will impose tough new rules on Wall Street, sweep away the economic inequalities of the Bush years and demand that the gigantic banks that created the present mess are broken into a hundred powerless pieces. In which case, prepare to be disappointed.
On paper, the Democratic candidate sounds like a reformer.
He called the last Bush tax cuts exactly what they were: "The Paris Hilton tax break. It's about giving billions of dollars to billionaire heirs and heiresses." Stirring stuff.
He claims that if elected he would increase the tax rate on capital gains to 25% and go after hedge-fund managers with venom.
Under Obama, the speculators would see gains on their income taxed at 35% rather then the measly 15% they currently enjoy. Other corporate taxes are also supposed to rise.
In practice he is unlikely to do any of those things for one simple reason: Wall Street owns him. Each year The Centre for Public Integrity in Washington DC compiles a list of the donors to top politicians for its annual book The Buying of The President.
Each year the same conclusion is reached: Wall Street funds the elections, paying for all of the viable candidates. Then it tells them what their policies are, if the politicans haven't already worked that out.
Even by these usual standards, Obama is a popular boy in lower Manhattan. Republican candidate John McCain has seen the cheques fly in but he can't compete with Obama's millions. So far, the bigwigs at the big banks have paid $5.3 million to the McCain campaign and $9.5 million to Obama's.
This doesn't mean that they prefer the Chicago senator particularly, just that they think he is more likely to win and that McCain is assumed to be on side anyway.
Asked to explain the rush to fund Obama, Wall Street cheerleader and motormouth TV presenter Jim Cramer offered: "Wall Street wants change and wants a curtailment in spending."
That's right - the financiers are relying on Obama to cut government spending, not increase their taxes.
Maybe all this is a cunning plan by Obama - he takes the money he needs to win, then blows raspberries at the tycoons. History suggests it is more likely that, come inauguration day, he will have begun to see things the "right" way.
Wall Street will by then be in recovery mode, a beacon of entrepreneurial spirit, leading America out of some dark economic times. This is not the right time to impose extra taxes, says the new President. You can hear the speech already.
If you want to argue that extra regulation or more taxes on banks and hedge funds are not the solution to any problems anyway, that's a fair enough point of view, but it would be nice to think the debate that leads into the policymaking is at least genuine.
Instead the impression left is that the candidates put on a show, paid for by the exactly the same bankers and corporations, then everyone carries on as before.
In theory, much of the funding is individual donations from bankers who just happen to work for the same company (Goldman Sachs folk are everywhere on the election disclosure forms).
In any case, even if the bankers aren't acting in concert, it's clear they've worked out a way to keep getting what they desire.
Wall Street would want from Obama the same as it always has - a free lunch, followed by a government stomachpump once it has finished overeating.
There is no reason to think that Obama is likely to take the fork away.
