Is Wall Street truly a secretive, evil machine, designed to suck the public savings with lack of transparency and other shady methods?
If your goal is to make money trading the markets, then Wall Street is an evil machine ONLY for those traders that constantly look for someone to blame for their losses, their lack of success, their mistakes and their lack of emotional balance. In reality, Wall Street is extremely transparent if you know where to look. (Hint: price & volume, supply & demand.)
Take a look at Google. On July 17, following a downtrend of a few months, Wall Street was extremely transparent. The chart told anyone that took the time to observe the daily chart that someone big is buying the stock. No, you did not receive the name of the buyer or their phone number, but you got a huge transparent message for the next three days: massive accumulation by a large buyer, and a downtrend-line break in a company you use everyday. What more can you ask for?