Cops Shot Far Rockaway Teen 11 Times
Video: New School Students, Comrades Toss Trash Pre-Arrest
Turkey Cruelty Ad Nixed By NBC
Would You Be Comfortable Locked On A Train With A Murderer?
Schumer: "Real Momentum" For Health Care Reform Now
It's not fair! For years and years the financial industry helped everybody live beyond their means, asking relatively little in return, and now that everything's gone sideways there's a big mob gathered with pitchforks and torches demanding taxes on the rich, and salary caps, and heads on sticks. Did you ever for one second think about how hard all this must be on the bankers? Well, this week NY Mag's Gabriel Sherman lends a sympathetic ear to some of Wall Street's fallen titans, many of whom were more than willing to (anonymously) take a ride on the whaaambulance. Here are some of the greatest hits:
- "I’m not giving to charity this year!" declares a hedge-fund analyst when asked about Obama’s planned tax increases. "When people ask me for money, I tell them, ‘If you want me to give you money, send a letter to my senator asking for my taxes to be lowered.’ I feel so much less generous right now. If I have to adopt twenty poor families, I want a thank-you note and an update on their lives. At least Sally Struthers gives you an update."
- In an e-mail, one "irate Citigroup executive" vents to a colleague: "No offense to Middle America, but if someone went to Columbia or Wharton, [even if] their company is a fumbling, mismanaged bank, why should they all of a sudden be paid the same as the guy down the block who delivers restaurant supplies for Sysco out of a huge, shiny truck?"
- A former Bear Stearns senior managing director whines, "We’re in a hypercapitalistic society. No one complains when Julia Roberts pulls down $25 million per movie or A-Rod has a $300 million guarantee. We have ex-presidents who cash in on their presidencies. Our whole moral compass has shifted about what’s acceptable or not acceptable. Honestly, you can pick on Wall Street all you want, I don’t think it’s fair."
- Nicholas Cacciola, a 44-year-old executive at a financial-services firm, whimpers, "If you really take a look at what Obama is promising, it’s frightening. He’s punishing you for doing better. He doesn’t want to have any wealth creation—it’s wealth distribution. Why are you being punished for making a lot of money? You can’t live in New York and have kids and send them to school on $75,000. And you have the Obama administration suggesting that. That was a very populist thing that Obama said. He’s being disingenuous. He knows that you can’t live in New York on $75,000."
- And one former JPMorgan VP complains that, "You wear a nice suit on the subway, and people look at you," while a mortgage-investment banker implores, "Suddenly, the simple fact I work on Wall Street means that I’m a bad person? You know, I lost my job. I’m more of a victim."
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
Right, because people who lost their Wall Street jobs don't deserve any sympathy. After all, every single one of them was in on the conspiracy to crash our economy by buying securitized sub prime loans. Why don't we just burn them all at the stake?
Huhhhhhh??
The point is that the folks who made these comments are clueless, entitled assholes, not that people who lost wall street jobs universally deserve hard times.
Weird -- that wasn't the comment I was replying to!
Part of me feels they should be grateful over the lack of actual murders. Its unfair to demonize, but less deserving people have suffered worse.
This is a pretty legitimate claim, though I know everyone will laugh at me.
But private charity is what we Libertarians believe in. Public charity sucks because it taxes unfairly and is filled with corruption and red tape.
A dependency on government is what Democrats preach, though they claim they also believe in self-responsibility. Some people just need a push, they claim. Well fine---create your absurd social programs that do jack schit and create more poverty and are funded by the middle class.
But when we don't give to private charity because our savings are washed out due to inflation and taxation, don't claim that we're greedy. Americans are altruistic; look at the money we gave to tsunami victims, 9/11, and Katrina. We love to help our fellow humans in need, and love when we know it's going toward a Red Cross or Salvation Army. What sucks is when the inefficient FEMA shows up and fucks things up worse and does so with higher costs.
The public charity v. private charity debate riles me up more than anything, and it bothers me to see the poor and minorities on TV rallying against the rich for more help. It's short sighted and illogical, but since our public education system is an out of control cash furnace, it doesn't surprise me to see these class warfare, illogical pleas.
Hey John - I understand you like to put a little personal spin on things, but seriously come on. Try to at least have a shred of objectivity. You're approaching the ridiculousness of Fox News, and being on the other side doesn't excuse anything.
They systematically lobbied to be deregulated and became too big to fail, again. Their companies weren't 'fumbling', they failed so spectacularly that they threatened to bring down the entire economy. They massively increased the national debt to save their sorry asses and had the balls to take bonuses from the bailout.
On a consumer credit level, they practice usury.
Fuck them all...more of them should have followed Bear-Stearns.
Doesn't setting a Federal Funds rate at 50 basis points to stave off a natural recession post 9/11 threaten to create malinvestments moreso than deregulation?
Too...many...big words. Need...to look at hipster grifter's boobs to stabilize brain.
I would claim that both did.
Wouldn't you agree that the easy money was the catalyst, and it was inevitable that a recession would occur? The fraud and deception that came with it was also inevitable, no?
My point is all the regulation in the world will never stop a human being from being greedy or trying to work the system. You could put armed guards on the trading floors and conference rooms of Goldman, AIG, or whomever and have them shoot at will, and people will still try to work the system.
The best way to limit the malinvestments and accompanying frauds is by having honest, sound money, right?
Greed is natural, but firewalls between 'safe' banking and risky investments were put in place, served their purpose fairly well for a few decades, and were torn down.
If the market were truly free, the fed would not exist as it does and the banks would be allowed to fail as they should.
As it stands, the investment lobby is in bed with government, which is bad for the taxpayers as stakeholders and the shareholders of the companies involved. The top brass will do fine however, and the incumbents will somehow stay in office.
This claim is made a lot, but I would like to know which firewalls Bush tore down that facilitated this.
Agree with you on this. JP Morgan and the Fed started this, and Bush and Obama have only strengthened the facism.
OP didn't claim Bush tore down any walls.
It was Clinton, in one of his last moves, signing the Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act.
I'm seeing more Goldman people in govt lately than JPM.
And yes, it was Clinton and Gramm who undid Glass-Steagall (helped by Biden, Kerry, and Edwards, among others).
"... you can’t live in New York on $75,000."
Which arrogant Sh## said that ?
That's a lot of money a year. For a single guy, You can rent a room, have a bicycle, eat good food. I am not certain about health insurance. But $75,000 a year is a lot of money.
Forget about treating friends to a meal, forget about going to expensive restaurants. $75,000 a year ? You can buy a few Iphones, ride a cab, go on a cruise.
If you were married on $75,000, it is difficult to have kids and send them to private school. Forget that.
You can still manage. A lot of not so rich families do it in Corona Queens. Why can't you ? Idiot.
Just because there are entire neighborhoods full of shitty parents does not mean that you should become one.
Just because there are entire neighborhoods full of shitty parents does not mean that you should become one.
Wow. Keep it up guys and there will be more pitchforks with sharper points.
The Class War has always existed and we will be seeing more and more Class War "flareups".
What makes this damning?
The person who went to Wharton has the skill set to look at financial models and do some math if they work on the bond desk. Oh, they can also move restaurant supplies because the skill set requires nothing more than the ability to carry 50 pounds, probably.
This class warfare stuff is so stupid. It's simple economics. Why are baseball players paid so much? Because only 1000 or so in the world can hit 87 mph sliders and the demand for it is high. Why aren't Sysco delivery guys paid well (though they probably are because of unions)? Because there are 100,000,000 in this country who can drive and push a dolly.
It's not a knock against anyone's personality or their character. But you gotta call a spade a spade.
It's not "damning," it's wrong.
The amount of money one makes is not directly affected by the the quality of education one has. You get exactly how much the job market will pay you for the services you provide. If a company full of Ivy League graduates managed to loose a lot of money, guess what? there's no money to be paid!
There are many factors that make it damning, imo.
1. The completely unnecessary put-down of Middle America.
2. The idea that your education, or rather, the name of your school, should determine your pay.
3. The idea that despite your bank being "fumbling and mismanaged", you should not get any cut in pay.
4. The idea that despite your Columbia or Wharton education, you couldn't identify that your bank was "fumbling and mismanaged" nor could your presumably-Columbia- or Wharton-educated managers properly manage the bank in the first place.
5. The whole argument is a strawman to begin with and is a very poor argument for someone who presumably has graduated from Columbia or Wharton.
6. Shit happens. It's happened to countless industries and people over the years, and now it's come to Wall Street (which has received how many billions in bailouts?). Quit whining.
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6 really don't address my reply to the original comment. The guy who sent the email is lamenting the cries that he should make $50,000 now. It's these please which are annoying and show how the public wants blood and more government in the markets.
Aside, middle America grew too big with this bubble and many have also fumbled the ball with their finances.
I haven't heard cries that he should make $50,000 now, hence my #5.
Hear, Hear! on everything except #1. I hate Middle America too.
keep whining, thankfully I did my part when I lost my job in 2002. I stocked up on Pb and they may have your name on them. when people have nothing to lose, people get desperate.
My favorite reader comment on the New York Mag website:
"Wall Street is enraged, well dahlins as a child of the 70's let me tell you what's really going to piss you off. If this recession continues and the grafitti comes back and the middle class start becoming homeless, well then I hope you are smart enough to turn your 5 carat diamond around when that guy with the boxcutter starts approaching you."
Of course, if the "Graffiti came back" people like Jake Dobkin and his ilk would be quite happy.
this is quite possibly the worst "journalistic" piece i have ever read. you have clearly made yourself sound like some loser that knows nothing about finance but yet loves to fan the populist flame. yet...you work for a privately owned, small business website (how truly capitalistic). you hypocrytical schmuck
The reason for the financial crisis in a nutshell.
James Kunstler has an interesting post today.
http://www.kunstler.com/mags_diary25.html
"This is a pretty legitimate claim, though I know everyone will laugh at me.
But private charity is what we Libertarians believe in. Public charity sucks because it taxes unfairly and is filled with corruption and red tape."
Well, Middle America is only following your Libertarian ideals -- public charity, i.e. the bailout to Wall Street is at the root of the anger. It's a little galling to have to be taxed at least $3000 per citizen to preserve the profits of a highly paid group of people whose risky behavior (as a whole) caused this mess.
As Libertarians, Wall Street should be shocked and offended by the bailout and demand that the government stop the out of control spending on people who should manage their finances better. Oh wait, you mean those other people who only messed up their personal finances, rather than those who jacked up the worldwide economy.
My bad.
Screw all of you that are jumping on the wall street hating wagon. First of all, if you are gawking that someone thinks that you can't live in new york for less than $75k, you need to put down your pbr and go get a real job, like your parents have. It's true, you can "live" here but if you have kids on that salary then you are just being irresponsible.
Second,these are not the people who took out the 105% mortgages, they are just the ones that figured out how to make it happen because you wanted it so damn badly.
You sound like a bunch of tribal villagers living in dung huts killing the doctor because he can't save all of you from malaria.
$75k!! are you kidding me? give me $75k a year and i'll show you how to live on that with ease!!
Better yet. Why don't you earn $75k a year and show us how to live on that with ease?
Bravo!
Oh wait...That Bravo was @ kcmnyc...As for you, GREGORYABUTLER, if by "learn some life lessons from the real world" you mean the real world lessons they learned in how to make something out of themselves, I must insist that it is you who must learn from them. If, however, you are referring to some working class delusion that being poor and scrabbling to subsist is somehow honorable or makes you more relevant, then I must point out that you are an idiot.
Hey, I've lived in this city my whole life - and I've never made more than $ 42,000!!!
Maybe I can give these wall street megadouchebags some life lessons from the real world!