A week or so ago, we read in the New York Times about what in the Gilded Age of the Roman Empire was known as a bacchanal -- a big blowout at which the imperial swells got together and whooped it up.
This one occurred here in Manhattan at the annual black-tie dinner and induction ceremony for Kappa Beta Phi. That's the very exclusive Wall Street fraternity of billionaire bankers and private equity and hedge fund predators. People like Wilbur Ross, the vulture capitalist; Robert Benmosche, the CEO of AIG, the insurance giant that received tens of billions in bailout money; and Alan "Ace" Greenberg, former chairman of Bear Stearns, the failed investment bank bought by JPMorgan Chase.
They got together at the St. Regis Hotel off Fifth Avenue to eat rack of lamb, drink and haze their newest members, who are made to dress in drag, sing and perform skits while braving the insults, wine-soaked napkins and petit fours -- those fancy little frosted cakes -- hurled at them by the old guard. In other words, a gilt-edged Animal House, food fight and all.
This year, the butt of many a joke were the protesters of Occupy Wall Street. In one of the sketches, the bond specialist James Lebenthal scolded a demonstrator with a face tattoo, "Go home, wash that off your face and get back to work." And in another, a member -- dressed like a protester -- was told, "You're pathetic, you liberal. You need a bath!"
Pretty hilarious stuff. The whole affair's reminiscent of the wingdings the robber barons used to throw during America's own Gilded Age a century and a half ago, when great wealth amassed at the top, far from the squalor and misery of working stiffs. Guests would arrive in the glittering mansions for costume balls that rivaled Versailles, reinforcing the sense of superiority and the virtue of a ruling class that depended on the toil and sweat of working people.
That's consistent with the attitude expressed by several of these types after Occupy Wall Street sprung up; bankers told the Times on the record that they could understand the anger of the protesters camped on their doorstep; but privately, a hedge manager said, "Most... view [it] as ragtag group looking for sex, drugs, and rock 'n' roll."
So sayeth the winners in our winner-take all economy. The very guys who were celebrating at the St. Regis because they were too big to fail. Even when they fell flat on their faces, the government was there to dust them off, bail them out and send them back to fight the class war with nary a harsh word or punishment. Talk about a nanny welfare state.
None of this was by accident. The last three decades have witnessed a carefully calculated heist worthy of Robert Redford and Paul Newman in The Sting -- but on a massive scale. It was an inside job, politically engineered by Wall Street and Washington working hand-in-hand, sticky fingers with sticky fingers, to turn the legend of Robin Hood on its head -- giving to the rich and taking from everybody else. Don't take our word for it -- it's all on the record.
The biggest of the big boys was Citigroup, at one time the world's largest financial institution. When the meltdown hit in 2008, the bank cut more than 50,000 jobs and you and other taxpayers shelled out more than $45 billion to save it. And how are Citigroup executives doing? Nicely, thank you. Last year, its CEO, Vikram Pandit, took home $1.75 million in base salary, and was awarded $3.7 million in deferred stock.
According to the Times, "Citigroup is expected to disclose the rest of his pay, cash, be it upfront or deferred, in March. In addition, while not necessarily for work performed in 2011, Mr. Pandit last year was awarded a $16.7 million retention bonus, plus stock options that could add $6.5 million to the package's overall value." Makes you want to cry out, "Retain me! Retain me!"
To be fair, Vikram Pandit was at the World Economic Summit in Davos, Switzerland last week, where he told Bloomberg News, "It's important for the financial system to acknowledge that there's a great deal of anger directed at it... Trust has been broken. Banks have to serve clients, not serve themselves." What's more, he has said that the "sentiments" expressed by Occupy Wall Street demonstrators were "completely understandable."
This, in contrast to the financial industry official who told a reporter that the protesters' issues were "a lot of sound and fury, signifying nothing." Or, as they used to say while partying down at the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, let them eat petits fours.
See more at BillMoyers.com, including his most recent full show on how big banks are rewriting the rules to our economy, featuring a candid interview with former Citigroup CEO John Reed.
Follow Bill Moyers on Twitter: www.twitter.com/BillMoyers
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in 1989 2000 banks and S&L's were bailed out
with 160 billion in taxpayer $. That was Bush Sr
recovering from 8 years of Republicans and Reagan.
Texas received almost half of the national bailout $
which was 50 + billion. Now in 2008 after 8 years
of Bush Citibank gets 50 billion all by itself as part
of the Cheney Bush TARP with trillions more flying
out the window in interest free loans by the Federal
Reserve. When confronted with the above you hear
nonsense like "what about Soros, Clinton, Taft Hartley,
minority subprime loans, Fran & Fred, Barney Frank, etc.
The bank CEO's all knew they would be bailed out b4 2008.
They could not lose. They knew the world economy depended
on it and maybe hundreds of millions of more Jobs besides
the ones that dissappeared during the Bush financial meltdown.
It happened during the last 2 Republican administrations
and now they want to call Obama a socialist. If by some disaster
McCain Palan had been elected I wonder how they would handle
potential 13% official unemployment? (Which was why they were
nominated to lose but not by record numbers.)
I prefer the French Revolution model. Liberte, egalite, fraternite! Aaaand off with their heads!
As for Citigroup I wider if you would like to mention that former Clinton buddy Robert Ruben pushed for the banking modernization bill, then became Citi CEO and left with over 100 million!! Probably not, you blame everything on Bush and the republicans.
Sad.
It was clear that Rubin was receiving his payoff for having engineered the repeal of Glass-Steagal which was interfering with the merger between CitiBank and Traveler's insurance.
Rubin got the law repealed and opened the door to the financial casino-style gambling with the public's money, while the public thought that their savings and investments were safe.
As far as blaming Bush, both Democrats and Republicans are to bame, though Republicans take their endorsement of Wall Street to an extreme. Even though they are more profitable, and banks are bigger than ever before under Obama, Wall Street is backing Romney whom they know will never hinder their requests for changing more laws that constrain their robbing of the middle and lower classes of what little wealth they have.
They know full well that Mitt Romney is one of them, and an ally like they have never had before.
Forget the rhetoric of the parties, if you want to change America then do so outside of the Republican and Democratic Parties as they are champions of the status quo.
"Those that forget History are doomed to repeat it"
Wiser words were never spoken , for the History seems to repeat itself over, and over, again. It all starts with too much power that in time turns into an arrogant sense of entitlement , and that inevitably ends in ever increasing injustices perpetrated, with a horrible backlash against the powerful as the grand finale .
Unfortunately for these Wall Street Sharks .... They are to busy making money, and partying at the expense of the less fortunate to read a History book .
I suggest the Fall of the Roman Empire, the Bolshevik Revolution, and the American Gilded Age for starters if they ever get around to see what's the end result of their excessive in your face greed.
people are pissed, but they canty always articulate what they are mad about or whom.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2011/07/the-chart-that-should-accompany-all-discussions-of-the-debt-ceiling/242484/
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2008/10/14/opinion/20081014_OPCHART.html
Note in 1980 Wallstreet was around 5% of our economy(faiur for a middleman, that mkaes nothing), today Finance and insurance is over 40%.... No business or cpountry can survive a middleman overhead that high. IN 1980 Industry was 40% , now just 5%.
This is an upset down economy, with what s/b the tail, now wagging the dog and why we have jobless recoveriies, since we make nothing we buy and the jobs go to producer countries at it should and enegineering and high tech always move to where the MFG is done!
Regards
President Dwight D. Eisenhower, November 8, 1954
Only a fool would try to deprive working men and working women of their right to join the union of their choice.”
-- Dwight D. Eisenhower¬ 1953