The NY Times with yet another exclusive on the pains and hurt feelings of the super-rich pricks who brought us the current financial meltdown:
Over the last two years, Mr. Weill has watched Citi — a company he built brick by brick during the final act of a 50-year career — nearly fall apart. Although every taxpayer in the country has paid for Citi’s outsize mistakes, for Mr. Weill the bank’s myriad woes are a commentary on his life’s work.
***Mr. Weill built his wealth, status and power by creating what was once the world’s largest bank. Now, as Citi struggles to regain its footing, Mr. Weill’s legacy has taken on a darker hue. Though he was once viewed as a brilliant dealmaker, some critics now cast him as the architect of a shoddily constructed, unmanageable financial supermarket whose troubles have sideswiped investors, employees and average citizens nationwide.
***During a series of recent interviews, Mr. Weill spoke candidly about the loss, frustration and humiliation caused by Citi’s fall. “I feel incredibly sad,” he says. He remains baronially wealthy, but says he has endured financial pain, too: until a year ago, he says, the bulk of his investment portfolio was split equally between Citi stock and Treasuries.
Baronially wealthy means he still has more money than every reader of this website… combined. But he does feel sad and his legacy has a “darker hue,” so you have that.
I’m just kind of speechless. Up next, a NY Times exclusive on the luxuries Bernie Madoff misses most.
16shellsfromathirtyaughtsix
All this story was missing was a charity address at the end where I could send a check.
Mo's Bike Shop
I look forward to the tender stories about debutantes forced to become orphans because the mean Democrats wouldn’t extend the Estate Tax holiday.
beltane
Is the NYT intentionally trying to piss people off? Probably not. A good chunk of their readership is made up of Sandy Weill wannabees who will read this piece and nod their heads in sympathy.
And I love how they claim Weill built Citibank “brick by brick” as though he were a humble, trowel carrying member of the bricklayer’s union. The problem with all these bankers is that, unlike the robber barons of a century ago, they’ve never built anything. They did not build this country’s industrial infrastructure or anything else. They are deal-makers, not builders.
Terri
Between Brit Hume and Sandy Weill, I just feel like drinking today. A lot.
Punchy
It’s a fucking shame that his enormous financial downfall has caused him to scale back his ocean-ready yacht from 150 feet to only 148. God fuckin damn life is unfair sometimes.
beltane
@16shellsfromathirtyaughtsix: You’ve been sending Sandy Weill a check every day; you just don’t realize it.
The Grand Panjandrum
And, in other important news of the day, Glenn Reynolds now wants us to analyze Obama’s body language. I can’t imagine what he’s getting at here, can you?
Xanthippas
“Baronially wealthy”…what an odd adverb to use. But appropriate these days, when most of us are feeling more like serfs and less like recipients of the American dream.
scav
Could it actually be one of those paid advertisements lurking as news? It’s certainly in their theoretical best interests to appear as human as possible before those with torches and pitchforks arrive at the door. They’re probably also scheduling quick trips to plastic surgeons to have their eye sockets enlarged, counting on the fact that small babies and anime characters are cute and thus we won’t stomp on them once we break in.
EDIT. Yes, that is an invisible snark tag in there, but we would be irresponsible not to speculate.
BR
@beltane:
Reminds me of something I read yesterday about the dot-com bubble of 2000/2001 vs. the real estate / financial bubble of 2004-2008. The dot-com bubble created technology and infrastructure – it had a meaningful output. So even when the companies themselves went under, there were millions of fiber optic cables and new Internet software and so on as a result that could be tapped into.
The real estate bubble was about building housing in places like east Riverside county in California where nobody in their right mind would want to live, let alone pay $400,000 for a house. The financial bubble was a bunch of paper nonsense, nothing real.
I’m waiting for the next bubble to be something productive like building massive wind farms and solar arrays or high-speed rail.
Nicole
There’s a saying in acting- you get cast in the roles closest to who you really are.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
The British have their absurd royalty. We have our absurd corporate and banking royalty. The British royalty is largely harmless (although the social aspects of keeping them are disturbing).
However, our royalty is definitely not harmless. They are thieves, no better than the robbers in the Middle East who plunder the wealth of their own countries (the Shah of Iran, or Saddam Hussein, or the Saudi royals).
I’m a little amazed that our press continues to treat these people as a protected class. You’d think that in their zeal for readers and viewers, they’d be hammering the bankers and corporate big cheeses. The fact that they aren’t leads me to believe that those big cheeses have the media under corrupt control. What other explanation is plausible?
Mr Furious
At this point I seriously have to wonder what the motives are for running a story like that?
a. Are they catering to the last lingering “barons” reading the paper with a human-interest story?
b. OR are they trying to enrage the masses?
Whichever the motive, “b” is the result.
stevie314159
At least Sandy Weill put a LOT of his money into Cornell Medical College–New York Hospital–NY Presbyterian–Columbia Medical complex.
As someone whose close family member received excellent treatment at one of those facilities, I’ll save my outrage for other rich folk.
Mike G
Mr. Weill spoke candidly about the loss, frustration and humiliation caused by Citi’s fall. “I feel incredibly sad,” he says.
He’s sad because the tide came in and washed away his sandcastle ego monument. He doesn’t give a shit about the thousands of lives affected by his reckless games. He gambled, and we all lost.
The NYT runs lots of these travails-of-the-not-rich-enough stories.
Mike Kay
Laugh, but it’s not easy being a billionaire.
James E. Powell
some critics now cast him asreality now reveals him to be the architect of a shoddily constructed, unmanageable financial supermarket whose troubles have sideswiped investors, employees and average citizens nationwide.—–
The NYT and the WSJ are the tabloids of the corporate ruling class.
Jules
@The Grand Panjandrum:
No clue.
The President looks a bit tired.
Maybe Joe is just annoying him.
Glenn is a tool with too much time on his hands.
Tomlinson
No, this is a public service. You need to understand that being too tough on these guys threatens future growth!
Barry
This is a standard weekend-edition NYT article. Usually, it’s about the travails of the lower-upper classes[1], but I guess they decided to upgrade.
[1] How to live in NYC if you’re not a millionaire, where ‘not a millionaire’ means ‘ household earnings this year down to $900K due to hard times’.
Col. Klink
If there is one thing I’ve learned from watching Fox News all these years, it’s that no matter what he did nor how many little people he crushed along the way, he earned every penny of it.
JenJen
“Baronially wealthy.”
I don’t believe I’ve ever seen those words together in the NYT, but I get what that means. I just watched “Pride and Prejudice” last night, even.
aimai
Oh no! Sandy is sad, Sandy is so sad he has his sad face on! Can you help Sandy staunch his tears? Please send cash or cashier’s checks, only. kthanxbai.
aimai
eemom
In an impressive feat of highlighting its own clunking cluelessness, the NYT has this also:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/03/us/03foodstamps.html?partner=rss&emc=rss
Take note of the quote from the “welfare queens” Georgia republican, who evidently hasn’t extracted his head from his asshole since 1968.
We need a revolution. Like, now.
El Cruzado
Out of season, but relevant (and obligatory Onion link):
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/report_nation_s_wealthy_cruelly
(edit for couldn’t make link work).
Sharl
Following up on comments to the previous post, I tried to find the old post about Brit Hume in The Poor Man’s archived collection. I didn’t succeed – couldn’t figure out how to do specific text searching within the archive.org site, where old Poorman posts now reside. However, did find this great post from 2008, which might be appreciated by those who miss the Poorman’s Comix series. [Go to the third panel down – “Noggingdom”.]
kommrade reproductive vigor
Awww. Poor baby. I hope he doesn’t hang himself up by his bootstraps. (BTW, the front page, above the fold story story is about how a record number of people are reporting food stamps as their sole source of income.)
(Edit: Click on eemom’s link.)
beltane and Mr Furious are on to something. The NYT is going for that ANGRY MOBS BEAT MILLIONAIRES TO DEATH WITH TIRE IRONS headline.
Followed by nine zillion interviews with “experts” who bewail the sordid state of affairs call on Obama to outlaw poor people.
Polish the Guillotines
This is the kind of crap that makes me sometimes wish the system would have utterly collapsed. These ass-clowns were spared by the bailout so it’s nothing but a speed-bump in their race to die with the most megabucks.
Libby
I am really tired of NYT’s poor little rich folks series. Breaking my heart they have to cut back on the little luxuries that used to make their life worth living.
On a different note, in response to your tweet John Cole, it appears Brian Williams made a crack about sweatpants as related to Twitter. That was yesterday. Apparently it’s big news today because Howard Kurtz called him out about it on his fabulous bobblehead segment this morning, which I didn’t see either.
Expect there will be youtubes. Sadly, it kind of makes Williams point that people are so exercised about his stupid remark. Who the F cares what Brian Williams thinks — really? I mean, this is worthy of addressing on a new program?
arguingwithsignposts
The idiot speaks:
“comfortable.” Yeah, that’s it. Aaarrrgghhh, these people make me want to scream! Lower taxes. ack!
The “brick by brick” frame was a special bit of bullsh*t too.
WereBear
I think this is the part that frosts everyone; that millions of people were killed, maimed, or had their futures destroyed to make those who were already filthy rich… just more filthily rich.
Mike Kay
Now I know why he’s sad, His value of Citigroup has shrunk from $907 Million to $54 million.
He’s lost — get this – 94% of his stock value in the last two years!
According to wiki, he owns 16.5 million shares of Citi, which just two years ago, in late 2007, went for $55.10 a share. As of Friday, that same share only goes for a paltry $3.31.
Yes, he’s left with $54 million, which is nice, but hell, nearly a billion dollars went up in smoke.
Couldn’t happen to a nicer douche.
donovong
Speaking as someone who ha been “downsized” 5 times in 15 years and moved 7 times in order to get those jobs, and watched his industry sail away to China in the process, I would like to spend just a few minutes alone withthat asshole. I think I could correct his perspective just a bit.
Mo's Bike Shop
The least crappy method I’ve found is to search the other blogs that linked to a particular article from a defunct site. Then put the link into Archive.org.
Probably a way to add ‘Look up in Archive’ to my right click…
rikyrah
they’ve been doing ridiculous articles like this for awhile. they started with the merely nouveau riche, and worked their way UP. don’t ya know…we’re supposed to feel bad for him and his ilk.
best one still, though, was the ‘how am I supposed to SURVIVE on $500,000 in the NYC area?’
sloan
What kind of “financial pain” is Sandy Weill “enduring”?
The man will spend the rest of his life mingling with kings and presidents, cruising on yachts and Lear jets to private villas and 5-star resorts. And he’ll never know what any of it costs because it doesn’t matter – he can spend money however he wants until the day he dies.
It’s true that he’s less fabulously wealthy than he used to be, but wealth is an abstract concept when you have a 10 digit net worth. Is a man worth two billion twice as happy as a man worth a mere billion?
At some point greed is a mental illness.
Mike Kay
@sloan:
I don’t think so. see my answer at #32.
jenniebee
@eemom: thanks for that link. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised that the Republican response to this:
is not to acknowledge that our system is devolving to feudal serfdom (baronially wealthy, indeed), it’s to insist that the solution is… lower income taxes!
scav
@Mike Kay: yeah, keep thinking you’re going to convince us.
Tomlinson
@Mike Kay:
And the houses, the penthouse, the cars, the board positions, the consulting gigs, the speaking fees. Never mind whatever cash he’d squirreled away.
Cry me a fucking river.
Mike Kay
@scav:
I don’t know, I guess it’s me, but for this guy to lose almost all of his wealth seems like a fcuk yeah! moment.
Jrod
It sure is amazing that a generation of rising worker productivity combined with falling wages coincides with the rabble becoming shiftless and lazy. Obviously if they were harder workers, they’d have a well-paying job. Q.E.D.
latts
@JenJen:
An even more relevant choice would be the 1995 film of Persuasion with Amanda Root and Ciaran Hinds– in particular, check out Corin Redgrave’s vain, obtuse baronet in severe financial straits. Great cast, & more visual attention to class issues than most other Austen adaptations.
Austin Boot Camps
I remember reading an article written by the Associated Press, where one of the writers called various banks and asked about where the money they received from the government went. There almost unanimous answer was “we don’t have to tell you.” What is the world coming to?
Jake
an Austin Personal Trainer
Ailuridae
I have no love for Sandy Weill but that article doesn’t really get my goat compared to this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/08/nyregion/08trustafarians.html
sloan
@Mike Kay:
Hmmm … he may have to downgrade to mingling with princes and vice-presidents, cruising on rented yachts and leased Lear jets to the private villas and 5-star resorts.
After all, $54 million only goes so far. That is assuming that 100% of his net worth is invested in Citi stock and he’ll never earn another dime. I’m still willing to trade places with him and endure his pain – and I won’t even whine about it in the NYT!
Col. Klink
I wonder if he has problems making his health insurance payments?
jenniebee
@arguingwithsignposts: I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at that free market idiot. Every nation is three meals away from a revolution, and this guy wants – literally – to cut off the food in the name of ideological purity. It’s insane.
This is why free market capitalism can not, is antithetical to, is utterly unworkable as a stable economic system, because it accelerates the concentration of wealth while eliminating the obligations of the wealthy to those who create goods and services. It’s feudalism without noblesse oblige. It is an economy of pyramid schemes.
jenniebee
@latts: You pierce my soul.
The Pale Scot
Frack, citi has been a train wreck since the 70’s, their M.O. is to loan out at usurious rates to developing countries and extort money from uncle sam when the wogs (snark) default.
JGabriel
Ah yes, Sanny Weill’s legacy: the dismantling of Glass/Steagall through his proxy Robert Rubin. Who could have possibly foreseen that would take on a darker hue over time?
Oh yeah, that would be everyone (including me) who, at the time, said irresponsible DFH things like, “Getting rid of the last remaining vestiges of Depression era protections against capital concentration? You know, that might NOT be such a hot idea …”
.
WereBear
Citibank sure isn’t in it for the consumer banking. In the early ’80’s my first husband and I banked with them because of their ubiquitous ATMs and they were one of the first to have online banking. (At 300 baud.)
Yet they either had a helluva training school or they were using brain wave manipulators, because every single one of their personnel were the most obnoxious, psychotically indifferent, casually cruel people to deal with.
It took a screaming fit on my part to get some service as a recently widowed person, and even then they didn’t thaw and become human; they just sighed and actually provided service.
This led to my vow to never do business with them again. Not that they have noticed.
JGabriel
Mo’s Bike Shop:
I look forward to all the billionaires killed by their kids in the rush before the Estate Tax holiday ends.
.
gbear
@Mike Kay:
The helecopters are not billionaires.
BB
Yves from Naked Capitalism shredded this article today, too. She notices the ridiculous ending to the article:
JGabriel
Mr Furious:
Sulzberger thinks it’s a good human interest story, because immense failure and losing a shit-ton of other people’s money is something he can relate to.
.
latts
@jenniebee:
::swoon::
That and those wonderful little moments with the Crofts make it a great romance. And wrt the class issues, I also love (paraphrased) “no sir, I will not– I have an engagement with Mrs. Smith, who is not the only widow in Bath with little to live on and no name of distinction!” Heh.
JGabriel
Libby:
BriWi thinks?
Who knew?
.
ruemara
I felt an urge and went with it. Nothing like a little email excorication of serious douchebags.
@Mike Kay:
Seriously? You think that’s a sad? ….
Rheinhard
FIFY.
El Cid
This article reminds me of how we need to crack down on all those people sucking up food stamps as their only source of income, because, fuck, they’re not contributing to society, not being productive, like Shittybank is.
bemused
He has on the wall of his office a 4 ft wide piece of wood etched with his protrait & the words “Shatterer of Glass-Steagall”. Yeah, right he is incredibly sorry…for himself. If he was the least bit sorry for others, he’d be ashamed to have that thing still hanging on his wall.
Ruckus
@rikyrah:
At some point greed is a mental illness.
I believe Sandy is well and truly ill then. Totally and Absolutely. ill.
@Mike Kay:
As others have pointed out, he didn’t get paid only in stock. He got cash. Lots of cash. He owns treasuries, so we’ll be paying him for years. He is/was one of the major blood suckers of this modern economy, helping to remove billions of value, in both money and the overall economic value of the workforce, from the country and it’s citizens so he and his friends could have thousands of times more money and crap than anyone could ever need. He doesn’t deserve your pity or compassion.
Mister Colorful Analogy
@donovong:
This. Again and again, until they get the idea.
Sorry about how that sounds; I’m really a kind person, and generally abhor violence as a solution to anything. But, really, these rich assholes need to be introduced to a mob of starving people with clubs. Or pitchforks. Or guillotines. Pick your method; I’m results-oriented.
Please note, I know there are highly altruistic wealthy people, and I see no problem with exempting them from this process. Hell, I hate Bill Gates for what he did to the PC OS market for so long, but damn, he and his wife do a ridiculous amount of good in the world with their money. He’s strongly in favor of the estate tax, too. So, he and others (Warren Buffet comes to mind) like him get a club-free pass.
I wish I were kidding, but nothing is going to change until the wealthy remember that the FSM-damned social contract PROTECTS THEM, too. Forget about altruism; I won’t ask that of a crowd that seems to be overrepresented with sociopaths. I disagree with it morally, but I am pragmatic enough to accept a situation where they would still take most of the wealth, but would leave enough for healthcare, food, retirement, infrastructure, etc.. That would potentially enable us to stop royally fucking our economy with the race to the bottom mentality that seems to be prevalent in every business today (more $ in the hands of the masses, means more $ to buy goods built in this country…simplistic, but bear with me here). Unfortunately, with the media long-captured by wealthy interests as demonstrated by their willingness to publish propaganda like this article, and with the wealthy able to protect themselves from the outcome of their economy-fucking behavior, I honestly and truly believe that it’s going to take social upheaval with some heads rolling to get real change. Can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs amirite?
If we’re going to have capitalism, we need it to be regulated and operated for the good of the many, even if the few still get disproportionate rewards. Socialize public goods, regulate and tax to account for things like human and environmental costs, and leave the rest for capitalism. Done. Simple. I’m not being a concern troll here, I am serious. We’re never going to be a nation of altruistic people who are unwilling to see the less fortunate suffer. I accept this the way that I accept our nutty obsession with guns (topic for another time, but to stave off OT responses, I am fine with private gun ownership, but we need to regulate it uniformly across the country. oh, and we need more gun clubs with liberal members). There are bigger economic battles to fight, and that’s why I have to accept the negatives of capitalism. In the short to medium term, steering it toward a better outcome for the majority of people would do a lot of good.
But, I really think it’s going require bloody hands for it to happen. Wish that weren’t the case, but it is. And really, think about this for a minute: Thousands, or millions of people suffering vs. stringing up a few hundred of the worst offenders of unrestricted capitalism until the rest of them agree to share the world with the rest of us. Which is worse?
And that’s how a kind, non-violent person can write a comment like this one. End of rant, but not of the desire for change behind it.
MrCA
bemused
@Mister Colorful Analogy:
I think a more fitting & brutal punishment would be to have to live, for at least a year, with no job, no insurance, no home wondering where the next meal is coming from & no one to help them out.
valdivia
@Mister Colorful Analogy:
I will have a cigarette after reading that.
Mister Colorful Analogy
@bemused:
Actually, I love your suggestion, and would prefer it to mine. However, I think it’s less likely to happen. Violence, for all that it is horrible, is easier to implement. I don’t want the world to be like this, but it seems to be that way. Any idea how we can make your suggestion a reality?
Another thought: I would like to require every member of Congress to live their first year in office with the bare minimum to survive. It wouldn’t have to be punitive, necessarily, just enough to give them perspective. I mean, they’re supposed to be public servants, aren’t they?
Note, while I abhor the way Congress can be bought, I am less angry with them relatively speaking, because we the people still elect them. We can therefore choose to elect someone else. I can’t choose to remove REFs (Rich Economy-Fuckers) from their positions, though.
MrCA
Ruckus
@Mister Colorful Analogy:
This seems to be a common theme that lays just below (and sometimes just above) the surface these days.
Have enough of us reached the limit to how much fucking we will take? I don’t know and given the goodies that law enforcement now has at it’s disposal, it would probably be very costly to find out, but it is an attitude that the powers in charge should be considering. The teabaggers may not know why they are angry, but they are. We liberals seem to know why we are but seem to have a somewhat forgiving nature. How long will that last? Mobs may have ideology, mob anger doesn’t, it only has destruction.
Will the anger destroy us as a nation? I think it can and maybe will, unless positive change happens.
Mister Colorful Analogy
@Ruckus:
Beautifully said. Could not agree more.
scav
@Mike Kay: and the pain of a hypochondriac should direct the entire research agenda of medicine. It’s the last pint of blood you have to lose that matters, we just give you cookies for the first.
and the point it, yeah, it’s mostly just you.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@arguingwithsignposts: Fine, we’ll try a little experiment in Georgia. Cut taxes on small businesses to zero; cut food stamps to make up for the lost revenue.
And post Mr. Glibertarian’s home address, phone number and license plate on every light pole in the state.
Tomlinson
@bemused:
First they ought to bring back The Stocks.
JenJen
@latts:
Funny you should mention that, because after thoroughly enjoying the 2007 “Pride and Prejudice” last night, I started adding Austen adaptations to my Netflix queue, and, lo and behold, “Persuasion” is available for instant streaming! Will watch it for certain on your suggestion. Thanks!
eemom
@Mister Colorful Analogy:
“There is a way, when the rich are too rich.” Pearl S. Buck, The Good Earth.
One of my favorite books evah, about a family in pre-revolutionary China.
I agree with you.
KS
What I think I’m hearing is that he’s still ridiculously rich, but his ego and feelings are hurt, whereas my 401k is worth 36% what it was two years ago.
Please, let me feel bad for him. I feel selfish for thinking about my money, investments, retirement, and ability to put food on the fucking table while this man has an ego boo boo that needs a hug.
Mike G
Notice the distancing: “it’s done…it’s hurt”.
Most CEOs are absolute tools, clueless corporate politicians distinguished only by their aggression and lack of any restraining ethical sense. When things go well they hog the credit. When they inevitably implode due to short-sighted corner-cutting and reckless risk taking like now, they stand at a distance and tut-tut as if they were watching an earthquake they had nothing to do with and couldn’t possibly have foreseen.
Weill can jam that 4ft piece of Glass-Steagall wood up his ass. Or better still, a 4ft piece of actual glass.
JGabriel
Mister Colorful Analogy:
Well, actually, you can. But the murder charges are a bitch.
.
Mister Colorful Analogy
@JGabriel:
Heh. This made me snort. Good one!
Comrade Kevin
I think this Monty Python bit seems appropriate here.
Sanka
Meanwhile, on the FRONT PAGE of the same Sunday Times….ABOVE the fold even…is a story with this headline:
Yeah. The “media” sucks….
mandarama
@JenJen:
Oh, you will love it. It’s my favorite JA movie / novel. So many interesting observations on social changes, with the Navy / Napoleonic wars offering class mobility and the titled gentry living on debt. Plus Anne Elliot is full of awesome, with her crazy bitchy sisters and preening dad.
bago
Actually, I think it is entirely appropriate that this guy lost 95% of his wealth from investing in his own company. It’s a model that all CEOs should embrace. Their wealth should be tied to the long term future of their company. He lost money, status, and should be mocked for his bad judgement. Sure, 54 million is a decent chunk of change, but he will be forever known as the idiot that lost billions of dollars, just like Thomas Friedman… Oh, wait.
bago
@Sanka: I’m actually agreeing with you here. That was a clever bit of subterfuge. It’s just a pity that the majority of people won’t pick up on it, if the whole “The system worked” kerfluffle is any indicator.
Amanda
Yeah, I’m wiping the tears from my visage over the fluctuations in Citi CEO guy’s massive investment portfolio…gaaaah
On a brighter note, I just finally watched this and if you’ve not yet, do yourself the favor — it’s a thing of beauty…Jon Stewart’s speech honoring Bruce Springsteen @ the recent Kennedy Center Awards:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VsAGhlyEkA&feature=player_embedded
latts
@JenJen:
It’s great– very subtle & quiet, but finely detailed. Austen actually wrote two endings & both are used, with the weaker one creating a point of dramatic conflict instead of a resolution.
@mandarama:
It’s my favorite adaptation, but maybe not as much my favorite novel. Pride and Prejudice has more sparkle & wit, while Emma has a stronger character arc IMO.
PS JenJen: you may want to do some research before picking a film adaptation of Emma; I’ve always kinda wished I could piece together a stronger version from the various films. Like all film adaptations (excepting the 90s P&P miniseries), a fair amount is lost in the process.
fraught
I worked as a waiter in a swanky NY steak house about 20 years ago. About twice a week I served Sandy Weill and his select group of freeloaders and his wife.
He was the worst tipper who ever came into the place. Charming as anything, my BFF everytime he saw me. But he never tipped more than 8%, never tipped on wine and I really felt I was engaged in enforced servitude every time he left even as he was shaking my hand.
bob h
One thing Weill does not mention is the human cost of building that ultimately shaky enterprise. Takeovers and mergers with enormous numbers of layoffs and ruined careers were how it was done.
kay
@BB:
Good catch. “Look what it’s done!”
He’s not in that sentence, is he? What is he talking about, anyway? The bank? His bank dashed his dreams?
When they talk about the “corporate form” so reverently they aren’t kidding. These things operate independently of management, apparently. Running around the room, busting things up, while managers stand helplessly by, like inept and overly indulgent parents.
IndieTarheel
Only thing missing from that article was the name of the sled he had as a kid.
ThatLeftTurnInABQ
Gosh, I always thought we built this Citi on rock-and-roll. Boy was I wrong.