With the possible exception of Paul Krugman, there is no one with an establishment media gig who is more shrill than Felix Salmon. This New York magazine tells us what we probably already knew, that happy days are here again for banksters:
Scaramucci is the kind of person who will happily spend real money to have SkyBridge Capital show up in Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps as the fictional sponsor of a fictional charity ball at the Metropolitan Museum.He was also the guest of honor at a (real) $1,500-a-head charity gala at Cipriani 42nd Street in March, at which he was awarded the Hedge Funds Care Award for Caring.
[….]Meanwhile, in the real world, the one devastated by Wall Street’s disastrous financial miscalculations, paranoia is on the rise, with rage at the blithe technocrats in charge of the country making the tea party the most powerful voice in Republican politics. The unemployment rate is still near 9 percent, home prices continue to drop, and the number of people out of work for over a year are near an all-time high.
The bankers know these numbers, but they don’t feel them; instead, they trade them. First Friday of the month, the new unemployment figures will be coming out. Is it up, or is it down? Call it right, and you could make millions. And deserve every penny.
But they care, even as they hunt they hunt the American middle-class to extinction, they’ll be giving to foundations that improve education by eradicating public schools!
I don’t hate or even dislike rich people. I have rich banker friends and I don’t begrudge them their wealth at all; they vote Democrat, mostly without bitching about taxes. It’s not fair, I’m sure, to paint everyone with the same brush here. The problem is probably systemic: it’s a grave mistake to have our society run by people who can make a fortune betting on other people’s misery.