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Apr. 24th, 2009 07:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hnpccConfessions of a Bailout Wife. Well at least she's hanging in there, unlike the ones who said "when I said for richer or poorer? I meant for richer" and left. Even so though, it certainly raises a couple of laughs when you get quotes like:
But because of a few tin-eared nitwits who failed to notice that their industry was under siege, the entire country now thinks that TARP bankers are greedy incompetents dedicated to ripping off taxpayers.
Honey? Your husband's one of those "tin-eared nitwits". Otherwise you would probably not be a "bailout wife".
Also:
We’ve picked up new habits, like making donations anonymously and sneaking in late to black-tie galas after society photographer Patrick McMullan has packed up his camera and gone home.
Diddums.
I have become oddly superstitious. On some level, I feel I’m being punished for too many thoughtless years of assuming that the trappings of success were earned and not given.
About 50:50 I'd say, skewing to either side depending on the person.
I’ve watched the skin under my husband’s eyes take on a yellowish hue, and his hair turn from gray to grayer, as he tries to lead his company through this mess. He’s up every night for hours at a stretch, and for the first time, he has health issues. For a person whose life has been punctuated mainly by success—from perennial class president and high-school sports star to Ivy League MBA—failure is the worst of all nightmares. He seems off balance, as though self-confidence were a physical ballast that he is slowly losing. It’s heartbreaking how often he apologizes to me for losing so much of our money, for making so many mistakes.
I feel for him. Failure sucks. And yet, they're probably in one of the best positions in the US to get through it. They're not talking about losing their home, being permanently unemployed, being unable to afford healthcare. They're talking about not going to the opening night at the Met, not taking the company plane, not being able to automatically assume they can send their daughter to post-graduate education. It's kind of a different scale.
Still, her reaction pales in comparision to some of those in The Rage of the Privileged Class As It Loses Its Privileges.
“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?” e-mails an irate Citigroup executive to a colleague.
No offense, hey? Try getting a plumber in the next couple of months. Also just because your parents could afford to send you to college does not automatically make you worthier, or more deserving of a higher income than someone who drives a truck[1]. Sheesh.
“I’m not giving to charity this year!” one hedge-fund analyst shouts into the phone, when I ask 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.’
Heh, now that's a dummy-spit I can relate to.
Bonuses were paid based largely on short-term profits. “It was the culture of what some called IBG-YBG: I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone,” says Jonathan Knee, a senior managing director at Evercore Partners. Wall Street championed the ethos of “Eat what you kill.” The most aggressive employees, those who took the greatest risks, thought of themselves less as members of a firm and more as independent contractors entitled to their share of the profits.
And... that could explain at least part of how we got here. Thanks for the ride, guys. It's been fun. Hey at least you got good money while it was going.
In a recent Atlantic article, Johnson describes Wall Street’s influence as a ruling oligarchy, not dissimilar to those of the crony capitalists that have controlled the levers of power in places like Russia, Argentina, and Indonesia. The solution, according to people like Paul Krugman, is to make banking regulated, less profitable, and “boring” again.
When the profits depend on screwing as many people as you can and then running out the door? I'm all for less profitable.
“You can’t live in New York and have kids and send them to school on $75,000,” he continues. “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.”
Hahahahahaha. And again, you're joking here aren't you? Because seriously? Lots of people do. OK, they're not forking out for the top private schools in order to get their kids networked from kindergarten, but they certainly manage to live and send their kids to school in New York. Just where, exactly, do you think your cleaners come from? And while I'm at it, how much were you paying the cleaners again?
Just months ago, the masses kept what anger they had to themselves, and the bankers were close-lipped about what they thought they were owed by society. There wasn’t much of a dialogue about the haves and have-nots and who was entitled to what. For the privileged, it was a lot more comfortable when things remained unspoken. Almost more than the loss of money, they are concerned with the loss of status and pride.
Yeah, it's always a bit confronting having someone pointing out that you're being overpaid.
It's going to be interesting to see how this all sorts itself out. I doubt very much that revolution - particularly in the quite literal early communist Russian sense, where the elite were turfed onto the streets out of their 3rd floor apartments so the poor could occupy them - is likely to happen. I doubt that most of these (still) highly paid and presumably reasonably bright individuals are likely to fall too far. But how far they do fall, and how much or little the gap between the top and bottom earners in the country ends up being could be very interesting. Particularly when apparently more equal societies do better. Australia is also not great with this, despite our egalitarian founder myths.
The richest fifth in the US, Britain and Australia have respectively 8.5, 7.2 and seven times more income than the poorest fifth, or double the inequality of Japan and Scandinavian countries.
Even affluent opponents of greater equality may rethink their position after reading the very negative impact of social divisions on social health — high stress and crime levels, underfunded public services, violence and widespread fear and communal distrust.
Especially if that communal distrust comes with pitchforks.
[1] When I was writing my thesis I considered getting a truck license and driving with Post for a while (I was tired and possibly clinically insane). Those guys earn bloody good money, what with the overtime and all.
But because of a few tin-eared nitwits who failed to notice that their industry was under siege, the entire country now thinks that TARP bankers are greedy incompetents dedicated to ripping off taxpayers.
Honey? Your husband's one of those "tin-eared nitwits". Otherwise you would probably not be a "bailout wife".
Also:
We’ve picked up new habits, like making donations anonymously and sneaking in late to black-tie galas after society photographer Patrick McMullan has packed up his camera and gone home.
Diddums.
I have become oddly superstitious. On some level, I feel I’m being punished for too many thoughtless years of assuming that the trappings of success were earned and not given.
About 50:50 I'd say, skewing to either side depending on the person.
I’ve watched the skin under my husband’s eyes take on a yellowish hue, and his hair turn from gray to grayer, as he tries to lead his company through this mess. He’s up every night for hours at a stretch, and for the first time, he has health issues. For a person whose life has been punctuated mainly by success—from perennial class president and high-school sports star to Ivy League MBA—failure is the worst of all nightmares. He seems off balance, as though self-confidence were a physical ballast that he is slowly losing. It’s heartbreaking how often he apologizes to me for losing so much of our money, for making so many mistakes.
I feel for him. Failure sucks. And yet, they're probably in one of the best positions in the US to get through it. They're not talking about losing their home, being permanently unemployed, being unable to afford healthcare. They're talking about not going to the opening night at the Met, not taking the company plane, not being able to automatically assume they can send their daughter to post-graduate education. It's kind of a different scale.
Still, her reaction pales in comparision to some of those in The Rage of the Privileged Class As It Loses Its Privileges.
“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?” e-mails an irate Citigroup executive to a colleague.
No offense, hey? Try getting a plumber in the next couple of months. Also just because your parents could afford to send you to college does not automatically make you worthier, or more deserving of a higher income than someone who drives a truck[1]. Sheesh.
“I’m not giving to charity this year!” one hedge-fund analyst shouts into the phone, when I ask 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.’
Heh, now that's a dummy-spit I can relate to.
Bonuses were paid based largely on short-term profits. “It was the culture of what some called IBG-YBG: I’ll be gone, you’ll be gone,” says Jonathan Knee, a senior managing director at Evercore Partners. Wall Street championed the ethos of “Eat what you kill.” The most aggressive employees, those who took the greatest risks, thought of themselves less as members of a firm and more as independent contractors entitled to their share of the profits.
And... that could explain at least part of how we got here. Thanks for the ride, guys. It's been fun. Hey at least you got good money while it was going.
In a recent Atlantic article, Johnson describes Wall Street’s influence as a ruling oligarchy, not dissimilar to those of the crony capitalists that have controlled the levers of power in places like Russia, Argentina, and Indonesia. The solution, according to people like Paul Krugman, is to make banking regulated, less profitable, and “boring” again.
When the profits depend on screwing as many people as you can and then running out the door? I'm all for less profitable.
“You can’t live in New York and have kids and send them to school on $75,000,” he continues. “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.”
Hahahahahaha. And again, you're joking here aren't you? Because seriously? Lots of people do. OK, they're not forking out for the top private schools in order to get their kids networked from kindergarten, but they certainly manage to live and send their kids to school in New York. Just where, exactly, do you think your cleaners come from? And while I'm at it, how much were you paying the cleaners again?
Just months ago, the masses kept what anger they had to themselves, and the bankers were close-lipped about what they thought they were owed by society. There wasn’t much of a dialogue about the haves and have-nots and who was entitled to what. For the privileged, it was a lot more comfortable when things remained unspoken. Almost more than the loss of money, they are concerned with the loss of status and pride.
Yeah, it's always a bit confronting having someone pointing out that you're being overpaid.
It's going to be interesting to see how this all sorts itself out. I doubt very much that revolution - particularly in the quite literal early communist Russian sense, where the elite were turfed onto the streets out of their 3rd floor apartments so the poor could occupy them - is likely to happen. I doubt that most of these (still) highly paid and presumably reasonably bright individuals are likely to fall too far. But how far they do fall, and how much or little the gap between the top and bottom earners in the country ends up being could be very interesting. Particularly when apparently more equal societies do better. Australia is also not great with this, despite our egalitarian founder myths.
The richest fifth in the US, Britain and Australia have respectively 8.5, 7.2 and seven times more income than the poorest fifth, or double the inequality of Japan and Scandinavian countries.
Even affluent opponents of greater equality may rethink their position after reading the very negative impact of social divisions on social health — high stress and crime levels, underfunded public services, violence and widespread fear and communal distrust.
Especially if that communal distrust comes with pitchforks.
[1] When I was writing my thesis I considered getting a truck license and driving with Post for a while (I was tired and possibly clinically insane). Those guys earn bloody good money, what with the overtime and all.
