“See It, Make It, Spend It”
Thomas Frank, in yesterday’s edition of the Wall Street Journal:
The announcement last week that Trader Monthly magazine was ceasing publication was one of those moments when a chance arrow of history scores a perfect bull’s eye on a deserving target. The current recession, brought on at least in part by Wall Street’s bonus lust, has claimed countless innocent victims. But in this case it has finally delivered a comeuppance to our era’s loudest, gaudiest, cockiest champion of Wall Street excess….
[I]f you were one of the lucky ones, Trader Monthly — “See It, Make It, Spend It,” was its slogan — stood ready to help you figure out how to blow your share properly, conspicuously, flamboyantly.
Oh, there were cars: Lamborghinis, Bentleys, Ferraris, Maseratis, sometimes described in the magazine’s characteristic tone of flippant indulgence. There were airplanes, reviewed and rated in a column specifically dedicated to that purpose….
[O]ne does not get the sense that [the magazine's] trader readers aspired to live this way because they were jolly bon vivants. Quite the opposite. At one point in its intermittent pursuit of the best possible record player, for example, Trader Monthly described what it claimed to be a $300,000 turntable as “a huge middle finger to everyone who enters your home.”
Read the whole thing here.
I wonder if he still believes this: “There’s class warfare, all right, but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.” Warren Buffett
Sooner or later, even traders have to face this: “Crescit avaritia quantum crescit tua gaza” Your greed increases as much as your bank account does.
Ranting on the rules and regulations is an exercise in teaching selective deafness in the flock. We need more horse whisperers and fewer cowboys.
And to quote from someone who might be familiar to some of you: “People’s true character is revealed at the moments when they have untrammeled power–not when they’re hemmed in by political expediency.” Cathleen Kaveny
I’m not sure what you’re getting at with the Kaveny quote, Jimmy. I hope you’re not conscripting her as a proponent of deregulation. I doubt she’s willing to be conscripted.
Good rules and regulations don’t hinder virtue; they promote it. To borrow a line from someone you may be familiar with (Dorothy Day): A just society is one in which it does not require heroic virtue to follow the precepts of the Church. Similarly, a well-ordered, well-regulated financial industry is one in which refusing to help inflate a bubble doesn’t mean professional suicide.
You can get a perfectly good turntable for $15,000. I don’t understand why anyone would pay $300,000. You could take the $285,000 you saved and hire someone at $30,000 a year for over 9 years to give the middle finger to your guests.
“The root of all evil.” Remember that one. This comes up every decade. Years ago there was the cartoon with a young thirtiish male sitting on a Rolls with the caption: “Poverty Sucks.” At least that was funny. These guys are lamentable.
Money is not only an illusion and transitory. It is the road to deception and smallness. Very few can handle it well.
I would not presume to speak for CK. I just quoted what I thought was a very relevant quote of hers.
The operative word in the statement on rules and regulations was “ranting.” R&R in and of themselves do nothing. Rather how they are applied is what is important, i.e., by horse whispers rather than cowboys.