It's Business as Usual Again for Wall Street's Casino Capitalists

[Better Believe It]

One Year after Lehman
It's Business as Usual Again for Wall Street's Casino Capitalists
By SPIEGEL Staff
September 18, 2009

One year after the bankruptcy of US investment bank Lehman Brothers, governments are divided over what lessons should be learned from the crisis. But the more the economy recovers, the less desire there is to implement radical reforms -- and many bankers have already returned to their old casino capitalism ways.

At a recent event called "Fashion meets Finance" -- an opportunity for beautiful fashion models to meet wealthy bankers -- there was a long line at the door of the Nikki Beach club in midtown Manhattan. According to the invitation, the post-crisis panic had led -- horror of horrors -- to "a two-year blip in the system where a hot fashion girl might commit to a pharmaceutical salesman." But fortunately, the invitation continued, those days are gone, and "women of fashion" can take solace in the fact that "it will only be a couple more years until you can quit your job and become a tennis mom."

Former Lehman banker Lawrence McDonald is already looking forward to the annual get-together with his former coworkers -- and to telling them about his proposal for reform, of which he is proud.

He believes that there should be more bonus payments, not fewer. "You have to pay the people in the government regulatory agencies some incentives too," he says, "so that good people take those jobs."

Until now, says McDonald, most of the government's watchdogs have been making only a little more than about $100,000 a year. "We used to laugh about this in the trading room," he says. "These people have to deal with some bankers making $5 million a year."

McDonald smiles at his own observation. His world is back in gear. Wall Street is big on forgetting.

THE PARTY CONTINUES ON WALL STREET


Please read the complete article at:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/business/0,1518,649430,00.html