In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated

[Kadie]

In Private, Wall St. Bankers Dismiss Protesters as Unsophisticated
By NELSON D. SCHWARTZ and ERIC DASH
Published: October 14, 2011

Publicly, bankers say they understand the anger at Wall Street — but believe they are misunderstood by the protesters camped on their doorstep.

But when they speak privately, it is often a different story.

“Most people view it as a ragtag group looking for sex, drugs and rock ’n’ roll,” said one top hedge fund manager.

“It’s not a middle-class uprising,” adds another veteran bank executive. “It’s fringe groups. It’s people who have the time to do this.”

As the Occupy Wall Street demonstrations have grown and spread to other cities, an open question is: Do the bankers get it? Their different world view speaks volumes about the wide chasms that have opened over who is to blame for the continuing economic malaise and what is best for the country.

snip...
“Who do you think pays the taxes?” said one longtime money manager. “Financial services are one of the last things we do in this country and do it well. Let’s embrace it. If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services. This is just disgruntled people.”

more...
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/15/business/in-private-conversation-wall-street-is-more-critical-of-protesters.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytmetro&seid=auto

[Arctic Dave]

1. All is well, remain calm...

I'm not scared...you scared?

[roguevalley]

8. name a time when fuckers like this were ever right about the incoming

tide.

[marmar]

2. May their insufferable arrogance be their undoing.......

May the Plutonomy go down in

[tnlefty]

4. +1

With any luck at all.

[SoCalNative]

3. Perhaps they've never heard of

Marie Antoinette?

[Blue_In_AK]

15. Great minds and all that.

:hi:

[madfloridian]

5. Why not? Our own party looks on us as fringe.

Only in election times are we considered not fringe.

[OHdem10]

6. Translated Since the Bankers call themselves Middle Class,

the working Middle Class would seem like fringe to them.

[txlibdem]

29. They think they're the HUMAN middle class; we're the ELOI middle class

Keep (them) moving, moving, moving
Though they're disapproving
Keep them doggies moving
Rawhide

Don't try to understand 'em
Just rope, throw and brand 'em
Soon we'll be living high and wide

http://www.lyricsfreak.com/b/blues+brothers/theme+from+rawhide_20020777.html

:puke:

[BeyondGeography]

7. Dipshits...no surprise

[Hissyspit]

9. Yes, those bankers so smart & sophisticated they avoided Great Recession for us & foresaw OWS.

Please...

[dkf]

19. Sad thing is the people that foresaw it tried to make money off it instead of raising red flags.

Ie Goldman and Paulson.

[Hissyspit]

23. That true, too.

[EFerrari]

10. If the financial services that crashed the economy are our best,

we are fucked. Oh, wait, we are fucked.

[WhiteTara]

11. These people have time because they have no jobs.

What a bunch of short sighted self righteous fools.

[EFerrari]

12. One layoff away from a ledge. n/t

[Zorra]

13. They're so very wrong, and they are in for a big, big surprise.

Would you please pass the Grey Poupon?

It goes so well on bankster fondue.

I understand it was considered a delicacy in France back in the 1790's.
;-)

[Blue_In_AK]

14. I'm sure that's what Marie Antoinette thought, too. n/t

[JDPriestly]

16. In private, bankers took horrible risks and crashed our economy

proving to the world that they have dreadful judgment.

So much for their opinions.

And, in fact, the hedge-fund managers don't pay much in taxes at all.

[dkf]

18. They depended on unending growth. Apparently that doesn't work.

[Matariki]

17. These people are such fossils. Stuck in the past

talking about "hippies", "sex, drugs, rock and roll", "Woodstock". WTF? As if FORTY YEARS passed them by without noticing. Fucking clueless.

[saras]

20. The bankers, and their major customers, are the middle class. The rest are servants and scum.

I wish people would just get over, and stop wasting our time with, the stupid idea that the bankers are somehow profoundly ignorant or uninformed. They know what's happening, they've planned and watched it for a decade, and they're quite happy with the way the last ten years have turned out.

And for what it's worth, he's actually more correct about who the middle class is than all the information workers who think that they're middle class.

If you manage working-class people for the upper class, then you're middle class. If you do productive work for a living, you're working class. This includes intellectual labor of all sorts.

[Dawson Leery]

21. Wall Street caused this crisis by lobbying for

market deregulation and a loose debt policy.

[Dawson Leery]

22. Wall Street caused this crisis by lobbying for

market deregulation and a loose debt policy.

[coalition_unwilling]

24. If I wrote what I was thinking right now, I would be banned from DU. But

I'll bet there are many other DUers feeling exactly the same way.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-OPw7pOr5RLo/TpkK02gfroI/AAAAAAAAAHA/pDsP41anlck/s320/Jump%252C+You+Fuckers.jpg

[dameocrat67]

25. Its not so private

look at their apologists on this board.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x2116081

[BreweryYardRat]

26. That argument works in reverse.

Greed to the point of blindness, stupidity, criminality, and sociopathy is also unsophisticated.

Wall Street crooks are only sophisticated when it comes to lying and self-justification.

[bluestate10]

27. "If you want to keep having jobs outsourced, keep attacking financial services"

The parasites are the very reason why jobs get outsourced to begin with. Isn't the moron that made the quote confusing effect with cause? Jobs are being outsourced because it is beneficial to financial services companies to outsource jobs, in search of the very last penny of profit.

[white_wolf]

28. I wonder if that is what the ruling class in Russia said when...

the communists formed the first Soviet at Petrograd?