HuffPo: OPULENCE IS BACK...Wall Street Gets Its Groove Back And Spends Unapologetically

[Amerigo Vespucci]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/11/24/wall-street-excess-is-back_n_788043.html

Wall Street bankers hiring a dwarf for an over-the-top bachelor party in Miami. Nieman Marcus selling out its 100 limited-edition $75,000 Camaros in three minutes. Socialites dropping $40,000 on a custom cellphone at a jewelry store in Chicago. An investment analyst at Goldman Sachs who hired hip-hop queen Lil' Kim to perform for 1,000 guests at his annual Halloween party last month.

Though the unemployment rate remains near 10 percent with millions of Americans about to run out of their jobless benefits, one in five Americans are using food stamps to buy groceries and small businesses are being forced to slash their work forces to stay alive, Wall Street's top bankers and wealthy investors are spending to excess, indulging their every whim.

Consumer spending amounts to more than two-thirds of the American economy, so this return to frivolity at the top is-- at least in theory--supposed to trickle down to less fortunate areas of life. But trickle down is one of those phrases that has yet to break out of the conceptual realm. Despite the mad rush back to the steakhouses, the high-end department stores and the jewelers, very few ordinary people seem to have gotten any work as a result.

The New York Times reports:

Two years after the onset of the financial crisis, the stock market is recovering and Wall Street's moneyed elite are breathing easier again. And this means in some cases they are spending again -- at times cautiously, but sometimes with a familiar swagger.

They're doing that, knowing that the biggest firms on the Street -- Goldman, Morgan Stanley, Citigroup, Bank of America and JPMorgan have set aside $89.54 billion to pay their employees. Bonuses on Wall Street are expected to increase up to 15 percent, according to data from a report by Johnson Associates, a consulting firm.

[aquart]

1. The commercial in the picture is a sendup. And an insult.

The Gilded Age came to an end, as I recall. And standing on its grave were labor laws and a rising middle class. So spend, assholes. Do it in public.

[Desertrose]

2. Not a bit surprised.....

[Angry Dragon]

3. But I do like the giraffe .............