This piece of crap, laughably titled "We Eat What We Kill "was evidently making the rounds on Wall Street the other day. It's amazing really, the smug self-importance, the faux macho of an inveterate desk jockey, the delusional notion that because you squander a lot of hours in the office because you've got no life that you work harder than everyone else, and, most amazingly of all, that being a Wall Street operator is somehow an indispensable service to society. Really one shakes one's head. The fact that this sophomoric tripe, this preposterous exercise in wankery, is viewed as some sort of bold statement of truth among the Wall Street set is indicative of the puerile stupidity of so many in the financial world, a place where intellectual depth and introspection are almost unknown.
The first thing that came to my mind was an interview with a professional golfer I had read back around the time of the Clinton tax hike decrying this outrage against the "most productive elements in society" among which he modestly numbered himself. I remember snorting with derision in some doctor's office waiting room where I was reading this nonsense as I strained to think of a less socially useful job than professional golfer. I remain stumped to this day.
It's funny, I often contemplate how disturbingly ephemeral my own well paying job seems to be. And what I do is both substantially more socially useful than what most of these Wall Street clowns do and requires considerably more intelligence -- of both the intellectual and emotional variety. Whenever I feel a little too self-satisfied or when one of my colleagues complains about the money we make -- which although not of Wall Street magnitude is enough to make the vast majority of people happy -- I think about who is really useful in this society. A good exercise I find is to think about life when disaster strikes and who we really rely on -- when was the last time after a hurricane or earthquake or tornado someone said quick, call the investment bankers, call currency arbitrage, call the M&A guys, call the IPO specialists, or even call the lawyers. No, in such moments people turn to those with essential skills -- doctors, nurses, EMTs, electricians, plumbers, pipefitters, operating engineers, fire fighters, and police.
Society needs teachers, scientists, engineers, iron workers, farmers, medical technicians, garbage collectors, and janitors. It doesn't need hedge fund managers -- indeed it developed and flourished rather nicely for a couple of thousand years before anyone concocted a need for a hedge fund manager. If all of the hedge fund managers and bond traders and equity specialists disappeared from the earth tomorrow, we, as a society, would scarcely notice. One less guy in a Mercedes coup talking obliviously on a cell phone to cut you off. But take away the electricians, the plumbers, and the HVAC techs and life as we know it would be profoundly changed -- and not for the better.
I have a sister who has taught first, third, and fourth grade over the years and it would never occur to me that I work harder or deserved more money than her. (And she doesn't make $85,000 a year either.) I am in awe of how dedicated she is and how thankless her task has become. This prick isn't worth one-sixth of her.
I read something like this and think of my father who spent nearly 25 years as a state cop, during which time he never made more than $25,000 a year. He now at least gets the benefit of a rather nice pension -- of which he earned every dime. When I think of what my father handled over the years -- dozens of anti-war and prison riots in which no lives were lost (although he got injured on multiple occasions), the time he disarmed a man with a rifle holding people hostage (by rushing up a flight of stairs when he noticed the bolt in the rifle wasn't seated properly for firing), of over two years spent in charge of security at South Boston High School while two communities tore each other apart during the first years of forced busing in Boston -- and read this smug little puke talking about how hard he works and how indispensable he is -- well let's say it shakes my commitment to non-violent discourse.
In a just world these clowns would be sentenced to spend a week doing lawn care, followed by a week picking up garbage, followed by a week laying cinder block in 95 degree heat, followed by a week as an LPN in a nursing home, followed by week as an abatement worker ripping out asbestos, followed by a week at a day care center, and so on and so on. Maybe at a certain point not too long into it, they would realize that their Wall Street jobs were just an unearned lottery ticket in a society with weird priorities and they'd just shut the fuck up and quietly enjoy their unearned riches and leave the rest of us mercifully alone.
