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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsMatt Taibbi: Everything You Need to Know About Wall Street, in One Brief Tale.
Matt knocks it out of the park again.If there was ever a news story that crystalized the moral dementia of modern Wall Street in one little vignette, this is it.
Newspapers in Colorado today are reporting that the elegant Hotel Jerome in Aspen, Colorado, will be closed to the public from today through Monday at noon.
Why? Because a local squire has apparently decided to rent out all 94 rooms of the hotel for three-plus days for his daughters Bat Mitzvah.
The hotels general manager, Tony DiLucia, would say only that the party was being thrown by a "nice family," but newspapers are now reporting that the Daddy of the lucky little gal is one Jeffrey Verschleiser, currently an executive with Goldman, Sachs.
At first, I couldn't remember how I knew that name. But then I looked it up and saw an explosive Atlantic magazine story, published last year, called, "E-mails Suggest Bear Stearns Cheated Clients Out Of Millions." And then I remembered that piece, and it hit me: Jeffrey Verschleiser is one of the biggest assholes in the entire world!
Read more: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/everything-you-need-to-know-about-wall-street-in-one-brief-tale-20120113#ixzz1jubLyxx7
izquierdista
(11,689 posts)He'll just ruefully look at the floor and wistfully regret that there's not much he can do because "most of what they did was legal".
think
(11,641 posts)earthside
(6,960 posts)Matt in his most recent blog post links to a chart that shows just how pervasive Goldman Sachs is at the highest level of our politics.
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/blogs/taibblog/the-best-politicians-money-can-buy-20120117
trumad
(41,692 posts)but kept throwing up in my mouth every time I read it.
varelse
(4,062 posts)yet stories like this make it difficult to feel any other way about some of them.
This guy should be going to jail---
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)are generously applied.
LiberalEsto
(22,845 posts)True story.
My husband (I'll call him Dan) grew up in the projects of New York's Lower East Side, not far from Wall Street, where his dad worked as a humble bookkeeper with a wife and 8 kids.
Back in the late 1980s, my husband worked as a computer systems analyst for a New Jersey-based consulting company. I was only able to work part-time due to illness, and we were struggling to raise our 2 kids and pay the mortgage.
Dan was assigned to temporarily work at Goldman-Sachs in the Wall Street financial district. It was a rainy week in June, so he wore his new $89 raincoat. It wasn't easy for us at that time to spend that much money on an article of clothing.
When he got to Goldman-Sachs, he hung his coat up in the cloakroom near the reception desk, and got to work. At the end of the day he went to get his raincoat, but someone had stolen it. Probably some financial whiz who didn't want to get his $300 suit wet.
The second day was just as rainy, but being without a raincoat, he went to work with an umbrella.
You guessed it. Someone stole that too.
On the third day, Dan borrowed my umbrella. He kept it by his assigned desk. But when he went on his break, someone stole that umbrella too.
At the time, we could hardly believe what a den of thieves Goldman-Sachs was.
Now that we've seen the way the company operates, we truly understand that it's a den of thieves who will rip off anyone that crosses their path.
Zorra
(27,670 posts)have no conscience.
Sociopathic bankster thought process:
It's raining out.
I don't have a raincoat or an umbrella.
I need a raincoat and an umbrella.
I'll go see if I can find one.
Ah. Good! There's a raincoat and an umbrella.
As soon as nobody's watching, I'll take them.
Got them. Now I won't have to get wet.
I'm hungry. I'll go eat.
JackRiddler
(24,979 posts)raouldukelives
(5,178 posts)Fuck Wall St. Killing the world for cash. How anyone can invest in it and sleep at night is beyond me.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)(Don't answer that; it was a rhetorical question)
ArcticFox
(1,249 posts)We all paid for it.
Scurrilous
(38,687 posts)bvar22
(39,909 posts)I know these guys, "and they are just savvy businessmen!"
"I mean, look at all thew baseball players."
"Its the FREE MARKET!!!"
----- President Obama defending the obscene Wall Street Bonuses after the "Bailouts".
[font color=firebrick size=3][center]"If we don't fight hard enough for the things we stand for,
at some point we have to recognize that we don't really stand for them."
--- Paul Wellstone[/font][/center]
[center][/font]
[font size=1]photo by bvar22
Shortly before Sen Wellstone was killed[/center][/font]
[font size=5 color=firebrick]Solidarity![/font]