NY Mag: I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society

This behavior reminds me of what I have read about how the elite of Rome acted. Gluttony, mockery, debauchery. The part that bothers me, is the mockery. This pattern of the wealthy mocking others is why they are gaining so much hatred against their status. Ye reap what ye sow.

Wow. That is just...wow.

MOMof3
This behavior reminds me of what I have read about how the elite of Rome acted. Gluttony, mockery, debauchery. The part that bothers me, is the mockery. This pattern of the wealthy mocking others is why they are gaining so much hatred against their status. Ye reap what ye sow.

Yep. I remember during Occupy, there was bunch of pictures and video released of one of Occupy Wall Street's attempts to march into the Wall Street area where they encountered a bunch of these people looking down at them from a balcony, taking pictures and drinking champagne. It infuriated a lot of the protesters.



What amazes me is how many defend these kind of attitudes/behaviors of the financial elite. I often ponder the reason why. Is it that these defenders believe that they can become like the financial elite or is it fear? Fear that, if they do, the anger will then be directed at them or fear that the elite may retaliate against them?

I remember getting into an argument with one of my family's former employees on the subject of taxing the wealthy. He'd worked a just above minimum wage low level job in my family's business, which was worth $32 million at the time. Although he was making less than $30k a year at the time, he was rabidly defending the wealthy against increasing taxes. The rub was that my father, who was, even a reduced state, still making about $360k a year, fully supported a tax increase on himself as did I. So you had basically a poor person defending the rich and a still reasonably wealthy person asking to be taxed. Irony at its worst.

Never understood this phenomena.

WhiteAlice
What amazes me is how many defend these kind of attitudes/behaviors of the financial elite. I often ponder the reason why. Is it that these defenders believe that they can become like the financial elite or is it fear? Fear that, if they do, the anger will then be directed at them or fear that the elite may retaliate against them?

Society has done a superb job of conditioning people to think that ethically everyone who isn't deranged is morally as equal as everyone else. That the people at the top are good and decent folk; and that they work hard and pay their fair share. "So leave them alone already!" I think it is training, pure and simple. Having to face a reality where a person finally realizes they were getting screwed all along. That is hard. Especially when you consider most folks feel utterly impotent to do anything about it. Better to believe a rose-colored hopeful lie than face the truth.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


It's all about where you are at and what's expected of you next. Of course you didn't see anything too over the top near the blackjack table- you have to act a certain way in proximity to large amounts of money because money is treated as sacred. But I know absolutely for sure that you can run up behind people in a casino on the strip and stop a punch one inch from the back of their head repeatedly on your way to the garage, run across the top of a line of cars, strip down naked, pee off the side of the garage and then put on a giant teddy bear costume, and head back into the casino, and nobody will say a word to you until you reach the gaming floor- then they will tell you to take the mask off, and that's it. (and for the record this was a local hustler and his mark that I followed around for entertainment value, not my own behavior)

It's the same anywhere- you don't screw around with the money making, and if you run out of money you get the heck out, but if you've paid off big for the day and you've got more to spend tomorrow, there's usually a separate area, away from the people they still need to get more money out of, where you can do anything you please if it will make you come back and spend big again next time. And for the people at the top of something as lucrative as wallstreet, those places probably have the resources to wear out timeless classic sins and invent whole new ones to replace them.

The Vagabond
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

(and for the record this was a local hustler and his mark that I followed around for entertainment value, not my own behavior)

Rrrright....a "local hustler" did all that, not you...gotcha. lol

I don't doubt it one bit in that sense. Comparatively, though, how many parties get broken up or busted in hotel rooms every night for raucous behavior while a blind eye is turned when these particular guys do it? The sad thing is, I very much doubt that they do anything about the clean up costs after such things because their "patronage" is so important. Also agree that pushing that creating new sins is most likely fairly common place. Can't be like the common man in anything. I mean, heck, even Proctor & Gamble knows that there's even a luxury market for even the most basic of items. Heck, you can even buy luxury colored toilet paper at a bargain price of $39.99 for 6 rolls. If there's a luxury market for such things as these, then I can well imagine that if they can't settle for regular old TP to wipe their bums with, then what else won't they be mundane about?

All in good time, friends. They think they're untouchable, but they will get theirs. It's inevitable.

Good coverage of the event, and disturbing audio.
Just goes to show that disgusting is as disgusting does.


reply to post by WhiteAlice

What amazes me is how many defend these kind of attitudes/behaviors of the financial elite. I often ponder the reason why. Is it that these defenders believe that they can become like the financial elite or is it fear? Fear that, if they do, the anger will then be directed at them or fear that the elite may retaliate against them?

...So you had basically a poor person defending the rich and a still reasonably wealthy person asking to be taxed.

I completely agree WhiteAlice - this has always baffled me as well! Minus the obvious shills, there are many people who regularly brown-nose every move of the elite. It's almost as if they assume if they do it long enough and loud enough, that some of the wealth will trickle down to them just for being supporters! lol It also seems that their favourite retort, when questioned about such behaviour, is that "you must be jealous". *grin* Not in this lifetime or any other, for that matter!

I have witnessed the same as you mentioned, where poor people are often the ones defending the rich. It truly makes no sense at all; it's like the slaves are defending their masters. They cannot see the bigger picture of WHY they will be kept poor for the foreseeable.

The elite don't need any more sycophants, and they mock them just as much as they do the rest of us "unwashed masses".

Let them eat cake.............It is reaching a tipping point that I believe can not be stopped. Anyone making under 14 dollars an hour is about to be screwed. Inflation is going to take you ability to feed and house yourself away.




If you are reading this and make close to that amount take notice. Every week the prices keep going up and up. Hyper inflation is coming this year or next and will wipe out all wealth. All the stories you read in the mainstream are lies. Believe what you can see look at your grocery bill each week and see the cold hard truth.




As this happens many service industry workers will demand more money that will only cause this crash to speed up. The government will try new ways to get money but this is only a stop gap. They printed so much money this has to happen. It could take time maybe 2 years at the most but the dollar bubble will crash.

reply to post by SubTruth


Didn't Ron Paul say the same things about 3-4 years ago?
It just sound so damn familiar.

There is a line in a country song, "somebody told us wall street fell, but we were so poor we couldn't tell"

Enjoy today.

thesaneone
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

I am not talking about the casino floor I am talking about the parties that happen in the ballrooms.

I agree the party doesn't seem that crazy but the members of Kappa Beta Phi are huge d bags and psychopaths, I mean I don't see how skits, non pc jokes, drinking, illegal things (99% sure it was their), and pledges dressed up in drag is wild and crazy. It's a great article but I still can't stand Kevin Roose and the 98% of the people who commented on the story, the funny thing is Wall Street and the Kappa Beta Phi party had plenty of Liberals including 2 big Obama donors in attendance yet the commentators tried to make it seem like it was the RNC.

Looked a really lame night out I would have been off within the first ten mins.

Good to see they have been named and shamed for the world to see, perhaps someone should remind them that the majority of us don't find the world economy very funny at the moment.



And I'd like to remind everyone else not to walk on the pavements in the financial districts least you get hit by one of these folks on their way down.

Nothing wrong with fun with one's friends. The reporter, however, is a complete d-bag.

WhiteAlice
reply to post by boncho

 

Absolutely. If any other organization had engaged in these activities at a hotel, I'm sure that the hotel management would've had quite a problem with it as well--especially throwing food around in what is clearly a very pretty room. But hey, these people are so wealthy that they are above management, public, political and justice approbation. It's just remarkable to me that it seems that every system seems to end up like this--the development of an upper echelon that feels that they are above everyone else and behaves in whatever way they chose because they can. It almost seems like it's done in defiance of social mores to show just how powerful they are. Historically, it never seems to end well either.

yes.. the hotel management WOULD most definitely, and would have banned them from coming back. I know this, since I worked at 'The Benson' for a few years back in the 90's... as a mini-bar attendant.

Yea...was there when Clinton made the visit, SUPER cool.. but, what a pain in the ass it was and was glad it was over.

Now, I've walked in on TRASHED hotel rooms quite a few times only to find the same people that left were allow to come back again...the life of rock bands and movie stars Prom night when rich kids trash a room / suite...BANNED and charges are filed..!

movie stars & rock bands .. not so much LOL

WhiteAlice
One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society

Worth a full read and listening to the audio recorded at the event. It so reminds me of all those stories about courts rife with debauchery and lavishness from the dressing of new inductees in over the top drag to the tossing of petit fours at the stage (petit fours are basically tiny, heavily decorated cakes and savories). The song, "I Believe", which is a parody of a Mormon song, apparently, is really very interesting when you can actually hear the words of it. Overall behavior from the recordings? Hard to imagine that these are supposed to be the upper crust of the Wall Street world when they are behaving like drunk rowdies in a local dive bar.

Fall of Rome indeed.

WOW~!!!

but.. there's a documentary out their I saw on cable and is on DVD now narrated by a movie star.. that pretty much outline the housing bubble .. from the doc...described this behavior and this article confirmed this behavior to a 'T' ..

RadarOReilly
Nothing wrong with fun with one's friends. The reporter, however, is a complete d-bag.

why is the reporter a d-bag?

because he exposed their ill behavior and made light of their attitude & quite possibly responsible for the econ crash of 08'-till now ?

laughing and singing about it they did...much like before the French Revolution !

Here, after all, was a group that included many of the executives whose firms had collectively wrecked the global economy in 2008 and 2009. And they were laughing off the entire disaster in private, as if it were a long-forgotten lark. (Or worse, sing about it — one of the last skits of the night was a self-congratulatory parody of ABBA’s “Dancing Queen,” called “Bailout King.”) These were activities that amounted to a gigantic middle finger to Main Street and that, if made public, could end careers and damage very public reputations.

You would think there would come a time when people realize this crap is irrelevant. Does anyone really need a few photos and an audio to know there is a clear divide between the have's and have not's?

Is anyone really surprised they thumb their noses at us? Especially when all we do is stomp our feet and complain like needy babies.

Does anyone really expect more awareness will invoke change?

Is there any real change you can believe in?

Even mass uprisings and a change of government fail to do anything but weed out a few while other vermin stand in the shadows waiting to fill that power vacuum. All the while the useless eaters go about thinking they're responsible for some fundamental change....please.

Since the first recorded word there have been masters and slaves. Does being told you're free really make you free? I think not. We're all slaves, always have been, always will be. In the end what we know of them or what we think we know is irrelevant and I am sure they could really give a #. Sure they'd prefer to work in secret, I mean no sense in riling the slaves up for no reason. And if the slaves get grumpy enough we will present them with a fall guy and a fancy public tar and feathering, than it's back to cracking the metaphorical whip.

Until the "99%" realize and accept the truth of their slavery nothing will ever change. We don't even want to accept this reality because it would be too hard on our ego, so we sit in ignorance and disbelief.

You will never know freedom until you accept there is no freedom.

it's coming to this ..

they've known it .. we know it....do I want this to happen.. HELL NO .. !!!!!

As a matter of fact..I WILL NOT listen to, watch or be involved in anything that has to do with USA Civil War.. as glorious as the warmongers make it out to be!!!

But, if they can't understand that the abuse of power and treating their subjects with disdain and mocking attitude will only turn the slaves into raging revengeful maniacs...

LET ME MAKE THIS PERFECTLY CLEAR...I'm not advocating murder! But I think it's pretty clear that when you put a kid in a corner and bully them with making ridiculous health insurance, taxes and stealing retirements from subjects that have worked hard for you....

you brought this on yourself!!! (Trust me when I tell you .. that this is EXACTLY what DOES and has happened)

and you know it.. !!

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Sounds like the Elk's Lodge. Only the Elk's are old fart wanna be's that "think" they have been thwarted from "normal" society for all their war time accomplishments, along with their children's accomplishments, and it is always about their 16-20 year old grandchildren acting like dicks. Add to that, that their wives are being worried to death about what pasta dish to cook on a Saturday, meanwhile they all taste the same whether you put a can of Campbells tomato soup in it or not. I am kidding. The Elk's are good drunks doing good drunk things. Anyway...

It's a private society club. Not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. These private clubs are all over our country, and the world. Moose, Elk's, Masonic, and I think even the KKK is still around. Prolly other ones that I am not aware of.

Like minded people tend to group up sometimes and divide themselves from others. They even form clubs and stuff. These douche bags are doing the same as all the other more notable ones. No biggy. You wouldn't believe what them SOB's in the VFW ramble on about!

Hollie
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

Sounds like the Elk's Lodge. Only the Elk's are old fart wanna be's that "think" they have been thwarted from "normal" society for all their war time accomplishments, along with their children's accomplishments, and it is always about their 16-20 year old grandchildren acting like dicks. Add to that, that their wives are being worried to death about what pasta dish to cook on a Saturday, meanwhile they all taste the same whether you put a can of Campbells tomato soup in it or not. I am kidding. The Elk's are good drunks doing good drunk things. Anyway...

It's a private society club. Not really a big deal in the grand scheme of things. These private clubs are all over our country, and the world. Moose, Elk's, Masonic, and I think even the KKK is still around. Prolly other ones that I am not aware of.

Like minded people tend to group up sometimes and divide themselves from others. They even form clubs and stuff. These douche bags are doing the same as all the other more notable ones. No biggy. You wouldn't believe what them SOB's in the VFW ramble on about!

edit on 24-2-2014 by Hollie because: (no reason given)

This group's actions have nothing to do with Freemason's and what they do at meetings nor do Freemasons divide themselves from the public so I don't even why you brought them up. I don't know if your trying to say clubs and things of that nature are bad since like minded people group up but if that's the case then why are a member of ats? ATS is a website where a group of people from all different walks of life come to talk about alternative news/conspiracy theories, we are pretty much just like a club. Maybe I'm misunderstanding what you are trying to say, if that's the case I apologize and please correct me if I'm wrong.