HEADLINE
Tom Wolfe on boorish hedge fund managers
STORY
Tom Wolfe Does It Again.
A few months ago, Tom Wolfe published an amazing piece in Portfolio magazine (now available online) about hedge-fund managers — specifically, about why people who are so young and have made more money than God seem to be so angry and ill-mannered.
For a local example you might look at how Supervisor-Wanna-Be Joe Carvin acts at the Rye Town Board Meetings held at 10 Pearl Street in Port Chester.
It seems you can’t buy class.
Tom Wolfe, is one of America's best sociologists, because he writes about class and status. In "The Pirate Pose " we get an inside look at how hedge fund managers act and think.
Tom Wolfe has written about Wall Street types before in his best selling "Bonfire of the Vanities". He concludes that the Wall Street "Masters of the Universe" today are more bad mannered than ever.
This piece by Tom Wolfe is a good read for anyone who (1) likes Tom Wolfe's writing (2) is fascinating by the clash between new money and old money, or the clash between new money with mere human beings who get in new money's way; or (3) is as worried as I am about hedge funds.
With his usual vividness, Wolfe writes about the sociology of hedge-fund managers.
Tom Wolfe unloads the sort of wickedness of which only he is capable upon the deserving heads of the New Masters of the Universe - hedge fund managers!
A sample to give you a flavor of it:
"While fathers all over America tend to become overzealous, even violent, these days in trying to turn their children into little sports superstars, in Greenwich a father who is one of these people will try to take control of every element in a game: his child’s teammates, their coach, the opposing team’s coach, its players, and most definitely the referees. In a famous instance, one of these people came to watch his teenage daughter play in an ice hockey game against a team from neighboring Port Chester, New York, a town known in Greenwich as the place where one’s plumbers, electricians, computer swamis, roofers, glaziers, air-conditioning mechanics, wall-to-wall-carpet humpers, and household servants live. The man began bellowing so loudly, nobody at the rink could shut out the sound. He upbraided the referees for their poor eyesight and worse judgment. He told his daughter’s coach how to play her and all her teammates and kept him abreast of his mistakes in strategy. He scolded the Port Chester coach and the players for their incessant cheating and malicious roughness.
This is just like a Rye Town Board Meeting where Supervisor-Wanna-Be Joe Carvin will try to take control of every element in the public meeting: the press (Richard & Bernie Able Of The Westmore Snooze), a trustee (Billy Vilanova), the Republican Party, the Cablevision TV Video Camera , and will rudely interupt the Rye Town Supervisor, while trying to dominate the meeting.
Watching Supervisor-Wanna-Be Joe Carvin at a Rye Town Board meeting you get the feeling that he will say or do anything to gain control over disbursing property and school taxes. You wonder if bad things will come to Port Chester if the greedy one gains control of the Rye Town Board Of Trustees.
But this is not fiction a Low Class Greedy Hedge Fund Guy could soon be in charge of your property and school taxes.
The thing that most readers take away from Wolfe's piece is that the end is nigh. More precisely, things are cyclical, and the cycle is about to turn. Whenever a group of businesspeople feels so entitled, so superior, and--here's the main point--is so disconnected from actually creating value, I don't usually have to wait too long for their "uppance to come." Like NASDAQ millionaires before the 2000 crash, these people are making tons of money by convincing gullible people to pay them huge fees for outsmarting the market. In the long run, though, it never works. The money and expectations keep flowing in long after all of the real money-making opportunities have been snapped up; people let their greed get the best of them; and things end unhappily for anyone who doesn't get out in time.
Tom Wolfe is the best America has to offer on reporting about the human animal's fixation on status.
If Joe "The Greedy One" Carvin succeds in gaining control, you he will get the status that he is fixated on and the single family homeowners of Port Chester will get the huge tax increases
This election is all about Joe "The greedy One" Carvin trying to legitimize himself by grabbing status at the expence of single family homeowners.
Source: True Blue Conservative Review
Publication Date: August 07, 2007
Reporter: Brian Harrod
