Just making mega-millions (or a billion or two) a year doesn’t automatically earn you recognition as a member of The Street’s elite. Certain patterns of speech and behavior must also be mastered. Here’s a few tips for those who aspire to join these ranks.
On every possible occasion mutter that you don’t suffer fools gladly. Also instruct employees and others dependent on you for a livelihood to spread the word that you’re someone who doesn’t suffer fools gladly. Such an obviously self-generated description will immediately label you a pompous twit to most people. Within Wall Street’s inner circle, however, it’s considered the outward sign of a deep thinker who won’t tolerate distractions — i.e. won’t tolerate negative opinions about himself.
In spite of very prudent and generally effective efforts to shield yourself from anyone who doesn’t appreciate your intrinsic worth — worth made obvious by your enormous income — someone might actually get close enough to ask how you can justify such huge compensation. It’s a question that you’ve actually asked yourself once or twice over the years. There’s no need to back away from this query, though, or be driven to painful introspection. Merely reply: “I add liquidity to markets.” What this response really means is that you throw a lot of other people’s money into a market gamble most likely to accrue to your own benefit, but most people won’t understand this and you’ll ride free.
Still, on very rare occasions, you may find yourself dealing with an interviewer who knows exactly how meaningless are your justifications for huge compensation, and this person will confront you seriously on the matter. Here, a full-fledged member of the Wall Street elite doesn’t buckle. “We’re done here,” he hisses and strides off. You have that reputation, after all, for not suffering fools gladly.
Some fools, of course, have to be suffered gladly. Those in Congress and the Administration. At election time or during the occasional choreographed hearing, they may presume to be disrespectful. Do you stomp them down for this impertinence? No. As long as the legislation they pass and the regulations they bother to enforce are not overly onerous, you let it slide. You even privately assure these people they will still be well cared for after they leave public service. You are, after all, not only an important person, but a big-hearted one.
Having now garnered a pile for yourself and steamrollered Congress so this pile isn’t seriously diminished by taxes, it’s time to become a charity benefactor. Here’s a few important things to remember in this regard.
First, whenever possible, find a charity that ultimately supports your own business. One that fosters financial literacy is perfect — provided it includes a positive focus on the products you peddle.
Second, avoid charities that might actually bring you into direct contact with poor people who won’t be impressed because you don’t suffer fools gladly and could care less about market liquidity because they no longer have any liquidity of their own. Your best bet here, if you can’t find a charity that promotes your own business, is one that supports the environment. Nobody sucks up to the rich as effusively as environmentalists. Nobody has been doing it longer. Nobody is less twitchy about the source of contributions it receives.
Third, and this is crucial, demand that any money given by you to any charity comes in tandem with special events where you are honored, and where you and your spouse can wear a tuxedo or ball gown. Copious press coverage of these events must also be guaranteed in advance. And be sure to get a generous valuation for any non-cash assets you contribute for tax purposes.
Now we come to the thing that really separates a Wall Street elitist from someone who just makes a good living working on The Street — an absolute unwillingness under any circumstance whatever to admit you’ve made a mistake about anything. People who live in trailers or have homes in foreclosure make mistakes. Even people whose destructive behavior physically harms others occasionally apologize. Not you. Not ever.
Hey. In 2010 you and your peers gobbled up a record $135 billion in compensation while the rest of the country was still bailing out (and bailing you out) from your previous shenanigans. If this isn’t the mark of a very special American elite, what is?
More from this writer at http://blog.wallstreetpoet.com/