Tom Wolff offered up his
not-so-fictionalized take on Wall Street’s titans labeling them “Masters of the
Universe”, in Bonfire of the Vanities; Michael Lewis offered a more cautionary tale
of his Wall Street experience in Liars
Poker and now Kevin Roose stakes his claim to an “insiders” perspective on
the post-crash world of Wall Street in Young
Money.
Roose focuses on the future finance titans as he follows a
group of rookies as they venture into the brave new world of Wall Street following the 2008 financial meltdown. The
tales sound oddly familiar to those laid out in both fiction and non-fiction
accounts of freshly minted lawyers; with tales of excess in everything from
workloads to alcohol intake and the oversized paychecks garnered by these
relative youngsters.
Roose can’t quite seem to leave his New York Times and New
Yorker Magazine bred liberal bias as he questions the morality of Wall Street
deals, portraying these young Wall Streeter’s as being either lacking in moral
fiber or willing to simply willing ignore any question of the legitimacy of a
deal in search of a payoff. While I certainly have questions about much of the
Vegas like crap-shoot the Wall Street has become, I am also pragmatic enough to
know that investors willingly choose to play the game.
By the same token, I don’t feel sorry for these new masters
of the universe, when they complain about the long hours, lack of personal time
and the intrusive nature of their career choice. CHOICE being the optimum word
here; no one put a gun to their heads and forced them to choose a career in
finance.
While so much has been written, spoken and testified about
since the Wall Street crash, the bailout, the scams and the government
response, the one thing that Roose points out that is not surprising; at the
end of the day not much has really changed about Wall Street.
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