The real Wolf of Wall Street

[bigbadwolf]

http://nypost.com/2014/10/29/investor-husband-pushed-me-into-sex-for-biz-deal-estranged-wife/

Christina Kelly alleges in nearly every page that her $7-million-a-year hubby is nothing but a coke- and Ecstasy-loving, booze-swilling, abusive spouse and dad who lives for seamy sex romps.

 

[yetanotherquant]

or probably the real Kelly criterion (well, from now on - Christina Kelly criterion )

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

I read this, absurd. I have no doubt some people in finance party, but the level this MD was at is shocking. I am amazed at his ability to wake up and function.

 

[bigbadwolf]

I read this, absurd. I have no doubt some people in finance party, but the level this MD was at is shocking. I am amazed at his ability to wake up and function.

Granted, this is the NY Post so I can't attest to the veracity of this story.

 

[Anthony DeAngelis]

Haha. True. His wife is a real gem also. Arrested for drunk driving after crashing her Range into a tree with kids in the back.

Sounds like the disaster couple from hell. I am sure this is heart breaking for all the people on the website who think finance isn't a big frat party.

 

[bigbadwolf]

Haha. True. His wife is a real gem also. Arrested for drunk driving after crashing her Range into a tree with kids in the back.

Sounds like the disaster couple from hell. I am sure this is heart breaking for all the people on the website who think finance isn't a big frat party.

Ain't no secret that the country itself is a big frat party. In fact the Archdruid wrote on this very topic a few weeks back. Just a sec, see if I can dredge it up ... ah, here we are:

That process is a miniature version of the way the ruling elite of the world’s industrial nations select new additions to their number. There, as among church ladies, there are basically two routes in. You can be born into the family of a member of the inner circle, and if you don’t run off the rails too drastically, you can count on a place in the inner circle yourself in due time. Alternatively, you can work your way in from outside by being suitably deferential and supportive to the inner circle, meeting all of its expectations and conforming to its opinions and decisions, until the senior members of the elite start treating you as a junior member and the junior members have to deal with you as an equal. You can watch that at work, as already mentioned, in your local church—and you can also watch it at work in the innermost circles of power and privilege in American life.

Here in America, the top universities are the places where the latter version of the process stands out in all its dubious splendor. To these universities, every autumn, come the children of rich and influential families to begin the traditional four-year rite of passage. It would require something close to a superhuman effort on their part to fail. If they don’t fancy attending lectures, they can hire impecunious classmates as “note takers” to do that for them. If they don’t wish to write papers, the same principle applies, and the classmates are more than ready to help out, since that can be the first step to a career as an executive assistant, speechwriter, or the like. The other requirements of college life can be met in the same manner as needed, and the university inevitably looks the other way, knowing that they can count on a generous donation from the parents as a reward for putting up with Junior’s antics.

The impecunious classmates, for their part, are aspirants to the second category mentioned above, those who work their way into the elite from outside. They also come to the same top universities every autumn, but they don’t get there because of who their parents happen to be. They get there by devoting every spare second to that goal from middle school on. They take the right classes, get the right grades, play the right sports, pursue the right extracurricular activities, and rehearse for their entrance interviews by the hour; they are bright, earnest, amusing, pleasant, because they know that that’s what they need to be in order to get where they want to go. Scratch that glossy surface and you’ll find an anxious conformist terrified of failing to measure up to expectations, and it’s a reasonable terror—most of them will in fact fail to do that, and never know how or why.

Once in an Ivy League university or the equivalent, they’re pretty much guaranteed passing grades and a diploma unless they go out of their way to avoid them. Most of them, though, will be shunted off to midlevel posts in business, government, or one of the professions. Only the lucky few will catch the eye of someone with elite connections, and be gently nudged out of their usual orbit into a place from which further advancement is possible. Whether the rich kid whose exam papers you ghostwrote takes a liking to you, and arranges to have you hired as his executive assistant when he gets his first job out of school, or the father of a friend of a friend meets you on some social occasion, chats with you, and later on has the friend of a friend mention in passing that you might consider a job with this senator or that congressman, or what have you, it’s not what you know, it’s who you know, not to mention how precisely you conform to the social and intellectual expectations of the people who have the power to give or withhold the prize you crave so desperately.

http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/09/dark-age-america-senility-of-elites.html

 

[Jedison]

Ain't no secret that the country itself is a big frat party. In fact the Archdruid wrote on this very topic a few weeks back. Just a sec, see if I can dredge it up ... ah, here we are:



http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2014/09/dark-age-america-senility-of-elites.html

Ya if you could not generalize the entire population of my country that'd be great

 

[zyz]

Sorry, couldn't resist

 

[Jedison]

glad you got the reference

 

[bigbadwolf]

Ya if you could not generalize the entire population of my country that'd be great

What are you talking about?

 

[Jedison]

What are you talking about?

I'm referencing you calling America "a big frat party". Honestly statements like that just make you sound ignorant.

 

[Barny]

Ya if you could not generalize the entire population of my country that'd be great

HAHAHAHAHAHA

 

[Barny]

I'm referencing you calling America "a big frat party". Honestly statements like that just make you sound ignorant.

Stop embarrassing yourself.

 

[Jedison]

I'm sorry, I couldn't understand you. Maybe if you took a moment to stop suckling at the teat of the big bad wolf...

 

[bigbadwolf]

I'm referencing you calling America "a big frat party". Honestly statements like that just make you sound ignorant.

Start with C.Wright Mills' The Power Elite. Or go back even further and start with Ferdinand Lundberg's America's Sixty Families. Or if you prefer movies (as your reading may not be your strong suit), try recent films like Oliver Stone's W. The frat boys run the USA. Connections matter.

 

[Jedison]

Trying to label your prejudice as intellectualism, a bit cliche don't you think?

 

[CasanovaJ]

Start with C.Wright Mills' The Power Elite. Or go back even further and start with Ferdinand Lundberg's America's Sixty Families. Or if you prefer movies (as your reading may not be your strong suit), try recent films like Oliver Stone's W. The frat boys run the USA. Connections matter.

Oliver Stone is a convicted drug addict who Americans stopped taking seriously over 20 years ago-- using him as a "source" in an America-bashing rant with the belief that it will somehow make Americans think you're "enlightened" isn't too clever...

 

[C S]

Oliver Stone is a convicted drug addict who Americans stopped taking seriously over 20 years ago-- using him as a "source" in an America-bashing rant with the belief that it will somehow make Americans think you're "enlightened" isn't too clever...

He's a pretty good filmmaker though. His "JFK" was pretty convincing... at least while I was watching (with single-malt in hand...).

 

[bigbadwolf]

He's a pretty good filmmaker though. His "JFK" was pretty convincing... at least while I was watching (with single-malt in hand...).

He does his homework. "W" is worth watching because of the way he depicts the importance of family connections.

 

[CasanovaJ]

He does his homework. "W" is worth watching because of the way he depicts the importance of family connections.

"Importance of family connections" isn't a phenomenon unique to America. If you're using an example of "someone using family connections in America to accomplish something that may have been undeserved" in order to make a broader point demeaning the country, I'd conclude that for some other untold reason, you just don't particularly like America.