Judging by the conduct of some of the pirates-in-waiting here at Elite Trailer, I'd say that Wolfe captured their essence. Admittedly, his brush was broad but it would find a home on ET's canvas.
I like Dan Loeb, if you analyse what they do, in [most] cases they do add shareholder value.. eh forget about it.
There are many issues to be taken with Wolfe's article. The first being that he attributes the vile characteristics of the people he describes to the fact that they are Jewish, mostly, not because they are poorly brought up louts who lack the self-respect to pretend dignity. We are somehow obliged to go to a presumed reservoir of sympathy for a Park Avenue doyen because in response to the banging at her door: "she rose from the 18th-century burled-wood secretary, her grand-motherâs, where she always wrote her thank-you notes and hurried out of the study and across the living room toward the entry gallery absolutely by herself" Let's take a pause here, I want to know who her grandmother stole that 18th century burled-wood secretary from in the first place. If corruption is what installs these people behind these kinds of desks, then she's just one in a long line of people whose certain form of corruption has either become antiquated or that money has been converted to some form of respectability the further away it traveled from the crime. I think what Wolfe was trying to imply is that there are standards of human intercourse that keep zookeepers from becoming confused, though he failed to make his point. Perhaps the desk got him off track. The other transgressions he goes on to describe are compelling in his assertion that this particular group of people are so lacking in social skills that there should be a nanny 911 task force set up to keep them from destroying whatever social graces survive in our upper-classes. I'm sensing Wolfe is also upset about the hubris here and a nice helping of a vulgar excessive conspicuous consumption that will not bode well with increasing doses. That these folks are not impressed with "The worn wood, the rickety sashes, the tired paint, the failing fabrics, the cracked leather" ubiquitous to the old-line clubs that Wolfe frequents, seems to offend Wolfe's delicate sensibility to the point of strain. As if wearing white suits all the time and driving around in a white Cadillac couldn't be considered affect or to some people, a truly retarded outfit. Wolfe might have been on to something here if he had exercised the self-restraint he argues against. Ironically, he goes for the cheap and the obvious, transgressing to the unacceptable: anti-Semitism. In the process he loses any credibility he brought to the table, or in this case, desk. If he had used these examples of vulgar behavior as a jumping off point to go on to other and more interesting questions, the article might not have been dismissed so readily. There are those who assert that you can't be as right as some of these hedge fund people are, as often as they are. Others imply that there's a whole lot of thieving going on. If there is any basis to these claims, it would be interesting to know who is protecting these people because we all know, it's not the doorman. Perhaps Wolfe could have lifted a veil here but chose not to, maybe he didn't want to get something all over that white suit of his. Then there is the consideration of the pirate thing he went on about, offering no context. The attempt at hyper-masculinity reveals the obvious and speaks to why one or more of these guys, abuse their subordinates so egregiously, they end up being hated with some vengeance. Their notoriety for their invective diatribes and the cruelty they administer to the vulnerable, or those without agency, says more about them than what they spend their money on. Real men don't beat their wives and children, and they don't abuse their power simply because they can. The pirate garb is simply a metaphor for the same mentality that informed GW when he donned that borrowed uniform from someone who probably was a real man who was willing to, in a very real way, fight for what he believed in and wanted to protect. However naive a gesture that might be. The broad brush strokes in which he binds these people together to give the impression that they are all equally as vile, is no where near the truth at all. There are some pretty honorable men in that bunch. As usual, the worst of the lot manages to leave a lasting impression. Lastly, there has to be some back-stories in some of these people's past that define them more succinctly than the shows of vulgar behavior and excessive hubris. "What is essential is invisible to the eye." It would be interesting to find out if one or more of these people were reared by a pack of wild poodles or were found out to be the bastard son of Pinocchio, or that they value what all of us aspire to, but as long as we have to suffer sloppy journalism, we may never find out.
Icarus, methinks the Wolfeman was unceremoniously snubbed by the great unwashed money grubbers somewhere in the bowels of Gotham. Probably at night , you would have been aloft. His article is payback.
Mvic, thanks for the compliment. Banjo, that's a convenient response, but knowing Wolfe, that's not the case. His antedeluvian take on things have left him operatic on a sandbar, without the imagination or mettle it takes to get back to shore. He's clearly lost.