The Clueless 0.1% (Wall Street Hero Worship Edition)

I'm all for people making tons of money.
Heck, I, personally, would love to have pots-o-moolah, and being a big believer in the Hope is a Strategy school of philosophy, religiously buy a lottery ticket every time I end up in a place that is selling lottery tickets (which translates to, oh, one a month or so).
In fact, all things being equal, I'm even ok with you having gobs-o-cash, 'cos afterall, I'm a charitable guy :-)
But come on people, if you are one of the 0.1% or better, please, please do not

• act holier than thou
• flaunt it
• act as if you had something to do with it (unless you are Steve Jobs or Warren Buffet)
• most importantly, pretend that you are actually doing some social good by being Mr. Moneybags.  This is doubly true if you are part of the Financial system

Exhibit (A) is the puff-piece on Edward Conard in the NY Times Sunday Magazine, which has clearly replaces Sorkin with someone who is even better at fellating Wall-Street (Adam Davidson), and whose latest article has such gems as

During one conversation, he expressed anger over the praise that Warren Buffett has received for pledging billions of his fortune to charity. It was no sacrifice, Conard argued; Buffett still has plenty left over to lead his normal quality of life. By taking billions out of productive investment, he was depriving the middle class of the potential of its 20-to-1 benefits. If anyone was sacrificing, it was those people. “Quit taking a victory lap,” he said, referring to Buffett. “That money was for the middle class.

Good grief.  Does this really even pass the sniff test vis-a-vis Grade-A Bullshit?  Charity is not productive?  Oh god, I don't even know where to start - mosquito nets, clean water, malaria, efficient stoves, the list goes on.  And this isn't even about "soft" stuff like "saving people's lives", etc.  There is any amount of evidence that links economic growth to clean water access etc.  Just use The Googles.  But noooo, its money "meant for the middle class".
 Mind you, this isn't even getting into the "productive investment" in the financial sector part of the argument.  I'm going to leave that one well enough alone, it stinks too much

 Later on, we have the following bit of sheer insanity

The world Conard describes too often feels grim and soulless, one in which art and romance and the nonremunerative satisfactions of a simpler life are invisible. And that, I realized, really is Conard’s world. “God didn’t create the universe so that talented people would be happy,” he said. “It’s not beautiful. It’s hard work. It’s responsibility and deadlines, working till 11 o’clock at night when you want to watch your baby and be with your wife. It’s not serenity and beauty.”

Holy shit.  Does he even know many people there are in this country who would kill to have a job - any job?  Or, take the opposite extreme, the number of people who work crazy hours, just to make ends meet?  Any one of them, any one, would kill for his job.  Seriously.  There is nothing special about hard work - everybody does it.  I just wish, really, that people would get rid of the myth of "the lazy American worker".
We're not lazy.
At pretty much any level.
People are working their asses off, because in this economy, everyone knows that they might be the next person to loose their job, and you don't - under any circumstances - want to be the chap that lost it because you slacked off.

Sigh.  Sometimes the 1% (and definitely the 0.1%) cheese me off so much...