A reader writes:
I think you’re almost giving too much credit to the financial masters of the universe and what they might feel “deep down” about their own failures in the past. I know a lot of these people personally, and to a man – and they’re almost all men – they truly believe that a) the financial crisis was brought about by a few bad apples and second-rate firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers, and that they personally had nothing to do with the crisis; b) that the big banks were forced to take the bailouts even if they didn’t need them because firms with more exposure were stupid and reckless and had to be covered for by forcing everyone to take a bailout – this has been fairly well documented, actually, as what Paulson did during the crisis – and c) the work they do is absolutely integral to a well-functioning capitalistic society, and the more money they have to work with and the less regulation there is, the better off everyone is.
Really, the best analogy is to Jack Nicholson’s character in A Few Good Men, Col. Jessup, when he gave the speech about needing him on that wall because even if we don’t like to think about how he protects us, his protection (and the “manner in which he provides it”) is vital, even if it might offend us. That’s how these guys see themselves, really, when it comes to the flow of money and capital throughout the system, full stop. No need to psychoanalyze further.
Another zooms in on Silicon Valley:
As someone who has been living for years in the Bay Area, I think many people’s analysis of Tom Perkins’ meltdown (including yours) misses a very critical element:
Silicon Valley’s relative insulation from the rest of the economy. The tech industry and its VCs and angel investors didn’t suffer much damage from the Great Recession, and in fact probably kept California’s incredibly high unemployment rate from going into space. Perkins, along with other investors in the Valley such as Y Combinator, did not have to be bailed out like Dimon and his Wall Street ilk were. These investors, along with a significant chunk of the local tech industry, have been living in a social bubble, which began to break last year in part due to significant protests in San Francisco and (to a lesser extent) Oakland.
Tom Perkins isn’t actually writing from the standpoint of the one-percent Wall Streeter who has been humbled. His angle is worse: He’s writing from the standpoint of an overreaching tech billionaire who has not been humbled, and is bemoaning the fact that the tech industry’s “disruption” of the Bay Area has not been welcomed and appreciated by native residents like he thinks it should, and fears it might lead them to being “humbled” as well. He is acting, in essence, more like Iraq invasion-era Cheney and Rumsfeld (“They would welcome us as liberators!”) than post-9/11 Cheney and Rumsfeld in general. In fact, if I dare say it, I don’t even think he is particularly talking about Obama, but rather supposed “lefties” in the Bay Area who are legitimately angry at being evicted from their homes and apartments and being unable to afford rent anywhere (let alone SF). In other words, the working class.
The Dish 