Last week, a journalist by the name of Kevin Roose published an investigative article in which he revealed his findings of when he infiltrated a Secret Society of Wall Street titans at their annual black-tie induction ceremony.
What did he find out about Wall Street’s secret fraternity called Kappa Beta Phi?
Exactly what you might expect to find from a group of egotistical billionaires that have been so far detached from reality that they no longer have the mental capacity to show compassion for human kind.
Roose spectated in amazement as a room full of Wall Street billionaires carried out the fraternity’s induction rituals; rituals that were everything from offensive, to downright enraging. One of the major themes of the ceremony includes a parody show in which all of the new members dress in drag and make homophobic jokes to entertain the veteran members.
What was perhaps the most disturbing element to the hidden scene in which Kevin Roose had gained access to, was how the crowd so openly mocked Wall Street’s involvement in the financial crisis; the same crisis that caused a deep global recession, costs millions of jobs, and ruined the retirement dreams of untold millions.
Among the more noteworthy quotes taken from the young journalist were the following:
Paul Queally, a private-equity executive with Welsh, Carson, Anderson, & Stowe, took to the stage with fellow private equity Wall Street big-shot, Ted Virtue of MidOcean Partners. Their tasteless exchange received quite a roar of laughter from their audience of other carefree billionaires.
Queally: “What’s the biggest difference between Hillary Clinton and a catfish?… One has whiskers and stinks, and the other is a fish”
Warren Stephens, yet another investment CEO, wore a Confederate flag hat and sang a song about the financial crisis, set to the tune of “Dixie.”
Stephens: “In Wall Street land we’ll take our stand, said Morgan and Goldman. But first we better get some loans, so quick, get to the Fed, man.”
This verse is clearly an open mockery of the controversial stimulus spending by the Federal Reserve, known as Quantitative Easing, which has been dumping trillions of dollars into Wall Street to bring it back from its collapse in 2008.
These “elite businessmen” often respond to criticism of their enormous wealth by suggesting that the wealth will trickle down to the rest of working America. As executives of Wall Street – the most powerful industry in the world – it has become clear that much more has trickled down to those who work for the firms these men have built. With such blatant disregard for human decency, and zero remorse for their greed – resulting in a global financial crisis – it is clear that these men have set a very poor example for anyone working on Wall Street, an industry that has become notorious for greed and corruption.
Although it is no secret to America that Wall Street is corrupt and filled with men that have a glaring lack of ethical grounding, it still seems to sting each and every time another story breaks on Wall Street that shows the true nature of the titans that run the world’s most powerful industry.
The success of retirement in America has become dependent on the good faith of the financial services industry. As long as the men running Wall Street continue to treat their responsibilities as a joke, America will have to keep looking elsewhere for that “good faith.”
