Livid Wall Streeters See Themselves as Victims

Main Street doesn’t hold a monopoly on victimhood, Gabriel Sherman writes in New York. From AIG execs and their disappearing bonuses to Wall Street bankers who get dirty looks, the once-privileged feel like they’re shouldering too much blame. “It is difficult to sympathize with these people,” Sherman writes, “but you can understand their shock: Their world has been turned on its head.”

The wealthy financial elite is particularly worried about being taxed into relative poverty. They fight “when you try and take the bone away, even if they didn’t deserve that bone in the first place,” said one insider. An argument Sherman heard “over and over” was “that the high cost of living like a wealthy person in New York necessitates higher salaries. It was loopy logic,” Sherman writes, “but expressed sincerely.” (More Wall Street bailout stories.)