“On Wall Street he and a few others – how many? – three hundred, four hundred, five hundred? – had become precisely that— Masters of the Universe. There was no limit whatsoever! Bullshit reigns.”
Tom Wolfe, Bonfire of the Vanities
“It’s no accident that the size of the financial sector today as a percentage of GDP is at levels equaled only on the eve of the Great Depression. Like the decade leading up to the financial crisis of 2008, the Roaring Twenties were marked by not only financial boom and technological wonder, but also massive income inequality. Worker wages stagnated and those of the upper classes grew, bolstered in large part by stock prices. Another similarity was a rise in debt, both public and private, which was used to mask the declining spending power of the lower and middle classes and its dampening effect on GDP growth.”
Rana Foroohar, Makers and Takers
Rana Foroohar, featured on CNN, is a “life member” of the Rockefeller CFR and was a speaker at the Davos conference last year.