From Ordering Steak and Lobster, to Serving It

[[R_H]]

Yahoo Finance

Carlos Araya used to order lobster, filet mignon and $200 bottles of red wine at the Palm Restaurant in midtown Manhattan.Now, he seats customers at its Tribeca branch.
Mr. Araya, 38 years old, lost his job in 2007 as a crude oil trader on the New York Mercantile Exchange. After visiting dozens of headhunters with no luck, he applied in August 2008 to be a host at the Palm to support his wife, two young daughters and mortgage payments. His salary has plunged from $200,000 to $25,000.

If the financial crisis was the flood, then the Arayas are one of the families standing in the stagnant waters left behind. Some former Wall Street employees, highly trained and accustomed to comfortable salaries, are having trouble translating their specialized skills to other fields that pay well, and instead find themselves forced to accept low-wage work. Now, Mr. Araya is on the brink of losing it all and is doubtful that he will ever return to Wall Street.

And he isn't alone. Nearly 25,000 jobs have been lost in New York City's financial sector since August 2007, according to the New York State Department of Labor. The finance industry in New York is expected to lose 56,800 jobs from the end of 2007 to the beginning of 2012, according to projections from the Independent Budget Office, a publicly funded information agency.

John Carbonaro was let go as a floor clerk by Bank of America in January 2009, and despite his job-hunting efforts, remains a "Mr. Mom." Joe Morrone, a laid-off trading clerk from Prudential, has been unemployed for two years and struggles to support his daughters and grandson. He has had stints as a deli worker, a doorman and a bouncer. "I used to have three cars," Mr. Morrone says. "Now I share one."The result is an unlikely stream of erstwhile Wall Street pros need help.

"I've got 'em all -- Lehman, AIG, Citi," says Bob Townley, head of Manhattan Youth in Tribeca, an organization that gave the Arayas financial assistance to pay for childcare while they are working. "I can hear it in a parent's voice when there's trouble. Others are too proud to ask for help."

Many of these parents once made donations to Mr. Townley's program. Now they are asking for aid to pay for their kids. Mr. Araya's daughters, ages 6 and 7, are in an after-school program at Mr. Townley's center.

Nowadays, during Mr. Araya's late nights at the Palm, reminders of his old life crop up when former colleagues come in. Some are encouraging and offer hugs. Others sneer, he says. "The way they look at you, you know they're thinking negatively," he says. Some are laid-off like him, and ask if the restaurant is hiring.

As a host, Mr. Araya wears a suit and tie. He's on his feet most of the day, either escorting guests to tables or manning the podium at the front, answering phone calls, managing reservations on the computer and fielding orders from wait staff and managers.

Although he's thankful for the work at the Palm, paydays can be bittersweet. "At the end of the week, I get my paycheck," he says, "and I think, 'I used to make this much in a day.' "Mr. Araya's wife, Dennise, has gone back to work as an administrative assistant for a construction company and leaves home at 6 a.m. Mr. Araya often works until one or two in the morning and on weekends, leaving little time for the family to be together. He calls his daughters every night during his break at the restaurant on his cellphone to say good night.

Mr. Araya now is the one who gets his children ready for school. He's learned to tie pony tails, inadvertently shrunk sweaters in the wash and knows which grocery store has the best price on milk.

The Arayas stopped dining out, pulled their daughters out of ballet and tumbling classes, and dropped cable television -- even though the flat screen he bought when they first moved in still sits in the living room.

Last month, for the first time, the Arayas didn't make a mortgage payment. Their savings are almost depleted. The mortgage, taxes and fees for the family's condo cost $6,200. Combined, he and Denise bring in $4,000 a month. Three months ago, he and his wife applied to restructure their mortgage. The bank told them it is still processing the request. They fear foreclosure and bankruptcy.

Recently, their oldest daughter asked Mr. Araya if the family would have to move. He told her he didn't know. She countered: "How much money do we need?"

"The way she looked at me," Mr. Araya says, "I could tell she was counting the money in her piggy bank." He went into the bathroom and cried. After a few minutes, he dried his eyes and walked back into the living room.

Mr. Araya, the son of a cab driver, grew up in a working-class neighborhood in nearby Queens. Like thousands of New Yorkers, he used a Wall Street job to vault into a comfortable lifestyle that included his apartment -- bought for $960,000 four years ago -- in Manhattan's Battery Park City neighborhood and family vacations to Cabo San Lucas, Disneyland and Las Vegas.

The Arayas purchased the condo in 2005 with a 20% down payment and a pre-construction price. The proximity of the two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment to the trading pit allowed Mr. Araya to spend more time with his family and less time commuting. Ms. Araya diligently managed the family budget with Excel charts to ensure that they had no credit card debt, good credit histories even an emergency fund saved over five years that is now depleted. Mr. Araya says he would be lucky to find a buyer and break even on the apartment now.

Mr. Araya dropped out of college in 1992 to work in the pits, where he quickly advanced from runner to trader. He shifted between large firms like J.P. Morgan Chase & Co. and smaller shops like Aren Brokerage Service, the firm that eventually laid him off.

A wrestler in high school, Mr. Araya was known for elbowing his way through the loud commodities pits. Nights were late; mornings began at 4:30 am, fueled by coffee.

"You'd clock in and just try to kill each other till the bell rang," Mr. Araya says.

He had a knack for the Merc job. He could gauge from the roar of traders' voices how the market was faring. He gained loyal clients, and was confident enough to engage in profane shouting matches with them on the phone. Mr. Araya still has dreams about the hand signals traders use to indicate orders. His trading jacket hangs in his closet.

Every day lately, he spends two hours online, trolling job Web sites like Monster.com and e-mailing former colleagues. The leads have dried up, since some of them are laid off themselves. He's contacted headhunters, been on a dozen interviews in the last year and a half, but nothing has come of them.

"It was a hard reality at first," he says. "I used to see unemployed people and think they were lazy, that it was all on them. Now it's happened to me."

[Rogue 9]

So the guy's making $25k a year? Boo fucking hoo; come back and whine when you're working minimum wage somewhere.

[Ziggy Stardust]

Yeah, I do not have a whole lot of sympathy for a crude oil trader on the NYME not getting $200,000, especially when he is still well above the poverty line.

[General Zod]

So the guy's making $25k a year? Boo fucking hoo; come back and whine when you're working minimum wage somewhere.

$25k may as well be minimum wage for what things cost in New York, especially trying to support more than just yourself.

[AMT]

So the guy's making $25k a year? Boo fucking hoo; come back and whine when you're working minimum wage somewhere.

25k a year is fucking minimum wage in NYC if you want to live there.

[Darth Wong]

So the guy's making $25k a year? Boo fucking hoo; come back and whine when you're working minimum wage somewhere.

25k a year is fucking minimum wage in NYC if you want to live there.

Is he under some sort of curse? Will he instantly die if he leaves the NYC area?

[Ziggy Stardust]

25k a year is fucking minimum wage in NYC if you want to live there.

Well, no, not at all. I lived in NYC pretty comfortably when I was making less than 20K a year. This guy is making 25K a year, not to mention the fact that his wife works as an administrative assistant, which is probably another 25-30K a year. Literally the only repercussions are not being able to live as fancy a lifestyle as he did before. Boohoo.

[Rahvin]

The Arayas purchased the condo in 2005 with a 20% down payment and a pre-construction price. The proximity of the two-bedroom, two-bathroom apartment to the trading pit allowed Mr. Araya to spend more time with his family and less time commuting. Ms. Araya diligently managed the family budget with Excel charts to ensure that they had no credit card debt, good credit histories even an emergency fund saved over five years that is now depleted. Mr. Araya says he would be lucky to find a buyer and break even on the apartment now.

If he's upside-down on a mortgage, moving may not be an option. If his savings are depleted and his chances of finding even a break-even buyer are poor, at 25k/yr he's not likely to be able to afford to move.

Maybe if he tries to sell some of his luxury property, like the flat-panel TV, he could scrounge up enough to fund a move and a deposit for an apartment elsewhere. But really, when you're making 25k in a city with living expenses like New York with a family, the extra money needed to actually move is going to be hard to come by.

[General Zod]

25k a year is fucking minimum wage in NYC if you want to live there.

Well, no, not at all. I lived in NYC pretty comfortably when I was making less than 20K a year. This guy is making 25K a year, not to mention the fact that his wife works as an administrative assistant, which is probably another 25-30K a year. Literally the only repercussions are not being able to live as fancy a lifestyle as he did before. Boohoo.

It might be comfortable if it's just yourself. I doubt it's so cushy if you have kids to support.

[Ziggy Stardust]

It might be comfortable if it's just yourself. I doubt it's so cushy if you have kids to support.

The relative poverty line for a family of four is around 21 or 2K a year. Not only does he make 25K, but his wife is working a job that is easily another 25K, if not more. That really is not that bad.

[AMT]

So the guy's making $25k a year? Boo fucking hoo; come back and whine when you're working minimum wage somewhere.

25k a year is fucking minimum wage in NYC if you want to live there.

Is he under some sort of curse? Will he instantly die if he leaves the NYC area?

Maybe?

Seriously though, if he's already drained his resources, he may not be able to afford to move to a new area, especially if he's upside-down on his mortage, which, if he actually owes as much as he seems to, is a very distinct possibility. In addition, moving doesn't mean he'll be able to find a 25k a year job, seeing as how he has (my impression from the article) no actual bankable job skills.

Well, no, not at all. I lived in NYC pretty comfortably when I was making less than 20K a year. This guy is making 25K a year, not to mention the fact that his wife works as an administrative assistant, which is probably another 25-30K a year. Literally the only repercussions are not being able to live as fancy a lifestyle as he did before. Boohoo.

From the impression I get, if you want to actually live a lower middle class lifestyle and support a family (i.e. more than one kid) you'll likely need more than 40k a year to do so reasonably.
Now since you weren't doing that, its easy to say you could live on 20k a year. Though if you could provide details on how you did it (what did you do for a living, general area where you lived when you lived there), that may help illuminate things.

The relative poverty line for a family of four is around 21 or 2K a year. Not only does he make 25K, but his wife is working a job that is easily another 25K, if not more. That really is not that bad.

Yes. Relative, which means average, yes? Which doesn't take into account the vastly inflated prices and payments he's making to keep his head above water. 21k spends much farther in say... Iowa, then it does in NYC

[Starglider]

These people were literal parasites on the economy. None of them provided anything genuinely useful and many of them actively worked to destroy the savings and livelihoods of others for personal gain. I have no sympathy for any of them, although I might perhaps have a little for their families.

[AMT]

These people were literal parasites on the economy. None of them provided anything genuinely useful and many of them actively worked to destroy the savings and livelihoods of others for personal gain. I have no sympathy for any of them, although I might perhaps have a little for their families.

Really, and your proof that a commodities broker was a) a parasite and b) actively worked to destroy the savings and livelihoods of others for personal gain are? Or are you just letting your prejudices and preconceived notions get the better of you?

[Pablo Sanchez]

Really, and your proof that a commodities broker was a) a parasite and b) actively worked to destroy the savings and livelihoods of others for personal gain are? Or are you just letting your prejudices and preconceived notions get the better of you?

It's fucking sad how eager some people are to buy into tiresome apologia. Hey, you want to know something interesting about the crude oil commodities business? Last summer gas prices soared (you may remember this if you owned a car) in spite of the fact that demand fell like a stone, mainly because of the work of commodities brokers like Araya and his former employers. There's also the critical role that commodities speculation on foodstuffs plays in sustaining world hunger, by driving prices above the buying ability of the global poor. Not all commodities brokers are speculators, but enough of them are to cause serious pain to a lot of people. It's possible that Araya was the good kind of crude oil broker, so if we want to be charitable we can assume that.

Anyway, all your bullshit in this thread is completely beside the real objection that people should have to this article, which is the idea that we're supposed to feel extra bad for the people who have fallen from wealth because of the recession, as opposed to people who were already poor and are now simply fucked. What about the people who've never even eaten a real steak, and are now living day-to-day because they were laid off from their McJob? There's probably ten such stories for every Araya, but we don't read fucking sob-stories about them in the financial papers. There's never been a more incestuous, shitty department at any media company than the financial desks today, and that's including the damn society desk.

[General Zod]

Anyway, all your bullshit in this thread is completely beside the real objection that people should have to this article, which is the idea that we're supposed to feel extra bad for the people who have fallen from wealth because of the recession, as opposed to people who were already poor and are now simply fucked. What about the people who've never even eaten a real steak, and are now living day-to-day because they were laid off from their McJob? There's probably ten such stories for every Araya, but we don't read fucking sob-stories about them in the financial papers. There's never been a more incestuous, shitty department at any media company than the financial desks today, and that's including the damn society desk.

I think the best we can hope for from stories like these is some of the parasitic speculators read them and maybe realize "Oh shit, if it happened to someone that did everything "right" I might get the axe too!" and start working to make things better, find a productive line of work, etc. I don't think it's terribly likely but I think it's all we can realistically expect from these type of articles.

[Edi]

If he worked for years in the business and had a 200k per year salary, where the fuck did all his money go this fast? Looks like they didn't bother saving all that much. Can't say I have a lot of sympathy for the situation. Somebody who thought he was invulnerable found out the hard way he wasn't.

Based on the comments in the article, he doesn't seem the worst sort, but no way to really know.

[Pablo Sanchez]

If he worked for years in the business and had a 200k per year salary, where the fuck did all his money go this fast?

From the story it appears they plowed it into consumer goods and a million dollar condo.

I think the best we can hope for from stories like these is some of the parasitic speculators read them and maybe realize "Oh shit, if it happened to someone that did everything "right" I might get the axe too!" and start working to make things better, find a productive line of work, etc. I don't think it's terribly likely but I think it's all we can realistically expect from these type of articles.

I think stories like this serve two rhetorical purposes. First, for the business-types who read the financial news, it's a kind of sob-circle. It allays their conscience about the culpability of the business class in the recession by proving that they're suffering, too--or if not them specifically, then people like them--and makes them able to feel that they're being unfairly persecuted. There's a real trend of petulance among the former financial wunderkinder about how their brand has fallen in the public consciousness. They were never really thought of as heroes, but they were respected for their ability to make money and get ahead. With the recession they've become villains. Which is why I think the second purpose is to publicize the notion that financial-sector types are suffering through the recession, too, in the hopes of drawing some heat and ire away from themselves. Writers and editors for the business sections are notoriously close to the subjects of their reporting, hence the heavy criticism they've come under for basically being blowjob dispensers to CEOs; at this point I think they've laid the fellatio aside to try and rescue their pals from populist anger.

[AMT]

It's fucking sad how eager some people are to buy into tiresome apologia. Hey, you want to know something interesting about the crude oil commodities business? Last summer gas prices soared (you may remember this if you owned a car) in spite of the fact that demand fell like a stone, mainly because of the work of commodities brokers like Araya and his former employers. There's also the critical role that commodities speculation on foodstuffs plays in sustaining world hunger, by driving prices above the buying ability of the global poor. Not all commodities brokers are speculators, but enough of them are to cause serious pain to a lot of people. It's possible that Araya was the good kind of crude oil broker, so if we want to be charitable we can assume that.

Yes? And? He did such things, but the issue there shouldn't be that he did them, but that there is a system in place allowing him to do so, one that won't be fixed by pointing a finger at Araya and going "Fuck you!"
If you really have an issue with the business, then you should be looking at the root cause, not every single person who is employed by it.

Anyway, all your bullshit in this thread is completely beside the real objection that people should have to this article, which is the idea that we're supposed to feel extra bad for the people who have fallen from wealth because of the recession, as opposed to people who were already poor and are now simply fucked.

Except that stories like that are a dime a dozen, and frankly the average person will read and ignore them. One that's more extreme, such as 200k to 20k, is liable to grab attention and maybe show that everyone is having an issue. Just because a have is now a have-not does not mean he deserves less sympathy then those who didn't have any before and are still in the shitter. Unless you just like to laugh at the misfortune of those who put in long hours, worked hard, and made a lot of money, but, thanks to this economy, are facing financial issues. Which could be the case, I don't know you after all. You could be that douchey.

What about the people who've never even eaten a real steak, and are now living day-to-day because they were laid off from their McJob?

Those stories also need to be told, and are very real issues as well. Just because there is one type of story doesn't mean the others should be ignored, even, as I stated above, they most likely will be.

There's probably ten such stories for every Araya, but we don't read fucking sob-stories about them in the financial papers.

Because again, there are ten such stories that means that they are less likely to be newsworthy.

There's never been a more incestuous, shitty department at any media company than the financial desks today, and that's including the damn society desk.

Yes? And? So?

[J]

The trader is a complete idiot and I have zero sympathy for him. None at all. First off, he bought a million dollar condo on a $200k income, which completely blows the 3:1 housing price:income ratio which constitutes affordable housing. He levered up at nearly 5:1, which means any little hiccup in his income will result in a serious cash crunch and cause him to default on hos payments. It doesn't have to be the 90% haircut which he took, a 30% drop in his income would be enough to put a good squeeze on him and throw his debt to income ratio out of control and put him on the road to default. And if he took out an ARM instead of a fixed rate mortgage the interest rate jumps we've had in the past month would be enough to put him into default even if he kept his $200k salary. The bottom line is he got greedy and overextended his finances, and now he's paying the price.

If he's upside-down on a mortgage, moving may not be an option. If his savings are depleted and his chances of finding even a break-even buyer are poor, at 25k/yr he's not likely to be able to afford to move.

If he's upside down on his mortgage the logical choice is jingle mail, in other words, an intentional default on the mortgage. Since it generally takes anywhere from 6 months to well over a year from the first missed payment until the foreclosure & eviction, he has that much time to live rent & mortgage free and replenish his savings. It's going to kill his credit record but that's going to happen anyway since no matter what he does, there's no way of paying off the mortgage.

[Covenant]

There's a populist glee in seeing people with such 'specific skillsets' come crashing down to a level more or less equal to that of your average worker, but I'm still just stunned he didn't find any work besides waiting tables. How specific are his skills if he's not even suitable in other areas of business or finance?

I'm also very skeptical about that apartment. Four years ago the economy wasn't as solid as some of the conservative economist sorts asserted, and down in Chicago I was hearing grumbles of a very weak economy down the road. I remember that quite clearly, and it made my life very hard looking for work, so I would not have thought that someone in his position would have wanted to throw it all in the sink by buying a million dollar luxury apartment. It's easy to blow a million dollars in housing in NYC, but really? Anyway, I don't know as much about the specifics of it as J, but I agree that it was a beyond-his-means condo. I fear he may have been attempting to flip it at some point.

It's the tone of the article that's really offensive, and even though I've been told not to do kneejerking, his tone is part of it. His own "the unemployed are just lazy" criticism shows his previous detached mindset and a critical empathy gap. Even though that's godawful low for NYC, many of these things are the fault of his pride and greed, since they should have shed those assets ASAP once he saw that the economy was nosediving--even before he lost his own job.

And like I said to someone, I just hope that before he lost his job he was kind to those waitstaff, since I'm sure none of them give a fuck where he came from. Take the "I used to be somebody" element out of this story and all you have is "new waiter complains he only makes 25k, not enough to buy a luxury condo." If he thinks 25k is bad pay for NYC he's gotta remember that some people work up to that level, and he's probably working with waiters that were thrilled to finally be making 25k, more than the last restaurant they waited tables for. If the only reason I should feel bad that he makes 25k and not feel bad that the other waiter makes 25k is because he used to be a commodities trader that made 200k, I'm sorry, that's just not good enough. I do feel sorry that anyone has to get laid off at all, but the only tragic loss here is their beyond-their-means standard of living.

So?

[Darth Wong]

AMT's apologist bullshit makes me sick.

If the financial crisis was the flood, then the Arayas are one of the families standing in the stagnant waters left behind. Some former Wall Street employees, highly trained and accustomed to comfortable salaries, are having trouble translating their specialized skills to other fields that pay well, and instead find themselves forced to accept low-wage work. Now, Mr. Araya is on the brink of losing it all and is doubtful that he will ever return to Wall Street.

Translation: these people can't get a job because "manipulating the financial system for personal gain" is not a useful skill outside Wall Street.

Worse yet, their particular "skill" does not even translate well to ancillary traits. Lots of other professionals get jobs outside their specialization because people know that their qualifications make them generally smart, capable, and reliable individuals. Wall Street traders, on the other hand, bring nothing to the table but a massive sense of entitlement and proven track record of reckless decision-making. This guy is no exception with his million-dollar apartment.

Although he's thankful for the work at the Palm, paydays can be bittersweet. "At the end of the week, I get my paycheck," he says, "and I think, 'I used to make this much in a day.'

Yeah, but he didn't really earn that much; he just had a job which paid him that much. What did he do? He was a glorified bookie.

"It was a hard reality at first," he says. "I used to see unemployed people and think they were lazy, that it was all on them. Now it's happened to me."

Classic conservative: zero sympathy for anyone not in his own personal situation. It's too late to appeal to kind-heartedness now, asshole. You didn't have any of your own before.

[Pablo Sanchez]

Yes? And? He did such things, but the issue there shouldn't be that he did them, but that there is a system in place allowing him to do so, one that won't be fixed by pointing a finger at Araya and going "Fuck you!" If you really have an issue with the business, then you should be looking at the root cause, not every single person who is employed by it.

If I'm reading your argument correctly, people who cause human suffering but end getting rewarded for it by the system are morally blameless, because it's the system's fault. Nice.

As for your second "point", I know that it isn't reasonable to expect anybody to read my record of posts before they respond to me, but I criticize the so-called root cause pretty much all the time. If you're going to tell me what I should be doing, you should at least have the courtesy to consider the possibility that I already fucking do it.

Except that stories like that are a dime a dozen, and frankly the average person will read and ignore them.

I know this and the point of my post was to deplore it. You seem to have gotten distracted by your vigorous defense of this failed yuppie and totally missed my point. But don't feel bad, it's not your fault. It's the system's fault.

One that's more extreme, such as 200k to 20k, is liable to grab attention and maybe show that everyone is having an issue.

It's true that sensational stories sell more papers than ones that actually illuminate the issues, but at this point we have a couple of choices. We can either make the minimal effort to criticize the media complex that seeks to define current events in terms of extremely atypical human interest stories and ignores the plight of the majority of people during an economic crisis, and at least try to analyze the meaning and purpose of the story, or we can blithely accept the story as it's presented in the belief that unusual stories are intrinsically more worthwhile than common ones. Finally, not "everyone" is having an issue. Plenty of the financial whiz-kids who crashed this bus are still at work and in the top 5% of earners; but thanks for proving the point I made earlier about this story being designed to convince the public that everybody is suffering together, just because they can find some individuals who are hurting.

Just because a have is now a have-not does not mean he deserves less sympathy then those who didn't have any before and are still in the shitter.

Yes, it does. He still has a job, and one that a lot of people would be happy to get during this trying time, his wife also has a job, and he could have accrued substantial economic resources in his previous career. A wiser person might have been able to parley this to his advantage in a recession, but then a wiser person might not be underwater on a NYC condo, holding onto a plasma-screen TV when he doesn't even have cable anymore. So yes, I have more sympathy for poor people who never had a chance to build any savings and are now at less than zero, and for under-informed and overenthusiastic people who were glad-handed into ninja mortgages, than for people who got rich during a boom but blew all their money on bullshit because they believed it would last forever.

Unless you just like to laugh at the misfortune of those who put in long hours, worked hard, and made a lot of money, but, thanks to this economy, are facing financial issues.

Is it tiring work, building strawmen just to knock them down?

I never said I was happy that these people were in trouble. I even allowed that we didn't know what kind of work Araya specifically did, so we could assume that he wasn't a bad guy. What I criticized was the idea of focusing attention, indeed even really giving a single shit, about people like him, when there are plenty of Americans who are suffering much more and never even got to enjoy the high times.

Which could be the case, I don't know you after all.

You don't seem to know much about anything, so I don't feel too left out.

Those stories also need to be told, and are very real issues as well. Just because there is one type of story doesn't mean the others should be ignored, even, as I stated above, they most likely will be.

Because again, there are ten such stories that means that they are less likely to be newsworthy.

And here I'm coming to the conclusion that you consider this result ethically neutral and therefore not worth criticizing. Fucking brilliant. Did you not even realize that in my post I was criticizing the news media for exactly what you're talking about here? When I say that the financial media does a shitty and biased job reporting on things, you rebut me by saying that's just how the media does things and then clumsily insult me for allegedly being callous to the suffering of some laid-off wall street fuck. I mean, "'I used to see unemployed people and think they were lazy, that it was all on them. Now it's happened to me.'" Seriously, he's not making it easy to feel sorry for him.

[Starglider]

These people were literal parasites on the economy.

Really, and your proof that a commodities broker was a) a parasite and b) actively worked to destroy the savings and livelihoods of others for personal gain are? Or are you just letting your prejudices and preconceived notions get the better of you?

When I say 'these people' I am making a block judgement about an entire industry, which I do in fact have a fair amount of personal experience with. There may be a few specific exceptions, but frankly not many; the probability of this particular individual being anything other than an worthless opportunist contributing to price spikes and the disruption of real industries is very low. I believe that the overvaluation of lawyers and accountants, both in compensation and respect, is a series problem in our society and a major contributing factor to numerous endemic problems, but at least those occupations are actually required for the operation of modern civilisation. The majority of financial instrument trading is not; it literally sucks money out of the real economy and feeds it to parasites by the bucketful. There isn't much we can practically do to eliminate them right now, but I can at least feel happy when these people get buttfucked.

[Darth Wong]

Really, and your proof that a commodities broker was a) a parasite and b) actively worked to destroy the savings and livelihoods of others for personal gain are?

The fact that he was successful. Commodities brokers are unlike other kinds of industry; when they are doing well, they are extracting more money out of the economy, but they are not producing anything more. In fact, they produce nothing at all. At best, the function as middlemen between buyers and sellers, but ever since the commodities brokerages became hedge fund fast-money venues instead of boring exchanges for industry insiders, the whole industry became nothing more than a huge gambling operation, with the bookies skimming fat profits for themselves.

PS. I don't think you realize what you're arguing here. People like this helped engineer a huge economic meltdown which affected the entire world, plus a huge cash grab which saw vast amounts of money transferred from the taxpayers to Wall Street. This guy was part of that machinery, profited greatly from it, and now finds himself living on only fifty thousand dollars a year household income while many of the victims of this chicanery find themselves bankrupt, homeless, or unemployed. And you're telling us that his story is more compelling because his victims' stories are a dime a dozen? He deserves no sympathy.

[LaCroix]

Anybody who made 200k a year and hasn't anything put aside for bad times has earned everything he is hit with. He made money by leeching it out of the financial industry, and has no experience beyond doing that. The only jobs that experience would be useful are professional fraud, like ponzi sheme - jobs or television preacher. Good riddance.

With all that money made, he still has a mortgage of over 6k per month! How? Because of the ~ 15k a month he made, he spent all on lobster and stuff, probably. Even now, they make 4k a month, that's more than enough to live on. Hell, most people in vienna only make 14k a year, and live well on double income, and vienna is known to be expensive.