Wallets Out, Wall Street Regains Its Swagger:

[amborin]

Dr. Francesca J. Fusco, a dermatologic surgeon in New York, says her business is rebounding strongly.


Michael Lomonaco, left, the head chef at the Porter House restaurant in Manhattan.

November 23, 2010, 9:00 pm Investment Banking
Wallets Out, Wall St. Dares to Indulge


http://link.brightcove.com/services/player/bcpid587214416001?bctid=678888864001

Exuberance made a comeback this year at Josh Koplewicz’s annual Halloween party.
More than 1,000 people packed into a 6,000-square-foot space at the Good Units night club in Manhattan, a substantially larger crowd than in the last several years.
The open bar was sponsored by Russian Standard vodka, and Mr. Koplewicz, an
investment analyst at Goldman Sachs, was able to snag a big headliner:
the hip-hop star Lil’ Kim, who performed dressed in a black cat costume.

The scene was more extravagant in September, at a 50th birthday party in Hong Kong
for Brian Brille, the head of Bank of America Asia Pacific. Mr. Brille, who is
well known on the New York social scene, wore a gray Hugh Hefner-esque jacket.
Women dressed like Playmates, with feather boas and satin ears, danced behind
a pink silk screen.

Two years after the onset of the financial crisis, the stock market is
recovering and Wall Street’s moneyed elite are breathing easier again.
And this means in some cases they are spending again — at times cautiously,
but sometimes with a familiar swagger.

snip

But when it comes to personal indulgences, there are signs that the wallets
are beginning to open up. Traders and executives say that jobs seem much
more secure. Businesses whose fortunes ebb and flow with the financial
markets are thriving again.
“Wall Street is back spending as much if not more than before,” said the
New York dermatologic surgeon Dr. Francesca J. Fusco, whose business is booming again after a difficult few years.
Christie’s auction house says investors from the financial world who
fell out of the bidding market during the 2008 credit crisis are “pouring” back in.
Expensive restaurants report a pickup in bookings. At the Porter House restaurant in the Time Warner Center across from Central Park, the head chef, Michael Lomonaco, says business is up about 10 percent over a year ago and “people are starting to shake off what happened.” The restaurant is a favorite of A-list Wall Street executives, including Goldman Sachs’s chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein.

Real estate agents say Wall Street executives have already begun lining up rentals in the Hamptons for next summer. Dolly Lenz of Prudential Douglas Elliman said the bidding this year was “hotter and heavier” than previous years. “There is a passion now in the market I haven’t seen in a while,” she said.
She said her clients, almost exclusively from Wall Street, were afraid to lose out. Just recently, Ms. Lenz said, she had three people bidding more than $400,000 for a summer rental in Southampton.

snip

In the years leading up to the credit crisis some executives became famous for their expenditures, like L. Dennis Kozlowski, the former chief executive of Tyco International, whose $6,000 shower curtain became a symbol of unnecessary extravagance.
Some of that excess remains. A Morgan Stanley trader recently tried to hire a dwarf for a bachelor party in Miami, asking the dwarf to meet him at the airport in a “Men in Black” style suit, according to e-mail exchanges. The trader, who wanted to handcuff the dwarf to the bachelor, was recently fired.

snip

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/signs-of-swagger-wallets-out-wall-st-dares-to-celebrate/?scp=5&sq=bankers%20and%20spending&st=cse

[WCGreen]

1. Thank god the chosen one's are choosing to spend their money...

Now will some of it rain down on the rest of us...

[rfranklin]

2. As Maria Bartiromo even said, "They were too connected to fail..."

Wall Street bimbo Bartiromo used that telling phrase while promoting her new ghostwritten book on WNYC radio.

Funny how the most descriptive word about Wall Street bailouts is taken from the gangster vernacular.

[amborin]

3. and this:

http://trueslant.com/matttaibbi/2009/12/03/the-ultimate-vanity-plate/

[rurallib]

4. You can almost smell the trickle on.

[kenny blankenship]

5. That's YOUR money they're spending

[amborin]

6. taxpayers conned: accepted banksters' private debt as public debt, for which we now need austerity

NOT

[raouldukelives]

7. If your going to keep destroying the lives of future generations

You may as well do it in style.

[earthside]

8. And at the other end ...

... I noticed that the local Goodwill store is busy today.

I guess everything is proceeding according to plan: the elite corporate ruling class is in hog heaven and the rest of us get to look forward to being part of a low-wage nation working for their profit.

Viva, China-Mart!

[TheWatcher]

9. Thank God The Rich and The Unaffected are secure. By the way that trickle down effect you feel

is them pissing on our heads and laughing all the way to the failed, insolvent Banks.

I don't hate my country, but I really hate what it's become.

We are the Worst Joke ever told.

[Smashcut]

10. Change That Matters

[shireen]

11. disgusting

these people make me sick.

[Catherina]

12. Jump you fuckers