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Former Hedge Fund Trader Describes "Wealth Addicts" On Wall Street
By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jan 19, 2014
Modified Jan 19, 2014
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By
Christopher Robbins
Published Jan 19, 2014
Modified Jan 19, 2014
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In an illuminating op-ed for the Times, a former hedge fund trader describes how he supplanted his drug and alcohol additions with an addiction to money. "I was a giant fireball of greed," Sam Polk writes. "I’d think about how my colleagues could buy Micronesia if they wanted to, or become mayor of New York City."
Polk paints the picture of his Wall Street ascent and subsequent reckoning with a broad brush (there is a reference to The Wire) but makes a persuasive (if unoriginal) argument about money's corrupting and ultimately unfulfilling promise:
I generally think that if one is rich and believes they have “enough,” they are not a wealth addict. On Wall Street, in my experience, that sense of “enough” is rare. The money guy doing a job he complains about for yet another year so he can add $2 million to his $20 million bank account seems like an addict.
Wealth addicts are responsible for the vast and toxic disparity between the rich and the poor and the annihilation of the middle class. Only a wealth addict would feel justified in receiving $14 million in compensation—including an $8.5 million bonus—as the McDonald’s C.E.O., Don Thompson, did in 2012, while his company then published a brochure for its work force on how to survive on their low wages. Only a wealth addict would earn hundreds of millions as a hedge-fund manager, and then lobby to maintain a tax loophole that gave him a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Tagged
income inequality
sam polk
wall street
wealth addicts
Christopher Robbins
Christopher Robbins is a New York City reporter covering transportation, affordable housing, local politics, and criminal justice. His work has also appeared in New York Magazine, The Village Voice and The New York Times. Chris is a graduate of Patrick Henry High School in Roanoke, Virginia, and enjoys biking to Fort Tilden in the summertime.
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