The ultra-rich make it possible for Baltimore Ravens quarterback Joe Flacco of the National Football League to make $30 million a season throwing the pigskin in the approximate area of his receivers during 15-20 games this year. Last year Joe completed 390 out of the 657 he threw, which amounts to $45,600 a throw. The 2012 typical household made $51,017 last year, about the same as they made 25 years ago. A pass normally takes about six seconds to complete or drop. To put it another way, Joe’s job is to advance the ball as quickly as he can down the field past the opponent’s goal line. Last year, Joe passed for 4,957 yards, thus making $6,000 for every yard gained.

The richest ten percent of households own 90 percent of the stock listed on Wall Street. The 400 richest families in the U.S. are now wealthier in cash and assets than the bottom 150 million Americans. All persons in the U.S. may be “created equal,” but now 99 percent are stratified into the bottom classes after first spank and breath. The rich have created a society where they don’t even miss paying a quarterback $30 million from their multi-million dollar suites above the pissants. Kids this year are getting an average of $3.70 per lost tooth—but that average is skewed by the fact that some rich parents admit leaving a $20 bill under the pillow. I remember that with our seven kids a quarter was a big deal.

Recent surveys of Wall Street ethics or lack thereof bring to mind a New Yorker cartoon in the last issue of two vultures perched on a dead tree limb—also discussing ethics. One says to the other, “Promise me that if I die first you won’t eat me.” At least these vultures were thinking about ethics. Wall Street vultures just eat everything in sight, including their own.

Why The Top 20 Percent Donate 1.3 Percent of Their Income To Charity,
While The Bottom 20 Percent Donate 3.2 Percent

Wall Street is now dominated by graduates of elite Ivy League universities such as Yale, Harvard, and Princeton and elite business schools such as Wharton, Penn, and Stanford. One might think that these elite schools would have education units about honesty, business ethics, and personal integrity. Don’t even bother. There is absolutely no evidence such units exist. In fact, the top 20 percent donate 1.3 percent of their income to charity. The bottom 20 percent donate 3.2 percent. Households earning less than $25,000 give 4.2 percent, while those earning more than $75,000 give 2.7 percent.

The Labaton Sucharow law firm of New York City recently surveyed Wall Streeters on their “moral compass.” The conclusions as reported by Les Leopold: “The shock is not that cheating is going on. . . . The shock is that these financiers would actually admit it on a survey. This should tell us that the Wall Street culture is so brazenly corrupt, so confident of not getting caught (no Wall Street bankster has gone to jail over the last recession), so certain that a passive public won’t fight back that those surveyed didn’t even bother to lie about the fact they were living, breathing sociopaths.” JP Morgan Chase recently paid a fine of $920 million for lying, cheating, and committing fraud. The bank had $6.5 billion in profits last year. That’s like fining a robber $25,000 for robbing $100,000 from a bank—with no jail time.

The definition of sociopath includes many elements. First, it is a personality disorder manifesting itself in extreme antisocial attitudes and behavior and a lack of conscience. The sociopath may also have a long-term pattern of manipulating, exploiting, or violating the rights of others. This behavior is often criminal. The end always justifies the means. He lacks a sense of moral responsibility and lies constantly when caught. He also may be capable of violent acts.

In short, he is a real bastard. Wall Streeters seem to live by the manifesto of their Tea Party goddess Ayn Rand that should be inscribed above every Wall Street door: “I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

The Evidence Is Astounding And Astonishing

These are people who are dealing—and I mean really dealing—with other people’s money.  One would think graduates of universities charging $50,000 to $75,000 a year tuition would be trained as a better class of thief. But greed is more powerful than Oxycontin. Look at these percentages:

*** Remember the movie “ Catch Me If You Can”? 24 percent of financial services professionals would engage in insider trading to make $10 million. The younger, the more ready they are to screw the public. 38 percent with less than ten years experience would violate insider trading laws.

*** 28 percent of Wall Streeters feel that the financial industry does not put its clients first. Banks loan money to businesses and then secretly hedge their bets on the businesses by using credit default swaps, derivatives, and other Wall Street crap.

*** 28 percent of Wall Streeters with ten years or less of experience believe their “colleagues” in the bankstering business may have to engage in misconduct to be “successful.” 36 percent believe that senior Wall Streeters are cheating to gain big profits.

*** 17 percent of Wall Streeters believe that if their CEOs suspect a top performer of earning huge profits for the firm through insider training, they would totally ignore the criminal act and not report the crime to law enforcement or regulatory agencies.

Instead Of Eating Cake, Some Of The 99 Percent Are Eating Grass

Some time ago a reader sent me an email about sociopathic Wall Street lawyers and bankers. I thought it was a bit over the edge at first. After doing some research on Wall Street, it seems perfectly appropriate:

“One afternoon a wealthy Wall Street lawyer was riding in the back of his limousine when he saw two men eating grass by the roadside. He ordered his driver to stop. He asked the men: ‘Why are you eating grass?’ One man replied: ‘We don’t have any money for food.’ The Wall Streeter responded, ‘Oh, well, you can come with me to my house.’ One man said, ‘But sir, I have a wife and two children with me.’ The lawyer said, ‘Bring them along.’ The other man said, ‘But I have a wife and six children.’ ‘Bring them as well!’ was the reply.

They all climbed into the limo. One man said, ‘Sir, you are too kind. Thank you for taking all of us with you.’ The Wall Streeter replied, ‘Glad to do it. You’ll love my place; the grass is almost a foot tall...’”

We are now in a period of the greatest income inequality among Americans in history, surpassing The Gilded Age and the Roaring Twenties. We even have a wider range in handbags. Billionaire Oprah Winfrey wanted to look at a $38,000 one called a Tom Ford Jennifer in a Switzerland shop. Evidently she was dressed like Mrs. Stepanfetchit so was denied a peek. Actually that model was a cheapy. Hermes produces a platinum version with 2,000 diamonds that peddles for $2 million. Not to be outdone in a big seller’s market, the jeweler Mouawad has a heart-shaped gold purse covered with 4,500 diamonds on the “free market” for $3.8 million.

Will A $7 Million Wedding Bring Happiness?

Internet billionaire Sean Parker decided to add a lot of bliss to his “Lord of the Rings” marriage by bulldozing a California campground and building a fake castle to contain the “altar.” Sting was the main entertainment—er, sacred marital music. Spending about $7 million for the wedding, Parker included the cost of having the costume designer for the Lord of the Rings movies design colorful outfits for his 354 wedding guests. Is this what we mean by celebrating American exceptionalism? Or is juvenile American excess?

Parker, not realizing he is the perfect example of a sociopath, waxed poetic about his wedding: “Our guests reached a beautiful gate in a clearing, just prior to entering the forest. Through that threshold, they left the ordinary world behind and entered an extraordinary world imagined as a kind of collaborative art project between me and my wife-to-be, Alexandra.”

The Forbes list of the 400 richest Americans did not change much from previous years—except for the increase in wealth of each. Bill Gates leads the pack again with $72 billion, with bridge partner Warren Buffett in second with $58.5 billion. Larry Ellison of Oracle is a distant third at $42 billion. Larry loves big toys, so he is trying to win America’s Cup Yacht Race again with a spectacular Hobie-Cat type boat that, if the wind is right, has only the rudder in the water. Larry is currently getting his butt beat in San Francisco Bay by an oil guy from the Arab Emirates who is supporting New Zealand’s team with many millions.

But the big news is that the 400 raised their average net worth to $5 billion from a paltry $4.2 billion each, enhancing the obscene inequality. In 2012, the 400 totaled out at $2 trillion, up from $1.7 trillion in 2011. That means each averaged an increase of $750 million, or more than $2 million a day. It is certainly too bad this country is running out of money and must privatize the national interstate system to maintain a valuable part of our transportation system.

When The 400 Look In A Mirror, What Do They See?

If you have had a liberal education at all, you know the legend of Narcissus in Greek mythology about the handsome man who fell in love with himself when he looked in a mirror-like pool. He was so enamored, he “pined” himself to death. A research team at the University of California at Berkeley has studied narcissism and its specific problems in the development of a personality disorder. It is known as Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD).

Research indicates that people who are narcissistic “have inflated views of themselves: they’re more egocentric and often express real-world behaviors like selfishness, greed, aggression, competitiveness, self-centeredness, impoliteness, and unfriendliness.” One researcher summed the research up with a real zinger: “If I were on Titanic (and narcissistic), I would deserve to be on the first lifeboat!”

The researchers tested the relationships among wealth, entitlement, and narcissism and found that the rich are focused on themselves more than average and feel they are psychologically entitled to the good things in life. They feel they have earned a huge piece of the pie. Most fit some of the characteristics listed in the Narcissistic Personality Disorder. On average, women check themselves out in mirrors more often than men—except for wealthier men!

A person emailed the researchers and supported some of their conclusions. The researchers felt he might be kidding them, but he certainly listed some NPD criteria: “This phenomenon seems easy to understand. I have wealth. Many others do, in fact, others are suffering due to lack of wealth. This makes me feel guilty (psychological pain). However, I do not want to give up my wealth. I like being wealthy and enjoy the benefits thereof. In order to keep my wealth and not feel guilty I must ‘deserve’ to be wealthy, while those who are not wealthy obviously do not deserve to be. More moral or god-given superiority allows me to use my wealth without feeling guilty. While I’m at it I will also vote Republican to preserve my self-delusion.”

Who Will Step Up To The Tooth Fairy Syndrome?

Now that the race for the largest tooth fairy appropriation has been publicized, some sociopathic, narcissistic billionaire will plunk down a million under the pillow of his five-year-old and then hold a dynamic press conference. A million dollar bills makes a stack 358 feet high. That much would certainly stuff the whole mattress under the pillow.