Investment Bankers March on The New York Fed

Chauffeur-Driven Protest Leads to Arrests

Demanding further intervention from the Federal Reserve to protect their endangered fortunes, tens of thousands of members of the Wall Street investment banking community marched on New York Federal Reserve Headquarters yesterday.


Hailed as “The Militant Mega-Millionaires March” the protest was said to be the largest chauffeur-driven demonstration in US history. Some of the protestors were exhausted and dehydrated after the grueling 3-block drive from the New York Stock Exchange and were revived with bottles of Krug, Clos du Mesnil (1995). Paramedics wafted burning stacks of 100 bills under the noses of many others who were about to go into shock

Limousines started jamming the streets at approximately ten in the morning as the irate I-bankers converged in front of the Federal Reserve building to demand stronger action to protect their imperiled riches.

Chanting “No Rate Cut, No Peace,” the furious moneymen were doused with water hoses by police as their protest took a violent turn with pictures of Ben Bernanke and Hank Paulson being burned in effigy. Others attempted to chain themselves to the Fed doors only to be freed by police with bolt cutters. Many were carried into paddywagons (black mariahs) while still chanting their slogan or singing "We Shall Overcome."

Roger Cashman, a major player in Private Equity, said that the fear and anger that has developed over the last month in the financial community was “a volcano waiting to erupt.”

“We have yet to see the full effects of this crisis ... When these guys have to cut their trophy wives’ pocket money, not to mention their "girlfriends", there’s going to be hell to pay.”

His words were eerily prophetic as, late in the day, mobs of angry trophy wives & wannabes roamed at will across large sections of the Upper East Side of Manhattan looting Bergdorf Goodman, Saks Fifth Avenue, Bloomingdales and Harry Winston’s, ending their rampage at Henri Bendel where they stripped the boutique of its entire winter collection.

The fear is that if the Fed fails to intervene on 18 September to lower rates this ugly situation will only get uglier.

“I you think these guys are mad now,” Cashman said “wait until they’re down to their last hundred million - they will be like wounded wolves; it will not be a pretty sight.”


Cassandra