NY Mag: I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society

One-Percent Jokes and Plutocrats in Drag: What I Saw When I Crashed a Wall Street Secret Society

Worth a full read and listening to the audio recorded at the event. It so reminds me of all those stories about courts rife with debauchery and lavishness from the dressing of new inductees in over the top drag to the tossing of petit fours at the stage (petit fours are basically tiny, heavily decorated cakes and savories). The song, "I Believe", which is a parody of a Mormon song, apparently, is really very interesting when you can actually hear the words of it. Overall behavior from the recordings? Hard to imagine that these are supposed to be the upper crust of the Wall Street world when they are behaving like drunk rowdies in a local dive bar.

Fall of Rome indeed.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


It's funny because if it were a group of guys from the inner city, there would be police statements stating how they were having a meeting full of "gang activity"….

Discussing, gloating, planning crimes is a-ok for the upper echelons of society though.

reply to post by boncho


Absolutely. If any other organization had engaged in these activities at a hotel, I'm sure that the hotel management would've had quite a problem with it as well--especially throwing food around in what is clearly a very pretty room. But hey, these people are so wealthy that they are above management, public, political and justice approbation. It's just remarkable to me that it seems that every system seems to end up like this--the development of an upper echelon that feels that they are above everyone else and behaves in whatever way they chose because they can. It almost seems like it's done in defiance of social mores to show just how powerful they are. Historically, it never seems to end well either.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


This is no big deal.
Have you ever been to Las Vegas? And those are everyday people.

It seems to take all kinds of people and there is no one missing ..Hardly anything to be disgusted about unless you actually share in that kind of glory .:>)

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Go to any Private country club, Yacht harbor, Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones type fraternity, etc; they are proud of the double standard and flaunt their money and power.

thesaneone
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

This is no big deal.
Have you ever been to Las Vegas? And those are everyday people.

Yeah, I have, actually and I didn't see large groups of people behaving like this. In fact, what I did see were people getting the boot from the casino floor for being "disorderly".

reply to post by olaru12


What double standard?

People have freaky parties at hotels all the time take players ball held in Chicago, pimping is seen as a crime but they still allow them to spend their money just like the elite.

The issue with them talking about us lowly peasants in no different then us talking about them.

olaru12
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

Go to any Private country club, Yacht harbor, Bohemian Grove, Skull and Bones type fraternity, etc; they are proud of the double standard and flaunt their money and power.

My fiance worked in a building that was dominated by oil companies and apparently they threw a party and had posted the images of that party on a bulletin board with comments on one of the floors. He was really tempted to take photos of the entire thing because it was so over the top offensive but knew that he would lose his job if he did. Absolutely. Private country club, not so sure. My family were members of a private country club and it was pretty civil there though it would've only been upper middle class level.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Then you haven't really seen Las Vegas.

Can't watch video, but I can tell you that I have a family member, married to a person that works for a railway.
They rent out hotel rooms every year, at a casino.
The stories and pictures I've seen, about what goes on there, even made ME embarrassed.
And they haven't been kicked out yet.
So there are everyday, average people that get away with some pretty crazy things. Especially when alcohol is flowing, free.

thesaneone
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

Then you haven't really seen Las Vegas.

That, my dear, is a fallacy. I've been to the majority of the very large casinos and some of the older ones to boot. The most excitement that I saw there was the occasional outburst from a lucky winner and that's about it. Not going to fight about whether I've been to Vegas or not as that's not the subject of this thread and is likely to just go round and round.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


I am not talking about the casino floor I am talking about the parties that happen in the ballrooms.

thesaneone
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

I am not talking about the casino floor I am talking about the parties that happen in the ballrooms.

I can see bachelor's or bachelorette parties getting pretty raucous but not so much business type of events. I've been to a number of those (not in-house events but ones with both employees and clients) for a variety of oil companies and the behavior in those was actually very good. Everybody minding their p's and q's and where the most offensive thing that happened was somebody throwing up on the carpet outside the room.

This is basically a bunch of older men and women behaving like they are holding a frat party--with crystal, china, champagne and petit fours. It's not even so much that though but the entire package. The audio clips are rather jaw dropping at times. The joke one--tasteless jokes but the songs were eyebrow raising for sure. Dixie was reworded to sing about the major banks going to the fed for loans and "I Believe" also sang about how there was a double dip recession but (hard to hear) they didn't care? as long as they stayed rich or something along those lines.

Total package deal in terms of behavior and who they are.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Tell you what watch a players ball video on YouTube or wild Las Vegas private ballroom parties.
I'll bet you will see no difference between the elite and the regular folks who like to let loose every so often.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


We gave these people their power and wealth. We want them to buy our houses and cars for us. We pay them to make our knee jerk buying, comfortable and convenient. We pay the interest rate on debt that is not ours and it will never be paid off.

Stop cooperating with these people. They are correctly betting on our weakness of heart and mind, and we are giving them the joke material.

thesaneone
reply to post by WhiteAlice

 

Tell you what watch a players ball video on YouTube or wild Las Vegas private ballroom parties.
I'll bet you will see no difference between the elite and the regular folks who like to let loose every so often.

Again, you are focusing on just one part of their behavior (frat boys with loads of money) and not the content of what they were doing. The "Grand Swipe" heavily slammed Phi Beta Kappa (an university level honor society that's been around since 1776) with homosexual references and declaring they were established by "C+" students. The latter, who cares, but saying that they are gay? Seriously?

This little line from one of the songs is really lovely, too, from the article:

“In Wall Street land we’ll take our stand, said Morgan and Goldman. But first we better get some loans, so quick, get to the Fed, man.” Warren Stephens, investment banking CEO, singing his version of "Dixie"

We're talking about some of the very people that crashed the economy in 2007/2008 and they are singing about how, despite all of it, please just keep me rich. Apparently they were more concerned about the presence of a journalist as they tried bribing him. Might have actually considering he recorded all of this 2 years ago.

reply to post by WhiteAlice


Okay I understand your upset because certain wealthy people should act classy at a private event.

WhiteAlice
The "Grand Swipe" heavily slammed Phi Beta Kappa (an university level honor society that's been around since 1776) with homosexual references and declaring they were established by "C+" students.

I think they were referring to themselves at that point:

During his introductory remarks, Ross spoke for several minutes about the legend of Kappa Beta Phi – how it had been started in 1929 by “four C+ William and Mary students”;

The gay joke was about Phi Beta Kappa and their logo.

reply to post by AugustusMasonicus


You're correct, full quote is here:

During his introductory remarks, Ross spoke for several minutes about the legend of Kappa Beta Phi – how it had been started in 1929 by “four C+ William and Mary students”; how its crest, depicting a “macho right hand in a proper Savile Row suit and a Turnbull and Asser shirtsleeve,” was superior to that of its namesake Phi Beta Kappa (Ross called Phi Beta Kappa’s ruffled-sleeve logo a “tacit confession of homosexuality”)...

reply to post by thesaneone


Strawman fallacy. Please adjust your reading comprehension as most of my appalled response is in regards to the content of their statements and skits as I said in my previous post. Also note that this is posted in the Secret Societies forum. As a secret society, Kappa Beta Phi's behaviors while in private and especially due to their membership, would be of interest to those interested in the hidden behaviors of secret societies.

Blackstone, Bear Stearns, AIG, Lehman Bros, former NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg and much, much more.

The current "Grand Swipe", Wilbur Ross: www.huffingtonpost.com...
nymag.com...

Heck, he even worked for the Rothschilds previously.