I won a scholarship to high school. Bad grades forced the principal to rescind the award. My diploma from university read ‘sin laude’ or without honor. Few of my employees have remarked about my intelligence, although Manny likes to say, “You’re a smart person.”

Anytime he says those words I realize that he’s about to blow smoke up my ass.

At best I’m a pseudo-intellectual tempered by a healthy touch of cynic hypocrisy, which suits my purposes well in New York City. Every year the graduates of the best schools in the world gravitate to Manhattan for their stab at fame and fortune. For decades their designs were diverse, however the rising costs of living on this fabled isle required more and more of these recruits to join the world of finance.

The brightest and the best on Wall Street.

The odds seemed stacked for an unheard of bull market and throughout the earlier part of the 21st Century the Down Jones rose despite 9/11, two foreign wars, a debasement of the dollar, and the exodus of industry from our native shores. Derivatives and sub-prime mortgages were the invention of these great minds from ivy collages and MIT. No one understood them, but bet their houses on these innovations.

Oops.

The geniuses weren’t as smart as we thought and yesterday Calvin Trillin wrote an op-ed piece in the New York Times placing the blame for the collapse on Wall Street not on the old boy system, but a newer suspect for the all-points bulletin.

The intelligent new-comer.

To read this article click on the following URL For a related article click on this URL

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/14/opinion/14trillin.html

These geniuses look so lost in New York, but they wouldn’t have survived a second in the 1970s. Even Manhattan was too scary for these square-state born.

For a related article click on this URL

https://www.mangozeen.com/2009/10/10/drugs/why-i-miss-junkies-by-peter-nolan-smith.htm