Requiem for the I-Banker

New York magazine brings a stellar article on the downfall of one of Manhattan’s most glamorous figures: the I-Banker. Vanessa Grigoriadis follows around a couple of downtrodden (read: one Porsche instead of two) victims of the financial crisis, and finds them broken men now that their pricey Connecticut estates won’t pay for themselves. Her most compelling argument is that the bankers have not just lost money, they have lost leverage, the bragging rights and promise of future wealth that made them feel invincible. “Leverage says that the rules of quotidian life—I must have $2,000 in my account, to pay my rent—do not apply to you,” Grigoriadis writes. “It says that you are so right that you should place bets on whatever chip you happen to have in your hand, because you cannot fail. It makes living on the float feel good, not dirty and cheap the way it does for a supermarket clerk with fifteen credit cards.”