Ig-Noblesse Oblige

.....a new term I have created that is a combination of "ignoble" (that which is base or common) and "noblesse oblige" (referring to the nobility's patronizing those less fortunate). I refer to the help that the "ig-noble" U.S. government has had to offer the ostensibly dashing aristocrats of Wall Street ("Masters of the Universe" just doesn't quite define them accurately anymore) in the last 9 months and to the unseemly ingratitude / outrage certain grandees in financial circles have expressed at the humilation of having to be rescued in the first place.

"How DARE you save me!". The image which flashes into my mind is that of a dissolute English Duke, who has fallen on his ass in a fox hunt after over indulging at lunch (for some bizarre reason I picture CNBC's Larry Kudlow, though he is not exactly the epitome of English landed gentry) and then venting his wrath at the poor footman who has had the temerity to help him up. Indeed there is a new found confidence among certain financial institutions on "Wall Street" that they don't need / no longer need or never needed any government assistence. "The worst is over! It's back to business as usual!"

...even though it's really not. This, in spite of the fact that everyone on "Wall Street" last September was in an "every man for himself" state of mind; thinking about raiding Costco for emergency suppies and of A) retreating to the woods of the Catskills or Apalachia (those earning from $500,000 to $ 3.5 million a year), and resorting to a hunter-gatherer way of life (the image of pasty-faced endomorphs fruitlessly pecking away at their Blackberries while foraging for nuts and berries is hilarious) or of B) feverishly burrowing into their climate controlled bunkers underneath their sprawling estates in Greenwich, C.T. (those earning $3.5 million > 100 gazillion + + + a year) to await the onslaught of the great unwashed.

This strange "on-again, off-again" disposition to accepting government aide is perhaps no better exemplified than by the "wild catters" in the east Texas of the 1930's virtually begging the federal government for intervention and help in regulating - REGULATING, the production of oil since rampant over production and the Depression made oil worth less than spit. How memories fade.