Burn, Wall Street, Burn!

[Doug Henwood]

Mark Jones wrote:

>Guinness followed by coffee? Hmmm. The proper procedure is a pint of
>Guinness followed by a large Lagavulin. Smoke a cigar, preferably Cuban,
>while watching bankers throw themselves off ledges, recall Voltaire's
>words ('If you see a banker jump from a window, be sure to do the
>same'), smile and order the same again and this time drink the whisky as
>a chaser, ie not serially.

Walking down Wall Street at 5 PM yesterday towards the WBAI studio, I was
struck by how silent it was. Cabbies and hot-dog vendors were talking to
each other, but the boys & girls in suits hardly spoke a word. It was
eerie. I dropped in at Harry's around 6 (Harry's is an old-style Wall
Street bar) and there was hardly anyone there. My hard luck was to stand
next to a trio of gold traders, who were convinced their day was here, even
though dollar gold prices are at their lowest real levels since the early
1970s. (When FDR fixed the gold price at $35/oz, it was worth $427 in 1998
dollars; yesterday's London PM fixing was $273.) The stox guys that were
there (all but one of them male) didn't want to talk about the market; they
just wanted to drink beer and nibble on chicken parts.

Doug