By their accessories shall ye know them. A set of framed pictures, golf clubs or fishing rods says, “I had a swanky corner office and life was good.” Photograph: Ben Stansall/AFP
There are the public schoolboys, who tend towards the corpulent, but are remarkably squashy and can be used to fill in awkward gaps. The non-public school derivatives trader tends to be made of steel and fury, which makes him leaner but less flexible. They could be riveted together to form bridges over the fleshy Harrovians as the floppy-hairs lie weeping in the streets, engaging at last in gainful employment Photograph: Kevin Coombs/Reuters
Within hours of the news that Lehman Brothers was no more, memorabilia appeared on eBay, posted by farsighted ex-employees who quickly realised that the next emerging market would be for relics of the golden age before the fiscal fall. Baseball caps are already available — bids up to $20.50 at time of going to press, though what that’ll mean in real money by tomorrow morning is anybody’s guess Photograph: Andrew Winning/Guardian
Are they signs of the potent powers of collective denial that enabled their wearers to believe in assets that never existed and construct a financial system based on smoke and mirrors? A chance to test the gritting qualities of those expensively-capped teeth? Or the thought of the personal savings you invested far more wisely than you did your clients’ and that will enable you to retire at 35 richer than God which draws the sting of sudden unemployment? Photograph: Andrew Winning/Reuters
What? No! Compassion is for wimps. Live by the cult of equity, die by the cult of equity. Losers cry and hug each other. Winners snort a quick line of coke and kick their own grannies out of the way to get down to the recruitment companies that have taken up temporary residence in nearby cafes and start handing out CVs. For God’s sake, show some balls. It’s what they do at Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan. Grab your super-scrotum and go! Photograph: Kirsty Wigglesworth/AP
