Wolfe: Stars Went to Hedge Funds Long Ago

Tom Wolfe has been fielding a lot of questions about where the Wall Street crisis leaves the Masters of the Universe now, writes the author of the seminal book about the excesses of 1980s traders in the New York Times. But, he notes, the real investment banking superstars left for hedge funds 6 years ago, long before the banks failed. And they've been comfortably ensconced in hedge funds ever since as the New York Stock Exchange emptied out.

"The Exchange is already an anachronism, like Broadway. Everything is done by computer today," Wolfe observes. "Broadway and the Exchange are like the first thing you see when you enter Disneyland." And though hedge funds may blow up this week, too, their stars have enough money in safe bets to keep up their Greenwich manors.
(More Tom Wolfe stories.)