Read this article in Vanity Fair and remind me again why Our Betters are better? Vanity Fair:

Even those who have plenty left to spend aren’t spending it. “I ran into a couple I always see at the antiques show,” one Upper East Side woman recounts of her visit to the Armory show on Park Avenue. “They always buy something fairly grand. ‘What have you bought this time?’ I asked. ‘Oh, nothing!’ they said. ‘We’d feel … ashamed.’”

Oh, now they feel shame?

Another Upper East Side woman often goes from lunch at Michael’s restaurant on West 55th Street to Manolo Blahnik a block away to pick up a $600 or $700 pair of shoes as “retail therapy.” No more. “I was at Michael’s yesterday and was thinking, Oh, Manolo’s … But then I thought, Why? Why do that? It just doesn’t feel good.”

Oh, they don’t feel good? Are they going to lose their homes in the fucking winter?

One prominent “hedgie” recently flew to China for business—but not on a private plane, as before. “Why should I pay $250,000 for a private plane,” he said to a friend, “when I can pay $20,000 to fly commercial first class?”

Why should you fucking fly at all when you can rent a car or take the Chinese bus? Anything that slows these guys down, so they can’t loot more money, is good. Heck, why can’t you fucking walk? It’s good you!

One former Lehman executive in her 40s stood in her vast clothes closet not long ago, talking to her personal stylist. On shelves around her were at least 10 designer handbags that had cost her anywhere from $6,000 to $10,000 each.
“I don’t know what to do,” she said. “I guess I’ll have to get rid of the maid.”
Why not sell a few of those bags?, the stylist thought, but didn’t say so.
“Well,” the executive said after a moment, “I guess I’ll cut her from five days a week to four.”

And the maid can feed her kids four days instead of five.

The vapidity, ignorance, and cruelty of our “ruling class” — and do click through for a priceless quote from Broder, who uses those exact words — couldn’t be more clear.

And yet, if the executive’s building caught fire, the maid would be the one to keep her head and lead the executive to safety..

As — metaphorically — I think will need to happen in the crisis before us. Hard for the maids and all the rest of us to lead from under the bus, but that is, indeed, what will have to happen.