I think what I’m going to miss most is the elitism.

Though I’ve never worked in finance, for the past three years, I have been exploring the culture of young investment bankers on this website. Through a mix of fake articles and first and third person stories, I’ve attempted to bring light to topics ranging from the “glamorous,” nightlife and fashion, to the geeky, obsessive attention to detail and technical wizardry in Excel. The responses I’ve received and the comments left here have often offered even deeper insight into the psyche of the young banker / wannabe banker, and they’ve illustrated that one sentiment resonated more than any other: elitism.

What others don’t realize is that at the junior levels, everyone in banking makes relatively the same amount of money, and as such, bankers cling to an intricate hierarchy devised to rank institutions, groups within institutions, and individuals within those groups.

This site has seen comments (taken verbatim), like:

“Hey Wachovia bankers, what are you guys going to spend your $600 economic stimulus checks on?”

And polls:

Which would you rather be?
(A) An M&A MD at Jeffries
(B) A PWM VP at Bear
(C) A trade settlement analyst at Lehman
(D) A HR intern at GS
(E) A janitor at Citadel

For as long as I can remember, friends of mine used the names of boutique banks to refer to anything struggling or broken down—cars, clothes, electronics. I’ve seen a guy who himself worked at a boutique fail at picking up a girl and then bow his head in shame and say to himself: “Damn. That was so Piper Jaffray-ish of me.”

Then even lower down the totem pole came corporate lawyers, risk management, and the back office. But the ultimate insult—“retail banker”—was one that signified you had the horrific task of interacting with everyday, normal people. Absolutely disgusting.

I came to love this brand of humor. I relished the concept of people who found themselves to be elite being outdone by those who were widely recognized as being even more prestigious. And that’s what drove this website.

Throughout the credit crunch, elitism has been one of the last few fibers holding together the morale of the younger ranks of Wall Street. The fall of Bear Stearns could be attributed to their unrefined, “meathead” culture. Even if bonus outlooks were grim, you could look to your colleague and say “At least we don’t work in North Carolina,” and then make a Bank of America crack. Deal flow could literally be non-existent in private equity or your hedge fund could be down 20%, but hey—buy side, strong side. And as I’ve been trying to publicize my now more overtly ironic than intended book, Damn It Feels Good To Be A Banker, in the wake of this crisis, I, too, have been clutching dearly to elitism as a safe, time-tested comedic device.

For awhile, I’d known the situation was grim, but the sheer gravity of it all didn’t really hit until a recent dinner for a friend’s birthday at a midtown steakhouse. I had been following the news closely, but it was there, in the thick of it, that I realized just how messed up things had gotten.

It was a meal like any other, but when the check came to our table and we all pulled out our credit cards (to split, not roulette it, sadly), my friend Clay, a Lehman Brothers trader, was hesitant. For some reason, Clay insisted: “We should all just pay cash, guys.” Nervously, he added: “You know, it’ll just be easier and faster.”

My other friend at the table, Jeff, an ex-strategy consultant now working “in industry,” has always been the bottom rung of the totem pole, consistently berated for his impoverished, not hard-enough working ways. Jeff normally can’t even get a word in edgewise without his pathetic stories being trumped by the retelling of some grand act of financial deftness. But this week, he was confident. A smile of pure bliss crept across Jeff’s face as he motioned with his head towards Clay and whispered loudly: “looks like someone’s a little scared of leverage.”

Jeff’s insolence—a total disruption of the pecking order—was just one of a series of signs that the game had officially changed; the entire system had flipped. The Wall Street Journal reported that boutique banks, once laughed at for hiring only the most unqualified, were now well-positioned to succeed due to their lower capital requirements. Bank of America, the ungodly Middle America-serving beast in North Carolina, had established itself as a Wall Street powerhouse. And most devastating, Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley could now take deposits as retail banks. When I heard the news that Sunday, something inside of me died.

Even on here, the non-finance people are perking up, posting cutting comments like:

“That’s great GS and MS will be adding some new ATMs around the world so I can withdraw my already fat Tech paycheck and not worry about the government.”

“Bottles & Models” says:

“Times are tough. I must drop the letter ‘S’ from appearing in my name until things rebound.”

Sure, I’ll join my friends in making a few, last-ditch efforts to revive that tingly feeling of superiority, swatting away the economic postulations of reporters, hipsters, and housewives deriding bankers as “clueless.” “It’s like celebrities talking about politics,” or “Blind people discussing art,” I’ll say, neglecting my own irony.

It’s half-hearted though, and ultimately, I’ve come to accept that the structure we’ve all loved for so long is now completely obsolete. I don’t exactly understand how certain institutions will change in the future, but I do know one thing—we must not let their great acts of the past be forgotten.

So as we move into this new era where everyone’s vying for a job at Raymond James and Goldman Sachs checks are bouncing at grocery stores in Idaho, I implore you to at least keep the memories of the good old days alive. In a couple years, when someone calls his brand new Ferrari “Piper Jaffray-ish,” or Charlotte, NC is the new epicenter of the financial world, I want you to recount the stories of our generation’s firms. Teach your children about the days when even uttering the name Morgan Stanley made college students faint. Read them the pre-2008 league tables, and make your sons and daughters memorize them alongside the ones for multiplication. Do whatever it takes to keep the legend of Wall Street as it was truly intended live on. When you think back on investment banking of the early 21st century, remember the heat—remember the passion. But mostly, remember the titans.

Earlier this week at a mid-sized private equity firm, Jeremy walked into Gopal’s office and slapped a printout down on his keyboard, disrupting an intense modeling session.

“What the fuck, son?” Gopal reacted, irritated, hastily Ctrl-Z’ing.

Jeremy stood in front of Gopal, motioning eagerly with his eyes and chin down to the piece of paper he’d just presented. Gopal stared at him, infuriated, but Jeremy continued—up and down until Gopal finally gave in and picked it up.

It was a flyer, Fall-themed, with illustrated leaves of changing color and martini glasses. The headline read: “Emerging | Education | Equality - E3 Fall Benefit at Marquee on Sept. 19th.”

Gopal looked up from the flyer to see Jeremy smiling ear to ear, enthusiastically. Jeremy had already started bobbing his head to an imaginary beat and was bursting, just waiting for Gopal to react and share in his excitement.

And after a moment, Gopal did respond: “Are you fucking kidding me right now?”

Jeremy recoiled, stung and perplexed by the unfounded rejection. This was the second life-changing, Western proposal to which his backwards Indian friend had responded with disbelief and denial. The first was Christianity.

“Gonna be a sick benny!” Jeremy insisted. “The start of a new season!” The imaginary beat reemerged and Jeremy started thinking back to last year and before, when he and Gopal had hit every benefit humanly possible. They had helped fund causes ranging from a breast cancer clinic in Ohio to a school for the blind in Penang. They had personally stopped genocide in Bolivia.

The duo took pause as the clips from past benefits flowed over them in a series of waves: girl after girl after girl. A testament to the females who run and attend benefits, the professions of the ladies Jeremy and Gopal took down read like a Career Guide for Women from the early 1900’s: schoolteacher, secretary…homemaker.

Both guys were green to the city, but with a navy blazer with gold buttons, a 6:1 girl/ guy ratio, and the shared goal of world-saving, it seemed almost impossible for them not to succeed. Gopal and Jeremy just spread their arms, leaned back, and fell. And somehow, they’d end up in their Ikea MALM beds holding some dinner for two voucher with a girl or three by their side. As easy as a trust fall at an MBA orientation retreat, without the weird Wharton dudes grabbing at their balls.

They sighed in unison—they did so much good in so little time.

Reluctantly, Gopal snapped back to reality. Shaking his head, he couldn’t believe what they were even thinking about: “Bro. The fucking economy is falling apart. Lehman just went bankrupt, Merrill got acquired by fucking BofA—BoafA, dude.”

“It’s like fucking Target just acquired Neiman Marcus, and you are coming to my desk talking about some random benefit? This is not 2006!”

Still, Jeremy was oblivious, doing a light version of the rowing dance he called “The Erg,” mouthing “Buy Side, bitches!” repeatedly to himself.

“Are you aware of the state of the current financial markets?!” Gopal continued, incredulous.

“Open bar, man!” Jeremy encouraged, loud enough that it finally managed to irritate Matt, Gopal’s timid, Korean officemate.

Jeremy dropped to a hushed, library voice, and coaxed: “Silent auction…”

He took over Gopal’s computer and loaded up the Facebook invite for the event. They both drooled, browsing through screen after screen of smiley, tanning-saloned girls. Gopal and Jeremy’s luck with the ladies historically tracked the S&P 500, so needless to say, things had been tough recently. Jeremy took on a more serious tone.

“Look—we work in private equity, but we haven’t done a real deal in over 10 months. Doing a deal is like sex for me right now—I know it was good, but I have no idea what the fuck it felt like.” Gopal nodded in agreement, hiding the fact that he had never actually known what sex felt like.

“And if I go to another industry conference, it’s over man—I’ll kill myself.”

Jeremy paused and stared Gopal directly in the eyes. “You need this,” he coached. Jeremy then motioned back and forth between his own nipples: “We need this.”

He grabbed a family photo from Matt’s desk and displaying it like a piece of evidence, pointed to the face of a small Asian child, presumably Matt’s little brother. Nodding somberly, Jeremy concluded: “The kids need this.”

Gopal, now alternating between looking at the picture of a 4 year old Asian boy and the Facebook invite packed with attractive girls, finally caved. “You’re right.”

Matt snatched back and replaced the framed photo on his desk. His family members were not, in fact, North Korean refugees, as Jeremy constantly insisted (NoKo!); the photo had been taken by a boutique photographer in Brookline.

But that was besides the point. Jeremy and Gopal were now gaping, nested deep in the party pics of one of the hottest girls attending the event. They did a silent fist pound and mouthed back to one another: “The kids.”

While a few might still be planning on saving “the kids,” most of Wall Street is pretty concerned with just saving itself. Over 150,000 Bankers have lost their jobs, the markets are completely chaotic, and there is no end to this downturn in sight. As Peter G. Peterson , 82 year old co-founder of The Blackstone Group, eloquently put it: “This is a complete clusterfuck.”

The effects of this crisis are numerous and spread into myriad sectors: retail, housing, et.al. But, in typical local-minded fashion, most analysts and reporters have completely neglected the impact on Benefit Season. When you put 150,000 bankers out of a job, the people most significantly affected are not the bankers themselves or even the citizens of our country. No, it’s the poor children of developing nations who suffer the most—the kids.

The reason is simple: every year, the benefit circuit targeted at young professionals generates millions of dollars in philanthropic funds. A single event can generate up to $100,000, and they occur all the time. Classic trickle-down economics. For the attendees, 98% of whom work in finance, it’s a welcome change of pace from the traditional club scene and a small penance for the sins of everyday life. For the children of the Third World, it’s everything.

We spoke with Bibi Muburi, head of a children’s education center in Kinshasa funded 100% through events held in New York City. The facility is uber-modern and entirely glass; every student has his own Quad-Core Mac Pro. A proud women in traditional African clothes and headdress, she proudly calls them “The Harvard-Westlake of the Congo.” And every time after saying this, she brushes her shoulders off.

But what will happen when the funds from these benefits suddenly disappears?

Jose Madinya, an 18 year old in Ecuador who will soon be matriculating at Yale University got his start through program funded by a similar non-profit, and his community is acutely aware of the tenuous dynamic of the situation. As he spoke, sheer emotion overcame his otherwise flawless English, and his accent broke through. “This weekend, our entire village stayed up all night praying someone would buy the Lehman Brothers.” Candle-lit midnight vigils like these were not uncommon in rural enclaves across the globe; it was a rational thought—that God might listen to the poor just once, so the rich could stay rich. But, alas, even that didn’t work. Jose shook his head as he looked over at his youngest sibling, a 14-year old boy reading the Cliff’s Notes to 100 Years of Solitude. He pointed at him in disgust: “Now, he will be like this forever.”

Already, New York City non-profits are changing gears, and to address those in the direst need, they are organizing benefits for Bankers themselves. “Save Wall Street’s Finest—A Wounded Warrior Tribute.” “Hipsters for Bankers: A Food, Wine and Spirit Tasting Event,” and “Midtown Ambassadors: International Banker Compassion Ball.” As the focus shifts to solving our domestic problems and less and less money gets sent abroad, Jose, Bibi, and others across the world will echo a common sentiment: it’s always the kids that lose.

Gopal and Jeremy stood in line at the benefit, positioning themselves to see which one of their many strategies was best fit to avoid paying admission in this particular situation. As per usual, the line was packed with cute girls and other young finance-looking types, but unlike other times, almost all the other guys appeared to be devising their own methods of sneaking in.

“You’re all amateurs!” Jeremy boomed over the line, raising both hands in the air and individually pointing out lame looking guys with fake bracelets or those trying to rub stamps from other people’s hands onto their own. Somewhere in Ecuador, Jose cried a silent tear.

As the line inched forward and Jeremy and Gopal prepared to make their move through a back entrance, a young Jewish girl in a blue sun dress got up from behind the table where the tickets were sold. Gopal and Jeremy knew her well—Emily Cohen, a veteran in the benefit scene. She was a petite girl with a fiery spirit, brought in to various, completely unrelated benefits purely as an enforcer. She was a legend, one of the toughest obstacles in benefit crashing.

Emily got up from her seat. Standing on 4-inch heels and rocking her DVF dress like it was bulletproof, her voice echoed out onto 10th avenue. “This is the last time I’m fucking saying it!” she commanded. And in a grandiose gesture, she held up a green AMEX in one hand and a pair of scissors in the other. Her words pierced the air and souls of everyone in line:

“We are not accepting Lehman Brothers Corporate Cards.”

And then, she cut the card in half.

Watch it in HD here.

For about 2 months before my boy Mark took the CFA (Chartered Financial Analyst) Level 3 exam, he didn’t go out at all. He’d go to work, come home, hit up the gym, and then study. That was it. Done.

“Going out is fucking lame, anyway,” he’d bark from the couch when I rolled up to his place on a Friday with two Lauren Conrad lookalikes. Sitting there in sweaty mesh shorts and a T-shirt, he’d wave a #2 HB pencil in the air dismissively. “Staying in is the new going out.” Then Lauren #1 would strut over to his fridge, showing off her perfect physique in the process. She’d take an ice cube and press it seductively against her collarbone as she closed her eyes and sighed in relief from the dense heat of New York City summer. I could see the Monte Carlo simulation running in Mark’s brain; Crystal Ball says—“you will get laid.” Then, right after his eyes entered back into his skull, he would look back down begrudgingly at his practice exam and mutter to himself, unconvincingly: “Whatever. That bitch is a 6, anyway…”

He’d break down right as we were leaving, his face falling into his hands. We’d hear his sobs all the way from the street, and I’d feel the girls’ hands tighten around my arms as he started clawing away the window screen and shaking the wrought iron bars he had installed during the Level 2, specifically to save him in such situations.

You see, Mark really loved to go out. I mean loved. Obviously, we all like drinking and slaying chicks, but more so than anything, Mark just straight up loved “being out there.” “Gotta get up in the mix,” he’d coach himself if he hadn’t been out in more than two or three nights. He had to scratch that itch. The heat, it gave him clarity. He was the kind of guy who’d buy 4 bottles, not to drink them, but just for that one moment when everyone was surrounding him, cheering him on and taking pictures as he snarled and held all 4 bottles held up to his mouth in triumph. And the only time he was happier was when he was on his computer posting that ridiculous photo up on Facebook as his profile picture, his status set as “absolutely killing it.”

I don’t know very much about the “Chartered Financial Analyst” program. Generally, I’m the one chartering shit, so the concept doesn’t even really make sense. From what I gather, though, it’s a set of exams that you take to get certified to be a money manager out in Ohio and for some reason, Mark, as one of the few non-prop traders I know, also has to take it. They ask you trivial finance questions and tease your brain with provocative ethical scenarios like: “Should you steal your clients’ money? Answer yes or no.”

I do remember, a few months after graduating from college, hearing the news that a girl we knew, Jen, had somehow managed to fail the CFA Level 1 exam. There was such widespread disbelief in the community, on the same order of magnitude as when we heard someone we knew was “making a documentary.” Something like 40% of people pass the exam, and frankly, we just couldn’t wrap our heads around the concept of the 59th percentile. “I’m disgusted,” said a friend who had hooked up with Jen once, quickly making his way into the bathroom to shower and rinse his mouth out with Scope. Jen took the failure as a sign—an opportunity to “follow her dreams” and become an actress. She is now the subject of our other ex-friend’s documentary, the title: Banker Chick Gets Creative: A Riches to Rags Story.

To be fair, though, there is one redeeming aspect of the CFAs—one characteristic that is actually legit, the calculator. One of the two calculators permitted to be used on the CFAs is the HP 12C, and apart from the fact that its name sounds like some highly involved consulting framework, it is the epitome of Banker technology. The 12C embodies everything about us—elegant, bold, somehow clinging on to life in a world that no longer needs it. One look at its brushed plastic exterior and you think: “Damn, this thing is pro.”

Excel Mobile, it speaks a pure, unambiguous language: Reverse Polish, a postfix notation that eliminates non-commutative issues. So instead of having to enter 7 + (5 * 2) - 5, you’d enter: 7 5 2 * + 5 -. Direct and to the point, crisp even—exactly how Bankers think and speak. I met a model from Kraków once, and although we hit it off physically, her English struggled, blocking us from that real “same plane” level I like to reach. So as a gesture of cultural sensitivity, I decided I’d speak to her in something closer to her native tongue. Over Lil’s Wayne’s Lollipop, I pointed between us aggressively and instructed: “You, friends, 2, TIMES PLUS… panties MINUS“ Boom. “Same plane,” said her eyes.

But overall, it’s all very misguided, the concept of having to be sanctioned to practice finance by some governing body. To me, being a financier is god given, a birthright. There are no “Chartered Investment Bankers.” You cannot charter someone to be a prolific value adder. It is an art, not a trade. As far as I’m concerned, I’ve been chartered to do whatever the hell kind of finance I want since I was 10, screaming at Production (Celia, my Hispanic maid) to not fuck up comb-binding my book reports. “You numbered the Table of Contents?!” I’d scream at her, winging the thing across the kitchen. And then I’d provide the brand of constructive feedback you might hear from a pissed off MD at Goldman:

“This kind of shit might fly at Banco Popular, but not in my house.”

It’s been almost three weeks now since Mark took the CFA exam, with three, perfectly actionable weekends in between. Most other guys partied their faces off after the exams, but for some reason, Mark still hasn’t really gone out. He just sits on the sofa in those unwashed mesh shorts, staring off into space. He’s a shell, a shadow of who he once was. It’s as if something inside of him has died.

“What the fuck, man?” I’ll ask with a practiced, artificial tone I like to call “emotion.”

Mark takes a moment to respond, but finally lets out: “It’s gone…”

After I ask what he means, he beats his fist against his chest and explains what has escaped him: “The fire.”

Somehow, I thought that fire might come back, that Mark might remember how great everyday life in finance is, but he hasn’t. Last weekend, I dragged him out to The Hamptons, and at Pink Ellie, he just stood in the corner alone, nursing his first bourbon. He seemed perplexed, tilting his head and looking at the world from a new, ethically conscious perspective. His 12C was still with him, cradled affectionately in his hands like a BlackBerry.

This got the attention of one genius girl, a Long Island native, who came up and asked, genuinely: “Omg, is that the new iPhone?!” Bouncing, she grabbed the boxy device from his hands. She looked at it awestruck for a moment, caressing its sharp edges. Then, hoping to zoom in, she started to pinch the ½ inch wide, very touch-insensitive screen.

Mark would have normally responded with something like “iPhone for me, girl? I’m the BlackBerry Thunder,” but instead, he just gazed at her longingly. No flame was left in him, no embers even. Timid and almost monotone, he proposed: “You, foreign film, pinot noir, PLUS, PLUS, subtitles, MINUS?”

I’d say the 4G iPhone crashing to the ground was symbolic, but those things are built so fucking strong you could run over them with an H3 and they wouldn’t shatter. Mark, however, took it as a sign.

I looked over and saw him leaving the club, a shadow cast over his glass of bourbon and the calculator with his business card taped to the back. Over at our table, another guy was doing Mark’s patented pose, but the snarl was too creepy, not genuinely elated enough, and there were only 3 bottles, not 4—it just really wasn’t the same.

In that moment, I had to remind myself that some birds aren’t meant to be caged—their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice. Still, the place you live in is that much more drab and empty that they’re gone.

The 10 next to me was angling herself to most prominently display her lack of tan lines, and I let out, a little less practiced, and a little less artificial:

“I guess I just miss my friend.”

Gopal treats Princeton Reunions the way MBAs treat “information sessions”—he doesn’t miss a single one. A few Princeton students will opt to come back only for their 5 year reunions (5th, 10th, etc.) and many of those in New York City will at least make an attempt to pretend, right up until they realize they know of nothing better to do, that they “don’t think they’re going to make it back this year.” Not Gopal, though. No—he primes for Reunions weeks in advance. For him, it’s like Goldman coming to Stern—something you just can’t miss because it’s too good to even believe is happening in the first place.

In preparation, he methodically lays out a different pair of pastel or seersucker shorts and a polo for each of the three days. He tries on each outfit with a different set of Oliver Peoples sunglasses and saunters out into the living room of his 4-man apartment.

“Sugar in the RAW, motherfuckers!” he announces, wings spread, bouncing to his own beat. He reaches into his pocket tosses a few half-open packets into the air.

Knowing that if they don’t act clueless, he won’t subsist, his roommates are forced to inquire: “What do you mean?”

And, every time, taking his sunglasses from his face and placing them on his head, Gopal points up at his face and gives the same response: “That’s how sweet I am.”

For those unfamiliar with Princeton Reunions, it is the most absurd event that occurs, ever, in the United States. The annual orgy is held the weekend before graduation, and for three nights (Thursday, Friday, and Saturday), alumni from all classes come back to campus to get shitfaced under massive tents while listening to 80s cover bands, or, as it were, “be sweet.”

At Princeton, Gopal wasn’t the coolest kid; he had few friends and flew miles under the radar of the eating club social scene. In a colony of ex-valedictorian overachievers, he somehow had managed to remain a huge, friendless dork.

Still, every year he came back to Reunions in the hopes that he’d finally blend in and make friends with the popular kids. This past year in New York City, his sweetness level had risen significantly, so his expectations were high. He had completely reinvented himself; he tossed aside his difficult-to-pronounce name and devised the most Anglicizable Indian identity ever—Rohit Harshan, a guy that white people could confidently call “Ro,” “Shawn,” or even “Harsh.” And although it’s unconventional to base a nickname off a secondary syllable, he’d often add: “But you can call me Hitter.” This made the girls swoon.

He had long forgotten his days as Gopal—the guy who couldn’t get chicks, didn’t have “two passes of any color” to get into clubs, and got trumped by dudes more solid than he was. Rohit lived with a consultant from PENN, a guy from Harvard who worked at Sotheby’s, and a civil engineer from Cornell. Respectively, they were: Tight. Lame. Tight. Lame.”—perfect candidates for a new in-airport HSBC advertisement. And in that little world, Rohit ran shit. Most importantly, though, since none of his other roommates worked even remotely close to Banking, they deified Rohit, and the free drinks they milked from him fueled his burgeoning ego.

It was with this new mentality that Rohit rolled into Princeton on the Dinky, a toy train which shuttles between Princeton and Princeton Junction. It was the perfect day for Reunions—80 degrees, sunny, and just humid enough that the strap of a sundress might slip off, or the elastic band at the bottom of the more slutty ones might creep up. Already buzzed from two furtive beers drank on the NJ Transit, Rohit checked in, kissed his wristband for good luck, and started wandering around campus to the various tents.

What welcomed him was magical.

A common legend used to give scope to the level of the event’s egregiousness is that since the Indy 500 went dry, Princeton Reunions has become the single largest group alcohol consumption in the United States. But more importantly, as a result of the makeup of Princeton’s alumni body, the event is, without question, the largest single meeting of elite financiers, both young and old, in the world.

And despite the overlap with the Sex & The City movie opening, this year was no different.

Inside the comfort of the warm bubble that is Princeton, hundreds of young Investment Bankers futilely aped their more polished heroes in Private Equity and Hedge Funds, not yet able to BlackBerry while dancing to Bon Jovi. Older industry titans behaved childishly—Eliot Spitzer (’81) and Paul Sarbanes (’54) pounded (and exploded) one another as they watch John L. Weinberg (’48) spit up on himself trying to chug one to get one at the 50th, while in the kids’ areas, the children of alumni behaved like senior Bankers, banging out deal terms before engaging in any form of play. Michael Lewis (’82) sat on the lawn of Tiger Inn, devising a way to bring an accessibly “quantitative” yet narrative angle to yet another sport, quarters.

At “The 5th,” the tent where the most recent alumni congregate, one freshly minted graduate shouted to a classmate: “I’ll race you to $100MM net worth!” And the two jogged in place for a moment before looking up and saying to one another: “Oh shit—you’re already here, too?”

Princeton Reunions is the most elite slice of the tip-top of Wall Street—“the tips.” There were no talks of layoffs or small bonuses. There was no rehashing of poor performance reviews. The air was filled with the confidence that can only come from the comfort of being completely insulated by a powerful old boy network.

“This is why I’m hot!” shouted a 30 year old man in madras shorts, crushing a plastic cup on his head.

Rohit smiled from ear to ear.

He meandered through the crowds, sipping one beer after another. For a while, he played it cool, convincing himself that he was just “settling in,” as he progressively got drunk and still hadn’t spoken to a single soul. Even jacked up on Bud Heavy, he was unable to channel the confidence that served him so well around his friends in New York. He felt trumped, outdone, like he had on his first Econ 101 test, when the prep school kids first showed him how pathetic a public high school education really is. Rohit couldn’t overcome the knot in his stomach, and, all of a sudden, he was feeling distinctly Gopal-ish.

To his credit, while getting his 9th drink, he did manage to mutter a couple words to a beautiful blond-haired Theta from Georgia he had admired for 4 years. “Maddie—what ethnicity is that?” he slipped, a bit of 2nd generation minority ignorance showing through. He stumbled to recover, but he couldn’t even get to “Hitter” before she asked: “So what club were you in?” referring to which eating club he had belonged. Gopal hadn’t been in any club; he was an “independent.” And upon hearing this, the girl gasped, pulled her hands close to her chest, and scurried away, as if having just confronted someone with full-blown AIDS.

Dejected, Gopal plopped down on the grass and let his head fall back against the hard brick of a building he’d once lived in. He was right back where he’d started. Longingly, he looked out at the group of people he wanted so badly to be a part of but couldn’t even manage to speak more than three words to. He prayed for his BlackBerry to vibrate to give him an excuse to look occupied, but, mercilessly, it stayed silent in his pocket.

And just then, he heard a female voice say:

“Hey – weren’t you in my politics precept?”

Gopal assumed the girl had been talking to someone else, the brick wall, perhaps, but she got closer and repeated the question.

Squinting, he was able to make out that it was Amy—a girl who had indeed been in his politics precept. She was a molecular biology major, he remembered. She had been vocal in class, one of the few students who actually did the reading and tried genuinely to have intellectual conversations. Yes—he remembered Amy: she was almost as big a loser as he was.

She wasn’t pedigree. She wasn’t wearing a sundress. In New York, Rohit would have called her “a hipster,” laughed and thrown change at her. She most certainly didn’t represent the Princeton that he yearned for, but she was cute, and she was speaking to him.

So they talked. And before long, Gopal was drunkenly waxing loser, divulging all his darkest secrets—he thought he might be losing his job, his friends seemed to be using him, and he was considering going back to school, for anything. And either because she, too, was drunk, or because she liked him, Amy listened.

She listened for an hour before the 5th shut down, she listened on the walk to the WaWa, and she listened while she took him to The Street to her eating club, Terrace, a building Gopal had been too terrified to ever even consider entering. Of the eating clubs, he knew it as the “edgy,” “druggy,” one—where you might end up seeing a bunch of naked dudes dancing around doing heroin together, being vegan. “Breathlessly freakish,” in F.Scott’s words. But with Amy, Gopal felt he might finally be starting to find his true self, and so he followed.

At Terrace, Amy and Gopal danced to The Knife in the sweaty, packed basement tap room, and, drenched, they went upstairs together and shared bagels they acted like they “stole” from the kitchen. And before he knew it, Gopal was joking with Amy about their future marriage, instructing her on how best not to offend his mother.

“None of that shit,” he said, wagging his finger at the lox. Then he shifted his finger to point at her shoes. “And you can leave those at home, too.”

He was hammered, still wearing his seersucker shorts and a canary polo, and even though he was surrounded by guys in leather pants and girls in flannel shirts, Gopal didn’t care. At last, he felt at home at Princeton.

Swept up in the moment, he kissed Amy. He kissed her in the way he kissed stupid drunk girls at nightclubs, and, after a while of having her face swallowed, Amy slowed him down to a more tender pace. They made their way upstairs to the third floor, started to explore several other things that would offend his mother, and then Gopal passed out on Amy’s shoulder, contented.

“Wake up, Gopie,” Amy whispered in Gopal’s ear around 10:30am, petting his sticky, thick black hair.

Gopal awoke with a jolt and pulled back. He looked around and saw ash trays full of cigarettes and several passed out, shirtless bodies; he smelled vomit.

“What the…where the…?” he tried to remember what happened.

“You just passed out,” said Amy, warmly. “Poof. Like that,” and she snapped her fingers, smiling.

“Uhmm…” Gopal started before quickly throwing on his Rainbows and heading for the door.

“Woah. Where’re you going in such a hurry, Gopal?” Amy asked, both hurt and surprised.

Gopal looked back at her, and the memories of the previous night started to come back to him—that feeling of comfort, of friendship, of belonging.

And then his face turned to disgust. Like The Hulk, Rohit was surging back to life, taking over Gopal’s body from the inside. He was furious—mortified and revolted at himself for having such feelings surrounded by such C-list, ill-employed people. He wanted to spit on the ground, flex his Banking muscles, and tear through his shirt, morphing into the huge green monster he loved to be. This was most definitely not why he had come back to Princeton, and most definitely not the stature he was striving to attain.

He paused for a moment before speaking, brushing off his shirt and shorts and standing up straight and proper.

“I don’t’ know what you’re talking about, girl,” he stated, flatly, a newfound air of arrogance in his voice. There was a floater sitting on top of the TV, and, staring Amy deeply in the eyes, he picked it up and slammed back the remnants. Right before exiting the room, he reached into his pocket and took out his business card, which was covered in a thin film of unadulterated, raw sugar. He showcased it briefly like a game show prize and then pressed it down firmly on top of the TV stand. Pointing at the card and then back up at his face, Rohit clarified: “That’s how sweet I am.”

Taylor was strolling the streets of Midtown on Saturday, Blackberry in one hand, red accordion folder in the other; he wasn’t even working—he just felt naked without some sort of financial document on his person. “Every day I’m hustling,” he texted in response to his mom’s inquiry into how his week had gone. Looking up, he saw an attractive girl walking towards him. It was the middle of the afternoon, but she was dressed in full MPD uniform—a shiny T-shirt-dress that somehow ended right at her crotch without revealing anything, heels, and a Chanel bag she held by the chain, the purse dangling a bit above the ground.

“Goldman Sachs…” Taylor whispered as she walked by. He held his folder up a bit in her direction, channeling its magnetic powers. To his alarm, her gait didn’t even slow.

“Waaaall Street…” he tried again, now walking slowly but turning up the volume a bit and really enunciating. The girl just kept on marching. “Fuckin iPods,” Taylor tried to rationalize, although he had seen no headphones. Stomping his loafer on the ground in frustration, he began hurling everything in his arsenal at the girl: “money,” “finance,” “merger,” he shouted. “$5 Bn assets under management!” he hedged the Sell Side. But the girl’s pace actually increased slightly and the tiny silk shorts she had on under her shirt-dress-thing became visible as she clacked along more quickly.

“EBITDA!” Taylor screamed in a last ditch effort, craning his neck to increase his range. But it was no use. Incredulous, he stared down at his hands in disbelief. He slapped them together, hoping for some sparks. Had he forgotten how to do the magic? The girl was now long gone—Banking had given him a set of cheat codes to the game of life, but they no longer seemed to be working.

For weeks, Bankers across Manhattan have been experiencing situations similar to Taylor’s. The global economic crisis has caused thousands of lost jobs, imposed a huge burden on our government, and created widespread paranoia. But more important, and more palpable than any of these things, is that the social dynamic of New York City has been turned on its head.

The most elite subset of our metropolis, Investment Bankers—those who guided our fashion and nightlife trends, buoyed our real estate prices, and, most of all, gave us something to which to aspire—have, to put it gently, fallen from grace. The black box that was Banking has been exposed, and after decades of only being able to admire the brushed ebony exterior, the world has finally been able to examine its largely nonexistent contents. At this time of year, we’d normally be abuzz, eagerly anticipating the bonus numbers of first year analysts; but instead, the City is confused, unsure what to do with itself or how to behave.

Most affected have been the City’s females. New York’s women aren’t the most mentally agile, but at least there was a single concept they could grasp—the UES girls, the B&T, the Eastern Europeans models—they all knew one thing: they wanted guys in finance. But even they have gotten wind of the recent firings and reduced bonuses on Wall Street, and now, without a distinct target, they are lost, like drunken soldiers firing bullets blindly into the air.

“I fucked an accountant last night for Christ’s sake,” lamented Whitney, wiping tears out of her eyes. “They make decent money, right?” she asked, with hopeful naiveté.

In response, Bankers are being forced to lie about their current and former occupations.

“Industrialist,” we were told when inquiring about the occupation of Jason, a 1st year analyst at Lehman Brothers. “Mogul,” “Hollywood agent,” “Painter,” he rattled off mechanically and confidently, while demonstrating how he used the ink from various dry erase markers to simulate the hands of an artist. Then, with the bravado of a true artist, he completed the formatting on a football field slide.

We also spoke to Sarah, a young girl living in NoLiTa who was duped into going home with a guy who used one of these ploys. “You know, I was hunting in the cabinet under his sink like I always do the morning after I go home with a guy,” she told us, somehow convinced that the morning after was better than never. “And get this—stuffed away in a corner, he had an economy sized box of Valtrex and” Choked up, but waving at us to signal that the worst was yet to come, Sarah finally was able to force out the clincher: “an old Bear Sterns T-Shirt.” She exhaled loudly, the vile words expunged from her system. Now exhibiting slight fever and swollen glands, she remarked: “I’m not sure which disgusted me more.”

“…I guess I should have known when he asked me to pay for my own taco at La Esquina.”

In addition to the social repercussions of the current economy, what most mainstream media outlets are neglecting to address are the local, microeconomic impacts that results when dudes in finance aren’t opening up their wallets “just to let some air in.”

We spoke to Salim, a deli owner near 46th and Madison. His English was choppy and laced with the terrifying, almost Middle Eastern throat sounds of Urdu, but he probably grasped the significance of the economic meltdown better than any Wall Street analyst. He took us into the back area, and, pointing at a tower of cases of Red Bull, he asked: “What the fuck am I going to do with this shit?”

Tailors, street vendors, manufacturers of table showers used at Asian massage parlors—they’re all feeling the tabs of Wall Street’s bespoke pants tighten. Most frightened, however, are nightclubs owners, aghast at the notion of slashing bottle prices and having to let in hipsters. On a recent Friday, Mark, the bottle host at Tenjune was furious as only 20% of the normal number of guys tried to bribe him. “It’s all your fault!” he screamed, hurling an empty dome-shaped bottle of Patron at Cielo, a club known to be frequented by CDO desks.

Tiffany’s opened a branch on Wall Street in late 2007 and commemorated the event with a Heart of Wall Street pendant. Now, in an attempt to offer Bankers a place to turn to for refuge, they will be focusing their efforts on crosses, stars of David, and, cheekily, mini dart board pendants. We were reassured that production of the highly anticipated $2 charms was delayed but nearing completion.

So what are all the young bankers getting laid off from the Goldmans and the Morgans of the world actually doing? Are they moving back home? Going to business school? Traveling?

What does one do with a skillset primary consisting of an impeccable attention to detail and potent masochism?

“Industry,” grieved Kevin, a lanky Korean-American who worked at JP Morgan, illustrating how even the slightest change can make a once alluring word sound horrifying.

Some might imagine the layoffs to be a boon for junior Bankers. With generous savings in hand, they’d finally be able to take some time to explore other potential career paths beyond finance and broaden their horizons. Perhaps there would be a surge of untalented yet highly persistent Banker-esque indie rock bands, an entire collection of Vampire Weekends, if you will. One could imagine this group of well-educated business minds might try their hand at executing any one of those many entrepreneurial ideas (high-end liquor company) they are known to spout out while hammered.

When queried along these lines, Jane, a Korean-American who was a History major only a year ago, could do nothing to help her face from falling into her hands. Sobbing, a few words eked out from behind the moans: “This is all I know.” (job board: Jane is highly motivated individual actively seeking employment at a Bulge Bracket Bank.)

But is there any upside for young Wall Streeters of today? A silver lining? Patrick, an analyst still working at Morgan Stanley, offered: “Well, at least it isn’t as hard to get a car home now.”

For the young professional in Manhattan, there is only one option on New Year’s Eve: spending $200 to drink all night at a single bar or club. For some, the price is daunting and hard to swallow; for Bankers, it feels cheap, homeless and takes the fun out of the experience, like eating during Restaurant Week. In any case, whether it costs more or less than our average night out, on New Years, we all do it.

For me, the $200 was a drop in the bucket. I might have paid it twice for all I know. It was a number you shrug at; and to put it in my friend Hugh’s terms: “only 2/3rds of a bottle.” That’s how Hugh measures things—in bottles. For him, the practice renders any sum trivial and makes spending casual and breezy, like it should be. A Lord Willy’s shirt—1 bottle; A black market Wii some IT guy is trying to sell on the corporate bulletin board—2 bottles. The habit is contagious, and just last week, when I heard the Back Office had put together some micro car called the Tata Nano, all I could think was: Holy shit. This thing is only like 8 bottles. And then, I do that on a Tuesday.

But there was more to this winter season than just a ticket to ‘Netti’s and a case or two worth of clothes from Bergdorf; there was a Bonus. Now out of Banking and in PE, it was still my first year Bonusing in the winter. And while it’s always nice to have someone give you few hundred k, I couldn’t help but remember last winter when I was an Analyst, looking in on the bonus hype.

There was a particular day in the middle of December that stuck out in my mind. At that point, the anticipation for numbers was insane. Associates and VPs were literally bouncing around the office, giddy, wetting themselves at the mention of the words “bonus,” “number,” or “figure,” the last of which proved particularly interesting when discussing charts.

But just as all this momentum was finally reaching a climax, it had to be bottled. Everyone was forced to set aside his excitement and eagerness to act restrained and calm, because on the day in question, not only were our office’s senior Bankers finding out their bonuses, all the firm’s senior bankers from across the country were in the office, receiving their own numbers.

As Analysts who got our bonuses in the summer, we were seemingly detached from the atmosphere; but we were actually quite involved. Thinking back on it, we had anticipated the day almost as strongly as if we were finding out our own tiering, because as the VPs and MDs would make their way out of the head of our group’s office, we’d get a glimpse of them when, for a moment, they were emotionally exposed.

Each group had an entire market built around the process, where guys wagered either before hand or the day-of who they thought would come out with a smirk on their faces and who would retreat back to their own offices wounded and ashamed. “10:1 odds that fat MD smiles” or “$500 bucks says that Asian VP from SF comes out crying like a little bitch!” And then more complicated financial instruments were built on top.

That all felt a bit too BS&T for me, but I, personally, was strongly invested in this day because visibility-wise I had, hands down, the sickest seat on the floor. Barely craning my neck around the cubes, I could monitor the expressions of everyone walking in and out of the office, and stretching a bit further, I could see the head of our group’s face as he greeted those who were entering.

Needless to say, every single Analyst wanted my seat. There’s a sweet anticipation to watching a grown man man whose life’s work is to fuck your kind over consistently with all-nighters get judged himself. You want him to do well because then it makes your team more badass, but at the same time, it’d be nice to see him wince. It’s like Jenny Humphrey hoping to see Blair Waldorf stumble, if Jenny weren’t from Brooklyn and Blair behaved exactly the same.

VPs conducted themselves drastically different from MDs in this scenario. While MDs were polished and generally had a decent sense of where they stood based on their client relationships, VPs were always just kind of out there, trying to latch on to anything they could and hoping it worked out come bonus time. As such, they reacted like goons, going in clueless and coming out with expressions that broadcast their numbers to the most significant digit. They’d have shit-eating grins and give the air a jab to the midsection or loudly whisper a curse, and we’d be reminded why, in general, VPs are really fucking lame.

Reading an MD, on the other hand, was a more sophisticated art. There could still be emotion caused by unexpected numbers, but hurt or happiness was obscured by stolid looks, showing up only in subtle, nuanced changes to their expressions.

I was a master of parsing their faces, and because of my prime positioning, I made it a point to disseminate the information I gathered out to my boys in real-time. We’d call out guys individually when one of their VPs got burned. And often, when we didn’t know someone from a different office’s name, we’d just refer to them by something geographic, like a high school or sports team from their area.

At one point, an unknown MD from the Chicago office made his way into the office to a low, rumbling “regional” chant. “RE-GION-AL…RE-GION-AL…” we repeated, in time. And when that MD exited, chin held just a touch too low, I instantly fired off the email:

“Looks like someone just reminded New Trier he’s a public school!”

And then, like a slow clap, “bushleague” coughs started to mount.

The real hitter MDs would stroll out of the office, and at the surface, they looked as calm and expressionless as when they had gone in. But as they walked by on their way out, it felt as if they smiled and winked, blanketing the room with a confident and firm: “Fuck yeah. I’m a badass. Someone go warm up the G4.” And then sometimes they would actually wink and point, motioning for someone to go warm up the G4.

They were old men, but it was the kind of masked glee that you see on a kid who’s hiding a crime, or a fat Credit Suisse chick who’s just found out there’s a fake Pinkberry opening on 23rd and Madison.

I remember that day, I saw an MD from another group with this exact type of excitement on his face. I couldn’t exactly place him, but I knew he was from the New York office and that he was fighter, a comeback kid of sorts. He had struggled initially, but with his fans behind him, he made up for it in the later months. At the time, I made emailed out some comment about Chapin’s squash team pulling out a city championship, but if it were this year, I probably would have, more appropriately, sent: “GIANTS MAKE THE SUPERBOWL!”

All that said, life is infinitely better on the Buy Side. Bonuses still come in the winter, but they are couple of orders of magnitude greater. I’ve even got my own hitter (shared) office. But as I think back on that spot on our floor, it really was The Money Seat—not even Hugh could figure out how many bottles it would be worth.