by Tanta on 9/07/2007 08:23:00 AM

This, by Michael Lewis of Bloomberg, is hysterical. Hat tips for the dozens of you who sent me the link.

There's a reason the rich aren't getting richer as fast as they should: they keep getting tangled up with the poor. It's unrealistic to say that Wall Street should cut itself off entirely from poor -- or, if you will, ``mainstream'' -- culture. As I say, I'll still do business with the masses. But I'll only engage in their finances if they can clump themselves together into a semblance of a rich person. I'll still accept pension fund money, for example. (Nothing under $50 million, please.) And I'm willing to finance the purchase of entire companies staffed basically with poor people. I did deals with Milken, before they broke him. I own some Blackstone. (Hang tough, Steve!)

But never again will I go one-on-one again with poor people. They're sharks.

Do I need to dredge up the old posts from the days (a mere few months ago) when "Subprime Is About Helping The Poor" was baloney du jour? Or do you all still remember that as vividly as I do?