Party's Over, Wall Street

Yesterday's New York Times has an article about the extravagant company retreats ($23,000 in spa charges!) and lavish spending at A.I.G., and I couldn't help but thinking, "duh". Everyone knows Wall Street guys are the worst partiers - overgrown fratboys in ill-fitting blue button down shirts who are only a million dollar bonus away from a kegstand.

As I was reading, it occurred to me that there's got to be a lot of pictures on Flickr of these chillwads partying it up, banker-style, back in happier days. A quick search for "Lehman Brothers" yielded images relating to their recent troubles, but when I sorted by most recently posted photos, and skipped back to the spring 2008, and voila - the sweet memories started rolling in of the good times and the volitile explosion of an expense account ignited by a douchebag attitude. Fellas, it looks like you were writing some party checks you couldn't cash.

The salad days, my friends: (please, save your tears for the end)

Lehman Brothers party:

Theodore Roosevelt IV, Managing Director of Lehman Brothers:


A.I.G. yachting in France:


A.I.G. Sponsored Lunch with John Legend:


Morgan Stanley employees (what did I say about ill-fitting blue shirts?):


Bear Stearns:


You can see how hard these guy are straining to keep themselves from doing a beer bong at the Morgan Stanley Christmas party:


Ouch - looks like this guy couldn't make it through the Morgan Stanley party without getting on the table to dance: