How to Buy a Lamborghini Like a Wall Street Guy: Michael Lewis

Michael Lewis , whose books include "Liar's Poker," "The New New Thing"
and "MoneyBall," is a columnist for Bloomberg News. The opinions
expressed are his own.

How to Buy a Lamborghini Like a Wall Street Guy: Michael Lewis

Nov. 8 (Bloomberg) -- A few weeks ago, Bloomberg ran a piece about the
many delightful ways that Wall Street people will treat themselves with
their bonuses. For the first time since the Internet went bust,
America's traders, brokers and investment bankers are going to have
some real cash waiting for them at the end of the year -- about $17
billion of it.

Wall Street's answer to a spawning run doesn't occur until just before
Christmas, but already yacht salesman, private-jet brokers, fancy car
dealers, the International Guild of Butlers and others who routinely
toss baited hooks into the Street's waters are feeling a jolt on their
lines. Hummer of Manhattan, for instance, said sales this September
rose almost a third from September 2004. The difference? ``Wall Street
guys.''

This is refreshing news. For several lean years, during which they were
made to feel by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer that if they
didn't hide what money they did make he'd take it away, the world's
most gifted conspicuous consumers have been spending in fear or, worse,
not spending at all.

It's been tragic, really, as if Pavarotti had been forbidden to sing,
or Houdini to escape. No longer! Wall Street guys are back in form, and
intend not merely to spend their $17 billion, but to spend it with a
vengeance.

Don't Dance in Vain

To compensate themselves and their loved ones (dogs, mostly) for years
of brutal repression, they apparently intend to consume even more
conspicuously than usual. ``People have had enough of listening to bad
news,'' said Glenn Mazzella of World Wide Yacht Corp. ``They want to go
yachting, and they want to go skiing and they want to drive a Maybach.
They're tired of feeling embarrassed.'' (A Maybach, a German car,
retails for $325,000).

Still, I worry. After so many years of doing without even the most
basic luxuries, Wall Street guys may be a bit like a wide receiver who,
having just caught his first touchdown pass in two years, cannot recall
the rules governing celebrations. The moment he pauses to wonder if
it's OK to hurl the ball into the stands, or shake his booty in a
sexually suggestive manner, he loses the fans' attention, and dances in
vain.

A Refresher Course

If you wish to consume not merely conspicuously but also successfully,
you must learn four important rules. (Re-learn them, in most Wall
Street cases).

So let's review:

Rule 1: Don't worry about those less fortunate than you. They exist, it
is true. (Think how much less fun it would be to be you if they
didn't!) What with killer hurricanes and tsunamis, wars in various sand
traps, and children starving in Africa (them again!), it's not easy
living up to the carefree standards of the 1980s. But a moment or two
of historical research will show you that the poor and the dying have
always been with us, and usually they're pretty tolerant of the rich.

Think about it: You never hear a peep of protest about Wall Street pay
from the starving Africans themselves. You not having a Lamborghini
isn't going to make them feel any fuller. Just the reverse! If they
were standing beside you at the Hummer dealership while you decided
between the H2 (which starts at $61,000) and the H1 ($129,000 opening
bid), which one do you think they'd want you to have? The H1, of
course. (They'd love the military specs.) It's not the poor who are the
real problem here. Which brings us to:

Guilt Is for Losers

Rule 2: From that tiny faction of nags who have plenty of money
themselves but never shut up about the poor and ``the working man,''
you have nothing to fear but fear itself. You know who I'm talking
about: the sort of people who actually make friends with journalists.
Eliot Spitzer, for example.

People like Eliot Spitzer don't have your interests at heart. All they
want is for you to feel small and unimportant so that they might lord
it over you with their silly laws and boring ``values.''

Here's the sad truth: There are people in the world who will try to
make you feel guilty for no reason other than you want whatever you
want when you want it. Well, if empathy is one of those ``last place''
emotions, guilt never started the race. If you succumbed to feelings of
guilt, you wouldn't have made the dough in the first place. Guilt will
kill you, but only if you let it.

Embrace Your Needs

But ignoring the little people and their small-minded attitudes is the
easy part. To consume conspicuously, successfully, you must not merely
shut out the bad, you must embrace the good. If you want to buy your
Lamborghini like a man, you must understand the positive reasons you
must have it. There are two:

Rule 3: You need sex. Lots of it, and with different people. And not
just any sex: You need to have sex with the sort of women who
appreciate the nerve with which you own your Lamborghini.

That's one of the great things about spending your money as openly as
possible and wearing your wealth on your sleeve: It's honest. You're
letting the lady of your dreams (and remember, dreams only last one
night) know exactly who you are. You're saying, ``Here I am, standing
naked before you. Take me or leave me!''

You don't want to go into relationships where you pretend to be
something you are not. That way lies despair, or at least a lot of
dinners you didn't need to buy. When you get your bonus money out there
in the open, you are far more likely to meet the kind of woman who
cares about a sentimental guy like you. Which brings me to...

Remember the Customer

Rule 4: Just because you've spent a huge amount of money on yourself
doesn't mean you can stop making it. You'll need to make even more next
year.

There are many other people you'll need to impress, in addition to the
ones you hope to have sex with this year. Too many to list here, as it
happens, but let me mention just one of them: your customer.

The idea that you can impress your customer by spending a lot of money
on yourself that once belonged to him is of course counter-intuitive.
That's why this rule is so easy to forget!

Everyone knows that famous story about the customers' yachts -- the
Wall Street customer travels to the water near Wall Street, sees the
brokers' yachts along the dock, and asks, ``Where are the customers'
yachts?'' A lot of people take that story to mean that the customer was
outraged by how much money Wall Street people made compared with their
customers. Not at all: The customer was impressed. What he was trying
to say, in his own ham-handed way, was: ``I really admire you for how
much more you have than I do and am reminded all over again of the
natural inferiority of my breed. Thank you. I'll try to teach my
children to be more like you.''

And so, remember, when you are racing down the Turnpike in your
Lamborghini and come up beside your customer, don't hide. Just give a
little wave and hit the gas. He'll never forget it.

To contact the writer of this column:
Michael Lewis in Berkeley, California, at