T.J. Rodgers: T.J. Rodgers: Frank Quattrone is honest and ethical; Credit Suisse is just cowardly. Quattrone’s real crime is that he violated the “Bill Gates law” — his competence made him too much money too fast. Big, new money creates resentment among some, and there’s always a prosecutor — a Joel Klein or a Marcia Clark — ready to move up the food chain to “protect America.”
I almost spit out my morning coffee laughing, in a disgusted sort of way, when I read this op-ed piece by Rodgers. Then again, this guy is always saying ridiculous things.
Frank Quattrone has his defenders. It’s no coincidence that many are people who made money through doing business with him. They have every right to — and should — take his side.
But they can’t wave a wand and make him or his business practices honorable.
Big, new money isn’t what creates resentments. It’s the contempt that Wall Street and its amen chorus have for the non-insiders in this plutocratic economy — their casual ripoffs of the (admittedly gullible) little guy and rigging of the system in their own behalf — that makes people furious.
Rodgers should be careful with statements like the one I quoted above. Marcia Clark, you’ll recall, prosecuted O.J. Simpson. Was his crime making too much money too fast? No, it was murder. The LA. cops were racist and probably framed a guilty man, giving Simpson’s lawyers the reasonable-doubt room they needed to get an aquittal. If Rodgers is really comparing Frank Quattrone and Bill Gates to O.J. Simpson, his friends in high-tech will probably tell him to shut up.