As the whole country sweats this financial bailout stuff, New York Magazine has turned its focus on the story we’ve so desperately wanted uncovered: “Golly, what ever has happened to those poor Lehman Brothers traders?”  The whole story is worth your complete disdain, but here are a few choice selections:

Like many on Wall Street, the Trader’s career was moving along briskly. By 2006, he had settled into a new $2 million house in Connecticut with a pool, and kept a pied-à-terre in Manhattan. With two young children, he had private-school tuition to cover. He had recently completed a home renovation, and now there was talk of a new porch with a built-in stainless-steel barbecue. The Trader estimated that he was two years from making enough money to retire and never have to work again.

In other words, the guy next door. A real average joe. I hardly know him, yet I already have a bottomless well of sympathy for him.

Alas, the Trader had to come to grips with this cold new world.

The collapse of the world’s most powerful wealth-creating engine required everyone to take stock of their financials… “They’re going to have to sell homes. The question is, will the homes sell? They’re cutting some of the children’s activities out, dance class, acting class. Are they going to have flowers delivered every day to their homes? I don’t think so!”

No, not acting class!  You MONSTERS!  How else will our nation’s rich children rise to become Hollywood elite?  You can’t expect them to study and work their way through the world, can you?  You can’t expect people to enjoy life without fresh flowers in their homes!  Oh, the humanity!

At this level, it’s not a tragedy so much as the end of a specific vision of the American good life…

Thanks for spelling that out.

[A Craigslist post] read, “Should I leave my fiancé? … I guess I already know the answer. My boyfriend … rather fiancé, is/was employed by Lehman Brothers,” the posting stated. “In less than a week we went from being millionaires to just having a couple of 100K … I suppose this means it’s over. I am who I am. I personally blame all this on [Lehman CEO] Dick Fuld. I blame him for ruining my happiness.”

“I was so in love with my fiance until he became merely upper class!”

In conclusion, be sure to be nice to anyone you know who fell from the lofty ranks of obscenely rich to the lowly depths of the nation’s wealthiest 5%.  Maybe you can clean their house for free or something.

(Bonus sexy businesswoman here)