“The typical investor in public markets has no idea what he is doing. Putting his money into a stock or a mutual fund brings him a temporary happiness. He sees himself as Kirk Kerkorian making a bid for General Motors or Warren Buffett shrewdly moving on an insurance company.

‘I bought Google,’ he tells his wife.

His chest expands.

He feels a crown of authority on his head and imagines his most private part growing.

For he has mastered the most sacred and all-powerful rite of our time; with a single gesture he has joined the Knights Templar, the Freemasons, and the local country club.

He is in. He is with it. He gets it. He is one with all the other swells who make up this wondrous modern economy. He has gone to Wall Street like Sir Galahad to Camelot.

He does not realize the misery awaiting him.

Only later, much later, does he discover that he is not a hero, but just a chump— an insignificant speck of dust on Wall Street’s white shoes.”

Empire of Debt P. 309