A stream of wealthy traders and CEOs people this story of confidence run amok, including a JPMorgan investment banking head. After picking up the bill at an expensive extended family dinner, his 80-something steelworker father takes him aside: "Bill, is what you're doing legal? I don't see how it can be." The banker retires and gets involved with financial reform -- in London.

Several months before the Occupy Wall Street movement began this year, Obama tells Suskind "Leadership in this office is not a matter of you being confident. Leadership in this office is a matter of helping the American people feel confident."

Thousands marched in Occupy Wall Street's Nov. 17 protest in a show of solidarity and confidence that "we are the 99 percent that will no longer tolerate the greed and corruption of the 1 percent. We don't need Wall Street and we don't need politicians to build a better society."

Obama will need every bit of confidence he can muster.
 
Confidence Men by Ron Suskind. Harper Collins. $29.99. 517 pages.

First « 1 2 » Next