SORE WINNERS

Apparently, just about the only people in America who are doing well are financial fat cats here in New York -- and they seem to be furious that they're not doing even better.

By most standard measures of economic health, New York City's recovery from the financial crisis and the recession it started is well under way....

Wall Street -- still the engine that powers the city -- roared back faster than expected, eliminated far fewer jobs than had been forecast, resumed paying out big bonuses and has begun to hire again.

... in the city, ... there has been job growth for the last six months.

Still, experts on the city's economy said the effects of the recession were spread unevenly across the local landscape, leaving many people in dire financial condition....

The quick bounce back for the city's best-paid workers has helped fuel a pickup in business at exclusive boites and expensive hotels, consultants and business operators said. On Friday, Tiffany & Company said sales at its flagship jewelry store on Fifth Avenue rose 16 percent in the first half of the year.

... Proposals to lay off more employees of city and state agencies like the Metropolitan Transportation Authority could continue to temper a local recovery, economists said. A reluctance to hire full-time employees in some struggling industries like publishing is another drag on the city’s economy, they said....

In New York, those who aren't in finance (or businesses that cater to financiers) are like the rest of America, waiting for there to be a recovery that includes the general public. For the elite, however, everything's coming up roses.

So are the elite grateful to an administration that's made them whole again? As Paul Krugman notes, not even remotely:

Andrew Ross Sorkin's column today makes Wall Street honchos sound like spoiled kids; they went for Obama because he seemed like their kind of guy, then turned on him with a vengeance because they think he’s looking at them funny.

Based on what I know, that's about right.

I talked to some financial-industry backers of Obama back during primary season; they really didn't know or care much about policy issues, but were in love with Obama over his style -- and also over the prospect of being in his inner circle, something they knew wouldn't happen with Hillary. Now they're mad because they don't feel that they’re getting enough stroking.

And you have to bear in mind that this comes after Obama has made immense efforts to placate the financial industry. There were no bank nationalizations; there were hardly any strings attached to bailouts; the financial reform bill was by no means draconian given the scale of the disaster. But Wall Street is furious that Obama might even hint that they caused the crisis -- which he does, now and then, because, well, they did....

How whiny are these folks? Let's look at that Sorkin column:

Daniel S. Loeb, the hedge fund manager, was one of Barack Obama's biggest backers in the 2008 presidential campaign....

So it came as quite a surprise on Friday, when Mr. Loeb sent a letter to his investors that sounded as if he were preparing to join Glenn Beck in Washington over the weekend.

"As every student of American history knows, this country's core founding principles included nonpunitive taxation, constitutionally guaranteed protections against persecution of the minority and an inexorable right of self-determination," he wrote. "Washington has taken actions over the past months, like the Goldman suit that seem designed to fracture the populace by pulling capital and power from the hands of some and putting it in the hands of others."

Over the weekend, the letter, with quotations from Thomas Jefferson, Ronald Reagan and President Obama, was forwarded around the circles of the moneyed elite, from the Hamptons to Silicon Valley. Mr. Loeb's jeremiad illustrates how some of the president’s former friends on Wall Street and in business now feel about Washington....

In his letter to investors, he took issue with a number of Washington initiatives....

"So long as our leaders tell us that we must trust them to regulate and redistribute our way back to prosperity, we will not break out of this economic quagmire," Mr. Loeb wrote....

Well, I have no problem with ceasing to redistrubute money to you and your pals, schmuck.

If you're done with that recovery soon, may the rest of us borrow it, please?