IT'S GOOD TO SEE how all the gazillions that Obama has been using to save the too-big-to-fail companies is put to good use. In a piece, the New York Times describes how the brunch tradition is as alive as ever, with patrons routinely washing down their Benedict eggs with bottle after bottle of expensive champagne. Which in principle is fine, but get this at the end:

As for how he and his fellow Wall Streeters could still afford such afternoons, he said: “We all made so much money in the past five years, it doesn’t matter.”

A 29-year-old man who works for a large investment management firm and was at Bagatelle’s brunch one recent Saturday and at Merkato 55’s the next, put it another way: “If you’d asked me in October, I’d say it’d be a different situation, and I don’t think I’d be here. Then the government gave us $10 billion.”