Elite wealth recovered too fast for the crash to reorient culture downward

Evidence

Economist Tyler Cowen predicted in 2009 that “popular culture’s catering to the wealthy may also decline in this downturn. We can expect a shift away from the lionizing of fancy restaurants, for example, and toward more use of public libraries.” This shift never materialized, because within a year, the fortunes of the ultrawealthy bounced back. Wall Street profits hit $19 billion in 2010, approaching pre-crash levels. “On Wall Street,” wrote journalist George Packer, “the financial crisis felt like a speed bump.” — W. David Marx, Blank Space, 211

Categorization

• QUESTION: Puzzing counterfactual: what would mass culture look like had elite wealth stayed depressed for a decade? Useful thought experiment for testing Marx’s status-mechanism thesis.
• CANDY: “On Wall Street, the financial crisis felt like a speed bump” is a quotable line showing elite disconnect in a downturn.
• XREF: connects to: Financial elites sincerely believed innovation had abolished capitalism’s boom-bust cycle. — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 104