'I Like Your Pluck!' Says Gracious Plutocrat


NEW YORK—Saying the recently arrested protesters had just the right kind of tenacity and pluck needed to shake up the financial services industry, magnanimous and benevolent Morgan Stanley banker Hank Billings approached members of the Occupy Wall Street movement Tuesday morning and hired each and every one of them on the spot. "This is exactly the kind of self-starting, 'won't go home till the job's done' kind of attitude I like to see," said the gracious Billings, claiming that he had grown to admire "the cut of [the activists'] jib" since the movement began in mid-September and that "moxie such as [theirs]" should not go unrewarded. "You all were out there every day, giving it everything you had, and by God if you ever took no for an answer. Sure, you all took some digs at me, but who needs a bunch of yes-men standing around, anyway?" Billings then reportedly smiled, shook each protester's hand, and said he would see them all in the office "bright and early Monday morning," noting that a personal history of lawbreaking had never hindered anyone's career on Wall Street.