Excerpt today from The New York Times: Returning Monday afternoon to Manhattan from South Hampton on the Hampton Jitney, [Tom Wolfe, author of “The Bonfire of the Vanities”] said he was mesmerized by what had happened to Wall Street in the last year. “Nobody understands where the actual value is — and they don’t care anymore,” he exclaimed. More from the man who’s pronounced we “may be witnessing the end of capitalism…”

Almost exactly a year ago, Tom Wolfe, the author of “The Bonfire of the Vanities,” was wandering the floor of the New York Stock Exchange. Dressed in his trademark white suit, he darted around traders and whisked past trading booths, shaking hands and waving, just before the market was about to open.

It was a sunny, ebullient morning. The Dow stood at 13,337. Deals were zipping across the ticker: Barneys, the luxury retailer, was sold that morning to an investment arm of the Dubai government. Investment bankers were getting ready to take a half-day Friday and drive out to the Hamptons.

But the real excitement — the reason, traders whispered, that Mr. Wolfe must be in attendance — was that the Blackstone Group, the big private equity firm, was minutes away from going public, the largest initial public offering in the United States since 2002. (At the time, he told The New York Observer that a friend was giving him a tour.)

Just then, a CNBC reporter pulled Mr. Wolfe aside to ask him what he made of all the hubbub. Mr. Wolfe paused for a moment to contemplate his answer.

And then, with a wry smile, he delivered a prophetic declaration: “We may be witnessing the end of capitalism as we know it.”

Here we are a year later, and while it may not be the end of capitalism, it looks as if Mr. Wolfe got it a lot closer than, say, the investors who plowed money into Blackstone.

Capitalism today — at least as Wall Street defines it — is a very different, and worse, business. And it is only going to get tougher from here.

Sherman McCoy, Mr. Wolfe’s bond-trading protagonist — who always bemoans he is “hemorrhaging money!” — would probably be selling his 12-room apartment on Park Avenue right about now.

Or, as Mr. Wolfe told me during an interview Monday, “He would be eating his heart out wanting to run a hedge fund, but he’s not smart enough!”

Continue reading on NYTimes.com

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