Wanting to take a further look at now, I dusted off the old questions and returned to the field. I spoke with friends or friends of friends,  across professions. I spoke with people on Wall Street. “What would it take to feel safe and snug?” I asked them. People rolled their eyes and said, “You must be kidding.” It was clear right away that the Old Number had given way to a New Number. “Fuck you” money? How quaint. “I’m fucked” money? Now we’re talking.

The New Number Hits Wall Street
Nowhere is the New Number more top of mind than in Lower Manhattan. I put in a call to someone who used to be a brokerage honcho. Eight years ago, he was smart enough to jump ship when the jumping was good. He traded the security of a solid job at a big financial-services firm for a risky partnership at a midsize hedge fund. Today—all things considered—he’s in solid enough shape, certainly compared with those who soldiered on at the mainstream financial behemoths, chasing their Old Numbers at wire houses and banks, not a few of which went poof. I asked my informant to give me a reading on the state of mind of those he’d left behind. He agreed, but only if I’d withhold his name. He said he didn’t want to betray confidences or further humiliate former associates. I’ll call him Mr. Lucky.

“The first thing to understand,” Mr. Lucky tells me, “is that no one—I mean no one—is thinking about ‘Fuck you’ money now, even though that’s all they once thought about, talked about, lied through their teeth about. You know, ‘I got a million; I need five,’ or ‘I got 20; I need 40.’ Now all they care about is hanging on to a job, assuming they still have a job.”

There’s a senior money manager—I’ll call him Mr. Ashamed—a solid and good guy, by all accounts. Mr. Ashamed spent decades at a respected advisory firm founded in the late 1930s that Lehman Brothers swallowed up in 2003. He continues to live in the same nice but not ostentatious home outside New York City.

Mr. Ashamed did just about everything right. He didn’t throw his money around. He was scrupulous about setting up trusts that would send his grandchildren to college. About the only thing he did wrong was stay true-blue to his firm, before and after its acquisition. The assets he had set aside to educate his grandchildren? Mostly Lehman stock—now worthless. Today, Mr. Ashamed is embarrassed and humiliated—not for his own sake, but over how he failed his family. Sure, he’s an old pro and knows the markets will eventually come back. But he also knows he won’t be around to see the day, to set things right.

Then there’s a man who is a couple of decades younger than Mr. Ashamed—not as heavy a Wall Street hitter, but also a good guy. I’ll call him B. Prepared. Conservative, realistic. For years, he knew that one day—not a matter of whether, but when—the bubble would burst. He was so sure of it that five years ago, to protect his Old Number, B. Prepared cashed in his stock, worth around $5 million, and left his job at a brokerage. The plan was not to retire but maybe to explore a startup. But the startup never got started. With his kids soon to enter college, B. Prepared again took preemptive action. He and Mrs. Prepared sold the family house, accepting far less than they believed it was worth—a cushion, at least. Today, the Prepareds live in a rented place not far from their former, larger one. Their New Number will soon be taking them much farther away, to a state where the cost of living is lower and the public universities are, well, good enough.

Finally, there is someone who needs neither introduction nor sympathy from us. He’s the Wall Street stereotype we love to hate—arrogant, free-spending, and rapacious. I’ll call him Mr. Jackass. Mr. J. started working on the Street in the 1990s, went around bragging how he’d be a $1 million-a-year man in no time, and—faster than you could say Stan O’Neal­—he was. By any reasonable view, Mr. J. should be in good shape, even now. To make a million dollars a year for 10 years ought to have gotten him to a Number big enough to fund a comfy retirement, more than enough to chuck a job and start a novel.

But Mr. J. had other uses for the money. A million dollars a year was about what it took to own a house in Connecticut, another in the Hamptons, two or three expensive cars, plus have the clothes, wine, food, vacations, and boat that befit the Jackass lifestyle. It’s not as if Mr. J.’s Old Number went down with the markets. He had no Number to start with, no plan for a nest egg. In the words of a celebrated investment analyst (not Jim Cramer), “When you ain’t got nothin’, you got nothin’ to lose.”


The New Number Hits Main Street
This change from the Old Number to the New Number is, in essence, all about lifestyle relapse. A recent AARP survey reports that more than 65 percent of respondents over the age of 45 now say they plan to put off their once-hoped-for retirement dates. The number of applications to graduate schools is decreasing, but Teach for America applications are up. Those who can’t find work in business, finance, marketing, publishing, or technology teach—a lifestyle-relapse prevention measure.

Not everyone I talk to is teetering on the precipice of a lifestyle relapse. But nearly everyone is stepping gingerly. I talk to an architect on the West Side of Manhattan—Mike the Architect, I’ll call him. He doesn’t want clients or clients-to-be—if there are any—to know how he’s feeling right now. Mike tells me he’s somewhat fortunate because his independent practice has low overhead and he has a handful of funded projects that are now far enough along that they will probably be completed. Fundamentally, though, he’s pessimistic. His Old Number? Forget about it. His invested assets are worth roughly half of what they were a year ago. On the bright side, he says, there’s still decent equity in the apartment he and his wife bought in the 1980s. But just in case, they are seriously thinking about splitting the place in two, living in one half and selling the other.