Sometimes people ask, why do rich people keep striving for more money? What is the point of having $1B instead of $100M, or $10B instead of $1B, or $100B instead of $10B?

Sometimes the answer is given, that it's the same impulse as playing a computer game and money is the score.

But the last few days, something else occurred to me, watching the kind of disarray of various billionaire hedge fund types. A big attraction of wealth on that level must be the sense that you're smarter than nearly anyone else.

This situation punctures that and it seems like a lot of quotes in the news are about scrambling to save face and protect peoples' self images. I don't think they are actually outraged over monetary losses as such.

It's interesting that people are comparing it to Occupy Wall Street.