So I thought --- well, I thought lots of things. I was wondering, as I had for a long time, about how old money became new --- not the more usual concern about how the parvenu try to integrate themselves into society, and how new money becomes old (usually by new-money wealth marrying old-money beauty) --- but how the old power elite in California participated in the craziness of the late 90s. How did the existing financial structure participate in all that ridiculous speculation --- and profit from it?

How did they get their prime, if notably hidden, share, of what was basically the biggest transfer of wealth from the middle-classes to the plutocracy that the world has ever seen?

So I had been wondering about this for a long time, and seeing the sketchy movements of my princeling, I was wondering how his relationships had been operating during this time period with these two guys, the masters of water and power.

The conclusion I came to is --- that there is a novel in this. And the reason it has to be a novel, even though it would require research, is that I have no idea if he kept up with his friends from Thacher. And I can't possibly know what decisions over dinner at wonderful places to eat on the Sonoma Coast created any of my princeling's bogus business dealings.