The NYT tells us that the financial elites who destroyed $14tn of wealth last year are doing just fine. Let’s see:

Richard Fuld, Failed CEO of Lehman: likes to commute to his vacation homes in Florida and Idaho.

E. Stanley O’Neal, Failed CEO of Merrill Lynch: serves on boards and concentrates on his squash game.

John Thain, another Failed CEO of Merrill Lynch: managed big wedding for his son, negotiating for board job.

Charles Prince, Failed CEO of Citigroup: lives in Palm Beach, works for consulting firm and plays golf.

Robert Rubin, Wildly successful at staying in power.

Christopher Cox, Failed head of SEC: lobbyist.

Zoe Cruz, failed highest ranking woman on Wall Street: returning to investment management.

Angelo Mozillo, Failed founder of Countrywide: devotes time to legal defense.

Joseph Cassano, Failed Credit Default Swap trader for AIG: devotes time to legal defense.

Other regulators are doing just fine too, as Gretchen Morgenson tells us:

Senior regulators who stood idly by for years as financial firms built their houses of cards have been rewarded with even bigger jobs or are jockeying for increased responsibilities. The Federal Reserve Board, for example, wants to become the financial system’s uber-regulator, even though its officials did nothing as banks made deadly decisions to lend recklessly and leverage themselves to the max.

Lehman’s rank and file are doing just fine too, despite the whining.

Those much further down the corporate ladder from Mr. McKinney, including about two dozen people interviewed for this story, say they don’t feel they deserve much blame for what happened at their firm. They were just following orders, they say.

Here’s a guy who headed up Aurora Loan Services, a major supplier of “no-doc” loans to the Lehman securitized mortgage machine:

“I spent a long time being very angry,” says Mr. Schaefer, the former Lehman executive turned gas station owner. “Angry for working so hard and doing so much. More importantly, for my family and all the time I was away traveling — the time I put in away from them. Now all that money I earned, the money paid in stock, is gone. I can’t go back and remake it.”

And my favorite, Mr. Linton, whose job was to evaluate the mortgages that went into pools. His models predicted disaster, but he didn’t do anything wrong, and when he got fired, he bet against Lehman Bros. stock, and made tons of money. He loves flying his airplane or riding around on his 37 foot boat.

He says he has no qualms about his work at Lehman or its economic aftereffects. “Anyone at our level who had a different view from senior management would find themselves going somewhere else quick,” he says. “You are not paid to rock the boat.”

And, for those who wonder about the charm offensive of Lloyd Blankfein, here’s some CEO worship from the NYT. As you know, he has a life story just like Sonia Sotormayor.

Just ignore those not-so-good stories. It’s your fault if you failed.

Millions of Americans have lost homes, jobs and savings to the financial crisis and recession. While greed and extravagance played roles, many lived beyond their means because their paychecks shrank. This article is adapted from “Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy,” by Peter S. Goodman, a reporter for The New York Times.