" In November, Random House had published The Art of the Deal by Donald Trump, whose disdain for tradition and good taste had by now convinced striving classes that he was one of them. The people who resented him were the meritocracy who followed the rules; those on top and those on the bottom both knew Balzac had it right: “Behind every great fortune,” he’d written, “there is a great crime.” For Liz Smith, the love of money could still excuse anything. “It is refreshing,” she wrote of “The Donald,” “to find a rich person who isn’t pretending to be broke or modest and unassuming, hopping and skipping on hot coals to avoid being called crass and vulgar when it comes to the most absorbing subject known to the average man and woman in 1988: money…” She finished, “Let’s not kill Donald. Don’t you want to see what happens when he grows up?” In the meantime, he borrowed $407.5 million to buy the Plaza, taking out full-page ads promising to make it “perhaps the greatest hotel in the world.” He mulled public office. “I’m not running for president,” he said, “But if I did… I’d win.” The Helmsleys, on the other hand, were sacrificed for the sins of their class; Giuliani indicted them for tax evasion. "

― Thomas Dyja , New York, New York, New York: Four Decades of Success, Excess, and Transformation