During my extensive discussion of Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, I mentioned how the author envisioned a new super-elite emerging from the wreckage of consensus capitalism. In such a scenario, “trickle-down” economics, first touted during the Reagan administration, amounts to creating a new servant class, scrabbling for the crumbs that fall from the top table. If the new professions–springing up to transform the more absurd velleities of the rich into a steady paycheque–profiled in last Sunday’s New York Times Magazine are anything to go buy, there is already a thriving shoal of remoras attached to the sharks of Wall Street:

For example, meet Dr Jana Klauer, an “Off-the-Menu Nutritionist”:

“For my patients with heavy entertaining schedules, I go over the menus of restaurants they're expected to attend, say, in the upcoming week and tell them what to order,” says Klauer, also known as the Park Avenue Nutritionist. “That way, there's no guesswork. Before they even step foot inside a restaurant, they know what they're going to eat.” Most easily adaptable menu: “Primola's Italian restaurant on the Upper East Side. I recommend a crudités plate at the beginning of the meal, instead of a bread basket; chicken parmigiana, without breading or frying; or the grilled fish.” Most challenging restaurant: “French restaurants can be tricky.” One – “I won't say its name” – poaches its fish in goose fat. Some of her clients: Chefs, ladies who lunch and executives from Dubai.