Banks Kicked ‘When We’re Down’ in Year of Protests, Batali Gibe

Wall Street used to adore Mario Batali, the Croc-wearing celebrity chef. Bankers crowded his expensive restaurants and dined on Italian dishes built around piglet alla paesana or Sardinian lamb. In November, however, Batali served up something that made bankers gag.

At a Time magazine panel, he compared the financial industry to Stalin and Hitler, decrying how they had “toppled the way money is distributed -- and taken most of it into their hands,” Bloomberg Businessweek reports in its Dec. 26 issue.