But the once-in-a-generation turmoil that roiled the financial world last year -- from the sale of Bear Stearns to the collapse of Lehman Brothers to the near-failure of the American International Group -- helped set off a great scrambling of Wall Street's talent.
In his patriotism speech, he said that "the anger and turmoil" of that generation had "never entirely drained away," leaving our politics "trapped in these old, threadbare arguments".
While periodic famine and perpetual turmoil taught older generations to value stability above all else, the children born during China's boom years are inclined to set the bar higher.
But these are communities that have been defined by economic turmoil and insecurity for a generation.
Like many of their generation who survived China's years of turmoil, they weren't too fond of rehashing the past.
While most Gilded Age fortunes have long since succumbed to taxes, economic turmoil and repeated sub-divisions among generations of heirs, two discrete chunks of Cone wealth still exist today in quantities large enough to qualify for The Forbes 400.
There is also a generation of children who lost their childhood in the turmoil.
Trump opened the speech with a laundry list of terrorist attacks in the United States and Europe that were committed by first- or second-generation immigrants, before moving into a description of the turmoil that has roiled the Middle East during the Obama administration.
Born in what is now North Korea, Chung, like all Koreans of his generation, grew up under Japanese colonial rule, followed by the turmoil of the Korean war.
He said the party grew out of a concern among his generation that they were just "onlookers" to the country's turmoil.
As the demands for change from this up-and-coming generation collide with vested interests, "there is potential for serious political turmoil," said William C. Belchere, head of fixed-income research at Merrill Lynch here in Singapore.
