If failure on Wall Street is simply bad luck, then is success only good luck?

Today's New York Times carries a story about Top Wall Street executives who have lost $ Billions becoming hot properties once they have been fired, sometimes being offered even better positions than those they lost. While middle ranking managers get fired and have problems being re-hired, top executives are assumed to have merely been unlucky. It seems that Wall Street sees them as smart simply because they have been in proximity to so much money.

It is rather surprising that failure on an enormous scale is seen as the result of bad luck, whereas success is never ascribed to good luck, but to skill and intelligence. History tells us that this is more so today than at any time in history.