Ah, the masters of the universe….always so quick to protect their own hides…

This, from Bloomberg (Dec. 4):

“I just wrote my first reference for a gun permit,” said a friend, who told me of swearing to the good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker who applied to the local police for a permit to buy a pistol. The banker had told this friend of mine that senior Goldman people have loaded up on firearms and are now equipped to defend themselves if there is a populist uprising against the bank.

I called Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag to ask whether it’s true that Goldman partners feel they need handguns to protect themselves from the angry proletariat. He didn’t call me back. The New York Police Department has told me that “as a preliminary matter” it believes some of the bankers I inquired about do have pistol permits. The NYPD also said it will be a while before it can name names.”

Meanwhile, CEO Lloyd Blankfein´s on talking terms with God, and assures us he´s only going about his father´s business….

No profiles in courage here.

Just to bring in a little perspective: These are multimillionaires, who work and live in the best part of town, who have immense political clout, who are probably tall males, if the profile typical of a high-flying Wall Streeter is anything to go by.

I used to teach at a school in the inner city for a few years, trudging home sometimes well past ten at night, often with music equipment in hand. I started carrying mace only at the end. I never had my wallet picked or a purse snatched. Once, a couple of panhandlers acted aggressively toward me. I returned the favor and they backed off. Another time, at 2 AM, near a bus-station, a teen girl “broke bad” with a razor blade. Two young men came over and warned me to get away so I wouldn´t be hurt. Twice, walking through a ghetto, I´ve had young teenagers carry my bags and give me directions, without my asking.

The only time I was robbed was in an affluent neighborhood, where someone picked my pocket. Later there were the brokers, the lawyers, and the rest to add to my bitter experience and teach me the semi-criminal nature of the upper echelons of our society.  This upper level is not “smart,” as Bethany McLean seems to suggest in her strange piece on Goldman Sachs in Vanity Fair . Call it by its proper name. It is corrupt. Deeply so.

And its corruption is commonplace.

The monstrous size of the crimes committed reflects not the size of the men who commited them but the monstrosity of the ideology of which they are, in some sense, the greatest victims….