No, it's not a joke.
Gun sales to Goldman Sachs executives have hit a high, as reported by Bloomberg.
Dec. 1 (Bloomberg) -- "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.
When did Americans become the enemy? When is greed simply no longer defensible?
While we take it that Goldman Exec's have never pondered Gandhi's words on greed and our resources, the guys in line to receive a 20 billion dollar bonus want to be certain they get to keep their money, when the chips are down.
Yes, they know what everyone's afraid of saying out loud: the financial system is shot, and about to break apart. Why else would they be buying guns?
Goldman Sachs spokesman Lucas van Praag didn't want to respond to Bloomberg's questions.
No, talk of Goldman and guns plays right into the way Wall- Streeters like to think of themselves. Even those who were bailed out believe they are tough, macho Clint Eastwoods of the financial frontier, protecting the fistful of dollars in one hand with the Glock in the other. The last thing they want is to be so reasonably paid that the peasants have no interest in lynching them.
As Americans continue arming themselves against "the enemy within," they seem set on learning a few lessons the very hard way. A few Goldman Sachs exec's getting trigger happy shouldn't make us worry too much, it's just a symbol of everything that's wrong with that company, everything.
The fact that ammunition plants selling to the private market are running double and triple shifts should probably be reason enough to worry.
And what did Gandhi say, which Goldman's brilliant money-evaporators missed?
"Earth provides enough to satisfy every man’s need, but not every man’s greed."
Says who?