“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.
While we wait, Goldman has wrapped itself in the flag of Warren Buffett, with whom it will jointly donate $500 million, part of an effort to burnish its image — and gain new Goldman clients. Goldman Sachs Chief Executive Officer Lloyd Blankfein also reversed himself after having previously called Goldman’s greed “God’s work” and apologized earlier this month for having participated in things that were “clearly wrong.”
Has it really come to this? Imagine what emotions must be billowing through the halls of Goldman Sachs to provoke the firm into an apology. Talk that Goldman bankers might have armed themselves in self-defense would sound ludicrous, were it not so apt a metaphor for the way that the most successful people on Wall Street have become a target for public rage.
NYC restricts guns heavily. I guess it is appropriate that, white collar, criminals are the only ones to possess guns, legally.
Interesting and somewhat misleading.
This entire article and the premise thereof was based solely on ONE guy asking for a pistol permit. She has no other evidence whatsoever to back up anything else.
Unless you are one of the “elite” (ie Goldman Sachs, etc.) there is no way in hell you’re going to get a permit.
She should have followed up on this instead. “The bailout was meant to keep the curtain drawn on the way the rich make money, not from the free market, but from the lack of one.”
Why not write about this instead of ONE guy trying to get a gun, and his paranoia?
So when I got my concealed carry permit, I was working for a university. Does that mean university employees are arming themselves?
Dumb. Dumb. Dumb.
There are not enough guns to protect them if people get pissed off and start killing the white collar criminals.
PSsss. Goldman scum…. Move to New Hampshire. Open carry of firearms allowed with no permit. Concealed carry requires a “shall issue” permit, meaning, no criminal history, you get a permit.
OHhhh if only every state was a free as New Hampshire…. There are other places besides the liberal hell hole states….
How is it possible that anyone who works (or has worked) at Goldman-Sachs ever get a “good character” reference?
When you steal money from people, you should expect to get your ass whupped.
It’s OFFICIAL everyone! Since they now bear arms it’s our turn to bear arms and have at each other. Who’s with me! I’ll snipe a few for sure, no problemo. CEO’s and upper management first please, thanks.
Instead of shooting the guy, I’ll just move into his house and drive his car. After all, he owes me!
No worry. Americans are too fat, stupid and lazy for an uprising. Unless they can do it with a remote control… it ain’t happening.
#5 – um New Hampshire is pretty liberal and their gun laws are too. Think about it.
I’d love to get in a firefight with a bank exec! Where do I sign up?
On a related note, Goldman is hiring security guards at $10/hr. Any takers? 🙂
#5..”no criminal history”
Well, that certainly leaves out Goldman Sachs executives!
New York City is one of the hardest places in the USA to get a gun legally. And one of the easiest places to get one illegally. Funny, that.
The top 5 executives from the now defunct Lehman Brothers collected $1.1 BILLION over 5 years in pay and bonuses. Just in one year the CEO collected $330 Million in pay and bonuses. In the process they destroyed the company and practically all shareholder equity, and have a high degree of responsibility for the current condition of the overall economy.
These are the same people that conservatives and teabaggers want to protect from paying 5% more in taxes. They stole the money fair and square, so they should get to keep it.
Old news.
There have been warnings going out the past several weeks to banks to prepare for a possible “finical upheaval”
-Societe Generale being one of them.
In other news, Surprise! Clinton’s daughter is marrying into the Goldman Sachs cabal..fiance is up and coming G&S investment banker..
(psst, Don’t look over here…)
-s
Cool. That means I’ll be taking their guns, too.
uhmmmm….. Might be time to move to NY and open a business building ‘panic rooms’. I sense a growth market there.
#13 – hmmmm….Do they get to carry guns?
Luckily the populist is much better armed.
I guess buying some handguns, is cheaper (not to mention more socially acceptable) than hiring the “Blackwater” mercenaries to protect themselves. But I suspect that they’ve already thought about it. And left that option open for the future. It’s not so unprecedented a move, when you consider that Lincoln hired Wells Fargo to protect himself, during part of his term.
#16, In other news, Surprise! Clinton’s daughter is marrying into the Goldman Sachs cabal..fiance is up and coming G&S investment banker..
I wonder what the
pricedowry was . . . probably a whole new batch of favorable regulations.#21, Glenn,
Ah, not quite. Pinkerton Detective Agency VOLUNTEERED their services to the new President elect. Pinkerton uncovered a plot to assassinate Lincoln on the way to his inauguration when he changed trains in Baltimore.
Pinkerton continued to work for the Union Government throughout the war and uncovered much, very valuable intelligence.
Wells Fargo was a banking express company that ended up in the stagecoach business.
And in the past they’ve always had the police to spend city dollars protecting them.
#24, Maybe they’ve come to realize the police aren’t there to protect them, only to clean up the mess.
So the thugs are armed now? Uh, sounds rather like a truism. Crime nation.
The going joke in some circles is that Obama and friends are the most successful firearms and ammo salesmen in history. He got elected and sells went through the roof and I think they just stayed there. I haven’t checked in a while.
How safe do you feel now that bankers are armed and dangerous with how they handle money?
It’s just a question of time. Why do you think Obama’s building up the armed forces instead of reducing. That’s right, to protect the power, to protect the money. If things start getting ugly at home the troops will pull out of Afghanistan in a flash. Then the pigs will have armed escort thanks to your tax dollars. While John Q. Public is watching hid kids dying of hunger he’s likely to become unruly, but it’s nothing your armed forces can’t handle.
When you deposit money into a bank, it becomes the bank’s private property, to do with it as it wishes. This is why some people prefer the stock market.