Goldman Sachs bankers ready themselves to kill peasants in the inevitable uprising

Bloomberg columnist Alice Schroeder reports that Goldman Sachs vampires are loading up on handguns to defend themselves against popular uprising:

"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...
Plenty of Wall Streeters worry about the big discrepancies in wealth, and think the rise of a financial industry-led plutocracy is unjust. That doesn't mean any of them plan to move into a double-wide mobile home as a show of solidarity with the little people, though.
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.

Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public: Alice Schroeder (via Making Light)

(Image: Eat the bankers, a Creative Commons Attribution photo from Iain Winfield's photostream)

Previously:

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

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The Snowden Principle

2k

LOL. GS have nice people working for them, why all the hatred?
I heard they even do stuff with money. You use money don’t you? Don’t be so naive as to think that just because you don’t understand ‘money stuff’ that GS and all the other movers and shakers don’t keep the world going round.
I mean; if they weren’t intransigent, greedy, recalcitrant rapists you probably wouldn’t have a home or a job to go to. You don’t want your children scraping in the dirt for a living do you?
Sound fiscal policy is a myth anyway. When has anyone not benefited from the rich hoovering up everybody’s money?
Gawrsh, if they didn’t have it somebody might pile it all up and burn it in a pire.
Thank Jeebus for the greedy fuckers. Keeping our money safe from us. I mean; redistributing our money more effectively. I mean; sequestering spending power from non-viable revenue streams. I mean; blah blah fucking blah.
Kill Kill Kill Kill Kill the poor!
- Cowicide
  
  Kill Kill Kill Kill Kill the poor!
  
  Just letting you know I caught your Dead Kennedy’s reference there.
Anonymous

This whole thing just makes me smile and remember that Monty Python got there first with the Accountancy Pirates from the Meaning of Life.
Tdawwg

An eloquent example of the iniquities of wealth’s inequities: the bankers are prisoners in their own gated communities, locked within their McMansions from the starveling hordes outside. Not even the fat cats can enjoy the evil fruits of fat-cattery. Hegel’s Master-Slave dialectic FTW…. Sad.
Thebes

Ok, they are doing this wrong. Not that I am complaining, and not that they do much of anything right.

If you think you might have to be in a gun fight;
1) bring rifles, you want long guns, pistols are far less effective
2) bring friends with rifles, if you lack friends but have money then pay some men with rifles to be your friends

Recent superhuman feats not-with-standing, a pistol generally misses its mark in a gunfight and one can not expect to defend against multiple assailants even if they are relatively unarmed. Though perhaps the Goldman people, being special, will be allowed those nifty briefcase machine pistols…
Thac0

Nothing would make me squeal with joy more than an uprising of the proletariat and bankers hiding in bunkers. Oh yes… how romantic that would be. :D
- Tdawwg
  
  There needs to be a “Bunkers for Bankers” movement, stat. Nice one!
MrJM

Banker,

By the time you see me, you’ll already be dead.
Artimus Mangilord

Just a commentary (not a report) from Alice there on an easy target, consisting of “I know someone that talked to someone who heard from so and so that…” Hearsay beyond the person who requested the reference.

Here’s hoping the Goldman Sachs gun slingers (GS^2) pull a Plaxico Burress… and, uh, go to jail.
vinegartom23

Ever seen ants tear apart a grasshopper? The ants always outnumber the grasshopper.
Ernunnos

Americans bought enough guns and ammo in the first three months after the election to arm the Indian and Chinese military. That’s on top of all the guns and ammo they had before. And while sales have slacked a little since then, they certainly haven’t stopped.

A $500 Glock ain’t going to do it for you, fellas. Try a home in a non-extradition country, private security, and a rapid evac plan. Plus plenty of funds set aside to support you and your families in the lifestyle to which you’ve become accustomed. The kind of preparations that might cut a little more deeply into your ill-gotten gains. I’m sure plenty of unemployed Americans will shed a little tear for your hardship while they’re cleaning their Glocks tonight.
Bucket

“…no interest in lynching them”

Hey, speak for yourself. I have a mild interest in lynching them.

Mostly, though, I have this ongoing desire to see if I can build a working guillotine entirely out of components purchased from Home Depot.
- Anonymous
  
  “I have this ongoing desire to see if I can build a working guillotine entirely out of components purchased from Home Depot.”
  
  Don’t sell yourself short, Bucket. YOU can do it!
Mephy

Put yourselves in the shoes of the employees of big banks. You’ve got goofballs on the internet calling for lynch mobs and assassinations.

All of a sudden Joe Thompson who works as a systems analyst for the IT desk is seeing death threats that he fears could include him. After all, how does a lynch mob know which person should be lynched? Chances are they’ll just take any old big bank employee and call it good.

I don’t blame guys like that for arming up. They aren’t responsible for any wrongdoing, and probably just want to go home to their family. If it’s Joe vs. the mob, I’m rooting for Joe.
- coaxial
  
  How does the mob know who to lynch at Goldman Sachs?
  
  Easy. If they’re in a suit, string ‘em up by their neckties.
  If they’re on the top floor, push ‘em out. Choose either window for corner offices.
  
  At this rate, we’ll end up like Sao Palo.
- inphiknit
  
  There is a brown noser in every bunch and here you are.
Saint Fnordius

It’s all about the intimidation, and in this case it’s most likely to backfire.

Think about it: a handgun is not designed for accuracy, but so that it can be easily carried. Accuracy is lousy, and it’s often loud by design. The idea behind most guns is that it would be used as a deterrent.

By extension, the same is true about letting people know you have a gun: it’s the arched back and bushy tail of the cat. A hope that the threat will make the other party back down.

In this case, though, the story is having a boomerang effect and drawing unwanted attention. This just feeds into the common perception that these guys have something to fear, that their gains really are ill-gotten…
bklynchris

Uniquack, wouldn’t it be cool weird if your Jay Gould was related to Stephen Jay Gould, the portly (in later years), fun loving, Simpson’s cameo appearing, evolutionary archeologist extraordinaire who died way to soon was like his great great grandson gone good?
geewhiz23

…oh yeah, and then after you lench a few bankers in just retribution, you can go back to your 3000 sqft house you had no business taking an adjustable rate/no money down mortgage on and surf the net some more on a laptop you got on credit to buy more crap you don’t need on that 20% interest credit card. Damn those bankers for ruining this country!
Anonymous

All you people calling for mob violence against the ‘rich’, remember that to 99% of the world population, you are as filthy rich as those Goldman-Sachs bankers.

So please remember, that if your class warfare fantasies of world revolution ever turn into something more than internet yuppie ennui, that you and your family are going to be as frightened as desperate at those bankers.
- mdh
  
  Speak for yourself, I got blisters on these fingers.
SeattlePete

“After all, how does a lynch mob know which person should be lynched?”

Look at their shoes. IT guys generally don’t wear $800 Italian loafers.

Also, as much as I’ll root for Joe, my money is on the mob.
- Dissentariat
  
  Check out this article: Original Wealth and People’s Capitalism by Steve Bhaerman. You may be rooting for the mob afterwards.
  
  http://www.realitysandwich.com/original_wealth
The Chemist

How manifestly upper-class. They’re not going to get mobbed. People in this country gave up shit-stirring in exchange for a Starbucks on every corner. Things would have to be getting significantly worse.

That’s not to say they aren’t in ANY danger, but guns won’t help them. A modern expression of impotent rage manifests itself, well, more explosively. If I were GS security, an angry mob would be the least of my concerns. My investment would involve metal detectors and sniffer dogs.

You have to keep in mind the Timothy McVeighs of the world and their ideology. These people are the most hostile to government, and the trend from the Olympic Centennial in Atlanta to Oklahoma City is pretty clear. Hell, I remember hearing about the ATF (shouldn’t that be BATFE?) arresting a militia group during the “best” years of the Bush administration. I doubt these people are any happier with our mixed-race Obama and his economic policies, and we know for a fact they’re fertilizer fans. If there is some kind of populist violence directed at GS it’s going to come from the fringes not the mainstream.

Oh wait- Actually, sorry, never mind. What am I saying? We like to pretend the only people who use explosives are swarthy types easily identified with a patented Stereotype Detector(TM). Carry on.
nanuq

Maybe the bankers are just worried about zombies. Since they think they’re smarter than the general population, it stands to reason that their brains would be singled out by the ravening hordes.
LILemming

Wait, something isn’t adding up here. It’s effectively impossible to get a pistol permit in NYC.

Pistol permits from other counties aren’t valid in NYC.

If they live far enough north they might be able to get a carry permit (that again wouldn’t be valid in NYC).

Even if what this friend heard from another friend’s friend is 100% accurate all it means is that bankers are making poor choices in terms of home defense weapons.

Of course their maid and other peasants would also have the same rights so I’m not clear what the ado is about?
- adam
  
  I think it has been established that Goldman Sachs is governed by different laws than those we proles worry about.
octopod

it’s quite disturbing, if vampires feel the need to arm themselves, it’s unlikely they’re concerned with the likes of us. so there’s probably more to this than meets the eye.
Anonymous

geewhiz23,

No whiz, I’ll go back to my miserly lifestyle, in the $60,000 home I own (which is now again worth what I paid in 1995).I’ll get on my laptop, that I purchased with cash because I don’t use credit, to conduct my personal energy audit on petrol, electricity, natural gas, trash, and water that I do every month when I get my bills. I’ll congratulate myself for caring about my place in this world. I’ll look around at my tiny, empty house, notice that it really needs work.

Then I’ll proceed to look at my decimated retirement plan. You know, my extremely conservative money market account and 401K. Then I’ll recalculate how much longer I have to work to retire due to GS shenanigans. Then I’ll think about my house again, realize it was a pretty poor investment, that I don’t have the money to fix up its terrible problems (thank goodness I did not refinance in 2005 as planned)…

Then I’ll wonder whether any of my ‘good sense’ really paid off. I’ll think about my neighbors who recently bragged to me that they sold their appliances (including furnace) and saved enough money during their foreclosure hearing to buy newer in some cryptic scheme involving 3rd party title holders. They have a new house now that they bought at a very cheap price. I’ll think about GS, who made money on the way down and the money on the way up. I’ll think about their analysts, the ones that take contrary positions to the GS traders. I’ll pretend they really don’t talk to one another. I’ll pretend there is no collusion. I’ll pretend the free market of capitalism works as advertised. I’ll ignore the 10 billion dollars, some of it mine, they got from the Feds to leverage the market and make even more money.

Then, I’ll wonder who exactly got screwed?
- vinegartom23
  
  Yeah, that’s pretty much about it. Except I’d be pretty pissed on top of all that.
Boba Fett Diop

I’d be happy to sell them “torch-wielding mob” insurance, then break my risk up into bits, package it with other securities and sell it back to them.
- Cowicide
  
  They’d probably rather be shot than have that happen to them.
  - Boba Fett Diop
    
    Oh, I think that if there’s one thing we’ve learned in the last couple of years, it’s that these assholes will buy ANYTHING.
Anonymous

“Not only does the world’s food supply have to contend with constricted supply and increased demand for real grain” – oh, so that’s why prices are going up. Sorry, what were you saying about bankers?
alowishus

handguns? Puh-leaze. They’ll need an army of ED-209s.
TotalForge

The best revenge is to leave them be, waiting for something that never comes. May they live long – and in fear. :-)
bklynchris

“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.”

C’mon man, WTF?!?!?! Seriously, give me a break. Less than 10% of the people who work at GS take home WAY more than 10% of the bonus pool. I know a woman who works at GS, she sent me a flier re-where to go to get a cheek swab to see if I was a match for a someone that she does not know in need of bone marrow transplant. Another woman I know is the CEO of Seedco NYC (501(c)3 community business start-up investors) and can thank GS for a huge donation that will keep many small businesses in this city afloat through these trying times.

And this reporter is writing for Bloomberg, BLOOMBERG people! You want fascist corruption look no further, man not only bought himself the a third term but bought the overturning of the term limits set in the city charter to get it. Of course, GS’s publicist is not going to return this phone call, its ludicrous premise.

I know many people at GS, most of whom probably make less than, oh I don’t know, someone who scoops up huge profits from the advertising they sold on their website that they do nothing more for than upload cool links that people sent them? AND, none of them own a gun.

First you accuse non-vaccinating parents of the attempted murder of your children unborn or otherwise (note moderator, I do NOT mean Corey) and now you have the employees of Goldman Sachs ready to shoot you because of their presumed paranoia.

Really, WHO THE F*CK is paranoid here? I am sorry that Bloomberg had to sink to the level of a tabloid to get people to read crap off their stupid proprietary news “machines”. Next you are going to blame them for Dubai, dot com crash, oh yeah, and maybe autism. Grow the f up you sniveling bunch of children and open your eyes. I know it might make you feel safe that the enemy is holed up in a LEED certified glass tower in Battery Park City BUT the reality is, is the enemy is all around you, and at times may even be ourselves.

Now if you really want to blame somebody, blame real estate developers…..
- Cowicide
  
  bklynchris, I just blame YOU.
Anonymous

This needs to go viral people. People need to know the degree to which bankers are in bed with the media, whores that they are:

http://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=185817

Please post anywhere you can. This needs to be on Google rankings for Wall Street Journal-related search terms. This needs to be printed and thrown down from skyscrapers buildings.
mgfarrelly

I have family who work in banking and a lot of them are very scared. My cousin works as a loan officer in curing and collections. He’s had his house shot at, his kids threatened, his car vandalized with paint and had dead animals sent to his office. He’s not some mustache-twirling sociopath, most of the time he works with people to set up repayment plans that end up cutting into the bank’s profits just to get the loan off the books.

He’s a middle management type, and I bet many of the armed and dangerous Goldman types are as well. They didn’t create the boiler-room environment, they didn’t create the policies or even see some huge profit on carrying them out. Sure, they’re no dummies and they should have spoken up, gotten out, grown a soul, but having people threaten to kill your family because your bosses decided that 20% return against the market was just not enough, that’s a crap position to be in too.
- inphiknit
  
  Oh, but they DID create the environment:
  http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/28816321/inside_the_great_american_bubble_machine/print
Cowicide

If anyone was looking for some inspirational music..

Motorhead- Eat the Rich Lyrics NSFW

By the way, does anyone know of any films that are about class warfare aside from Caddyshack? I’ve always wanted to see a movie where the disaffected hunt the elite for sport or something.
- demidan
  
  Been thinking of that song lately for some reason…Baked broiled or boiled in a pot $9.95 comes with two sides and a roll.
  -Get ‘em while their hot!
Waldo Jaquith

If this story is true, I’ll eat my hat. Check out the sourcing in this: She knows a guy, who knows a guy, who knows some guys. Who had spiders hatch out of his stomach after eating Bubble Yum.

Also, Clint Eastwood carrying a…Glock? Um. No.
nanojath

What she’s actually got: hearsay of hearsay, plus a bona fide documented tale some guy that got himself a security gate. That’s some swell journalism there.
bklynchris

cowicide-fair enough, I will take the blame heehee. That is, for everything except the unexpected range of rancid blubber from the explosion of a huge beached whale, that indeed was Goldman Sach’s fault. Oh yeah, and the shattering into a million pieces of that hideous Lladro “lovers” statue in pastel shades belonging to my stepmother, that too was Goldman Sach’s fault.
fnc

Too bad mobs are generally more concerned with seeking violence than with seeking justice. We’ll just be exchanging one flawed system for another, somewhat more flawed system at that point.
- Cowicide
  
  Too bad mobs are generally more concerned with seeking violence than with seeking justice.
  
  That’s what lone snipers are for.
Anonymous

Oh, I’ve read this book! “Market Forces” by Richard K. Morgan.
- Uniquack
  
  @40 (Anonymous): thank you! I was just trying to remember the name of that book last night after reading this posting on BB. The headlines seem to be approaching Morgan’s Market Forces. Great book.
SeamusAndrewMurphy

Perhaps the GS boys (and girls) are worried someone other than Lloyd Blankfein will get it into their heads that they can do “the Lord’s work” too.
Cowicide

They better also get bullets… lots and lots and lots of bullets…
Anonymous

I would be a little more concerned about the bankers/aristocracy buying Blackwater services and hiring the bankrupt soldiers returning from Iraq.
taj1f

This could be good news, if there’s any truth to the postulation that owning a gun increases your chances of being shot, that is.
Uniquack

A famous quote by a Jay Gould, a Robber Baron of the 19th century comes to mind: “I can get one half of the working class to kill the other half,” in response to being asked if he feared his workers’ fury.

For now, these guns are just for show. What’s really sad is the mentality of violence, transformed now from the 20th century’s pattern of sublime digits on a New York computer screen and bloody right wing death squads in the colonized nations to back them up, to the modern American banker, a bailout check in one hand and a 9mm in the other.

Is it only a matter of time before these monsters start turning on each other? More likely, they’ll be paying young unemployed Americans to kill each other gladiator style by the beginning of the next decade. A Mad Max future awaits so long as this power structure, the synthesis of state violence under the guise of liberal democracy and private capitalist power follows its inevitable, logical course of action.