As Jim Chanos, who pointed out this Bloomberg piece “Arming Goldman With Pistols Against Public,” remarked, “Well, it appears that Goldman’s Best and Brightest may be hedging their goodwill built up by doing ‘God’s work’.”
I’ve heard the expression, “Trust in Allah, but tie up your camel,” but I can’t recall an exhortation that links faith with carrying firearms (although I suppose that gap in my knowledge may reflect a cloistered upbringing). The only heavily armed observant types I can think of in the US are the Branch Davidians, and we know how that movie turned out. Goldman has always been a cult, but one has to wonder what models they are now channeling.
In all seriousness, having grown up in a parts of the country where hunting season (deer and turkey) were a big deal, I get nervous when people who have little or no history of using firearms start toting them. There are rules most people who use guns routinely are taught, and my experience is that those individuals are far more careful than newbies who have seen way more movie and TV gunplay than real world use.
If you are worried about self defense, programs like this one (I’m not endorsing it , just using it as an example) are a safer and more effective solution to the real problem (what good is your pistol if you are jumped from behind?)
End of sermon and back to fun. From Alice Schroeder at 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.
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…..
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.
Yves here. This isn’t hard to understand at all. Goldman ran afoul of one of Machiavell’s big rules: “Men sooner forget the death of their father than the loss of their patrimony.” Or its 21st century variant: “You can take from all of the people some of the time, and some of the people all of the time, but you cannot take from all the people all of the time. ” But the banksters, and Goldman in particular, have been determined to push the limits of those formulas, and are learning, much to their surprise, that they neglected to consider the intensity of the backlash that might result from their considerable success in extracting rents from the populace. Or did they? Back to Schroeder:
Common sense tells you a handgun is probably not even all that useful…As for carrying a loaded pistol when you venture outside, dream on. Concealed gun permits are almost impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain in New York or nearby states.
In other words, a little humility and contrition are probably the better route.
Until a couple of weeks ago, that was obvious to everyone but Goldman, a firm famous for both prescience and arrogance. In a display of both, Blankfein began to raise his personal- security threat level…He keeps a summer home near the Hamptons, where unrestricted public access would put him at risk if the angry mobs rose up and marched to the East End of Long Island.
He tried to buy a house elsewhere without attracting attention…Then, Blankfein got permission from the local authorities to install a security gate at his house two months before Bear Stearns Cos. collapsed…. Blankfein somehow anticipated the persecution complex his fellow bankers would soon suffer. Surely, though, this man who can afford to surround himself with a private army of security guards isn’t sleeping with the key to a gun safe under his pillow. The thought is just too bizarre to be true.
So maybe other senior people at Goldman Sachs have gone out and bought guns, and they know something. But what?..
There you have it. 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. Goldman Sachs blew its cover when the firm’s revenue from trading reached a record $27 billion in the first nine months of this year, and a public that was writhing in financial agony caught on that the profits earned on taxpayer capital were going to pay employee bonuses…
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.
Yves here. For the record, in the 1980s, people in the industry were greedy on a much more modest scale. A nice (and I mean nice, not ostentatious) apartment on the Upper East Side, private school for the kids, summer home, nanny, and a BMW or equivalent meant you were successful. And pretty much all i-Bankers, those at Goldman included, were careful not to flaunt their wealth. There was genuine horror when the story broke that Mike Milken made $500 million in a single year. It was seen as not as a titanic achievement, but as confirmation that something crooked must be up at Drexel. Back to the article:
And if the proles really do appear brandishing pitchforks at the doors of Park Avenue and the gates of Round Hill Road, you can be sure that the Goldman guys and their families will be holed up in their safe rooms with their firearms. If nothing else, that pistol permit might go part way toward explaining why they won’t be standing outside with the rest of the crowd, broke and humiliated, saying, “Damn, I was on the wrong side of a trade with Goldman again.”
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And in other news, Chelsea Clinton, daughter of the former President, is now engaged to a Goldman Sachs banker. GS manages to cover all bases, doesn’t it?
Praise the Lord and pass the ammo,
trust in god and keep your powder dry
I think there’s a suprising amount of them…
Ahhhhhh. This won’t end well people. The American people are fools who won’t complain until its their individual head on the block — friends, family losing homes… well, they must’ve done something wrong. We never learn until its too late. Why is it that Europeans understand the way the world works and Americans just cannot grasp what is in front of their faces? This story on the miracle of the free market in Kentucky says it all — http://www.alternet.org/workplace/144203/bailed-out_aig_forcing_poor_to_choose_between_running_water_and_food?page=2
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.
Now that’s funny. They really think that if there’s a revolutionary situation where the police will no longer defend them, that they can do it themselves? If they’re really contemplating such scenarios, they ought to be thinking simply of how to make a quick escape.
I guess it’s a combo of the movie macho crap mentioned above with the hubris of wealth, that since I know how to get rich committing financial crimes, I must also know how to master any other situation, no matter what it is.
There are situations where you’re better off without a gun. If “Goldman” is ever in a situation where they might actually think they have to use weapons, it would be a situation where their own shooting wouldn’t be sufficient to save them, but would only escalate the situation beyond any kind of restraint on the part of the people. They’d be better off trying to talk their way out.
(But in that case they should probably leave out the part about how the mob is an affront to God’s work.)
I believe what you have here is the libertarian dogma carried to its logical extreme.
Hannah Arendt in almost all her writings speaks of two realms, the “public” and the “private.”
She traces the evolvement of both the public and the private realms from antiquity through feudalism and finally to modernity.
The classical (Greek and Roman) concept of the private realm was the home, the hearth. It existed “behind walls” and the patriarch ruled this realm “absolutely”. Here is where all economic activity occurred in ancient times—all the necessities of life were met here. Slavery existed in this private realm and it is slave labor that produced all the necessities of biological life. The ownership of this private property—one’s own home or hearth–was a prerequisite for anyone who wanted to emerge and participate in the public realm. Without this private property (including slaves), a man could not be “free” from the necessity to perform labor himself in order meet his own biological needs. Thus “freedom” in the public realm could not exist without this entire substrata of the private realm, including slavery, which produced the necessities of biological life and thus freed a “citizen” to go forth and participate in the public realm.
This idea of private property was preserved throughout the middle ages and well into the 19th century. One must remember that a prerequisite to being a “citizen” in the newly formed American republic was to own property—one could not vote without owning property.
Then in the 19th century the idea of property ownership as a prerequisite to citizenship began to change. In fact, the entire binary concept of private and public, which had survived from antiquity, began to come unraveled.
The emergence of society—the rise of housekeeping, its activities, problems, and organizational devices—from the shadowy interior of the household into the light of the public sphere, has not only blurred the old borderline between private and political, it has also changed almost beyond recognition the meaning of the two terms and their significance for the life of the individual and the citizen.
–Hannah Arendt, The Human Condition
Anyway, to sum up, I believe that libertarianism, with its emphasis on private property, its reigning dogma that “private property = freedom,” and its conviction that all things economic should be private, is a yearning to return to this ancient concept of the private realm.
Part and parcel of the libertarian creed is of course the conviction that these hallowed private fortresses can be defended, otherwise the entire doctrine becomes meaningless. It is in this context that I interpret phenomenon such as Goldman staff “packing pistols to defend against peasants.”
It is also in this context that I interpret the rather strong convictions that Jesse expressed on a pre-Thanksgiving thread in regards to private gold ownership:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2009/11/guest-post-gold-is-rallying-because.html
Of the private fortresses, why does Jesse believe that of gold should be any easier to defend than the others?
Arendt thought that’s where the 18th century revolutions went off track. Each started out with the ideal of public freedom but each was commandeered by something else.
While it was understandable that the French Revolution had to forget other things and focus on the plight of the mass impoverished, it’s less forgivable that America, blessed with such space and natural plenty and having no pre-existing mass poverty issue, let its revolution be hijacked for the sake of private interests, negative freedom which expressed itself mostly through private materialism.
That’s how America went from the world’s great revolutionary hope to becoming the world’s worst counter-revolutionary force in the 20th century. And that’s how we got where we are today, still needing to follow through on the revolution we squandered.
One of the sad but true facets of the human condition — in a post-tribal society — that property is a necessary prerequisite for freedom.
Or rather that money is, because that “money = property” just as “wave = particle” in physics.
A democratic revolution cannot endure without property and more than a light beam can be measured without photons. Using contemporary analysis spirit = matter = body = physicality = force = protection = property = money = spirit.
There are a series of transformational matrices employed that are qualitative analytical arrays. Since a democracy is the enlargement of individual Spirit through the multiplier of Freedom, money and the money multiplier are also necessary for the enlargement of democracy.
this is why corrupt finance and it’s implicit counterfeiting of credit are a direct threat to democracy because of the inhibition and destruction of the spirit-money multiplier. Gold is only a form of financial triage — it is not real money — because it must be dug up on other people’s lands and they are usually butchered in the digging.
I have studied this issue carefully — both sober and drunk — and am fairly sure of my theoretical foundations.
-Professor Delerious T. Tremens, PhD, Masters of Divinity, University of Magonia
Why carry a gun? Hell, carry wads of $100 bills and anyone comes at you, toss money in their face.
I’m not even joking. Not even a little bit. This would absolutely work 100% every time and make major points with the media.
A good Glock 10mm runs over $900. Could kill a dozen men with a Glock 10mm if you are practiced and they don’t get the drop on you. But can you imagine what would happen to an angry mob if you threw $900 worth of $20 bills on the ground? Jesus, they would literally kill *each other* to grab the money and you could enjoy a nice performance while they are at it, then walk away a hero for aiding the less fortunate. Fact.
These bankers must really be stupid. I’ve heard it said before, but this gun thing is proof if you needed any.
cougar
Humility? Contrition? Why show humility and contrition when you are doing the Work of the Lord!
You must be a Communist!
I would like to know how a GS banker can possibly even be considered for a gun permit if one of the requirements is that he be of “good character”.
“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”
You beat me to it – my thoughts exactly. “…good character of a Goldman Sachs Group Inc. banker…”
Ow, I hurt myself laughing.
Consider that if the banksters were actually hauled up on charges and convicted, then as felons they would not be allowed to carry a sharp object, least of all a gun.
The rich live by different rules.
cougar
Interesting. I remember last year AIG was concerned for their employees based on hate mail, etc.
I wonder if GS is forward looking and more perceptive than is given credit for. GS gave the USA and its citizens the finger, literally. They hold no national interest, their interests are pathologically narcissistic meaning that, as financial sociopaths and terrorists, they cannot realize their gluttony or its consequences except to themselves. Thus far they have been rewarded with the wealth of pharaohs while they take vaccine from pregnant women since they are so valuable as humans. Based on their record this year for pay, bonuses and profits-these employees are more valuable than the POTUS.
History is replete with examples of what happens next.
Probably the only job growth now is in personal security details. Wonder what happens if they don’t pay enough or that background check due diligence in hiring.
Uh, you don’t want that vaccine. Let the idiots choke on that crap. Better they should steal that from a pregnant woman- it will save the baby.
Here’s an approach that actually works: Vitamin D3 5,000-10,000 international units per day plus ascorbic acid will do the trick.
Yet another symptom of the inevitable rise in income inequality. My brother-in-law worked for the Canadian embassy in Mexico. He and his wife were shell-shocked when they arrived there: private bodyguards and chauffeur for bringing the kids to school, heavily armed gated (with barbwire thank you very much) neighborhoods, the works.
It’s not going to be pretty around da hood, won’t it?
Up until very recently, in Mexico the elite criminals (politicians, financial and industrial monopolists) preyed upon the people and the street criminals preyed upon the elite criminals (kidnap being the preferred manner).
And trust me, the way your friend described the situation is exactly as it is. Without being in Mexico and living it, without having friends and acquaintances who have been the victims of kidnap or murder, the full repercussions of the situation are difficult to fathom. Rich people in Mexico exist in fortresses.
But those fortresses, besides the obvious undesirability of living this way, have become indefensible. Many rich Mexicans have already removed their families to the United States.
But recently something has changed. The street criminals are no longer just preying on the elite criminals. Suddenly they’re targeting people who can pay ransoms as little as $5,000 usd. But these poorer victims don’t have the financial resources to buy bullet-proof vehicles or hire 24/7 security or to remove their families to the United States.
It has therefore become quite clear that those who pay most dearly for the crimes of the elite–for their destruction of morality and the concomitant destruction of civil society–are not the elite, but the rank and file.
Maybe this webpage from one of the leading manufactures of bulletproof vehicles will give some feeling of what this is all about:
http://www.blindajesintegrados.com.mx/
Of course if you’re a rich American visiting Mexico, you can rent a bulletproof vehicle, with bilingual driver and bodyguards included, for $1000 a day:
http://www.eluniversal.com.mx/ciudad/93011.html
I’m diggin’ that kid’s Kool-Aid moustache!
Trust in God and keep your powder dry.
I am willing to bet that the first episode of violence in which a Goldman employee participates will be either an accidental shooting in his/her home, or else a panic situation where the Goldman employee shoots an innocent because he/she felt “threatened”.
The blowback when—not if—this happens with further darken the already poor reputation the firm has earned and bring further scorn on the firm and danger to its staff. Blankfein, if he has any sense, should suggest in the strongest possible terms that employees refrain from exercising their 2nd Amendment right.
This will not end well.
This is spot on. You nailed it.
Hmmmm… Does anyone with experience of places like GS offices think that all those shiny new handguns floating around mught get turned on fellow big swinging dicks, a postal scenario. Or maybe a dum-dum administered to the temple might seem attractive if all the dirty, hateful looks from the lumpen prolitariat gets too much.
All I know is, I want to see a big pile of dead GS workers on the news. I’m not picky about how it happens, I just need to know that evil gets punished in this world.
God made men, but Sam Colt made them equal.
All of these could had been avoided had the administration investigated/prosecuted the offenders. As it is at this time the population believes that their government has failed to protect them against these banksters. It is always the same. Vigilantes will form to provide “justice” when the government provides none. My guess is that GS people can see it coming.
The primary criterion for granting a concealed weapons permit in states such as NY or california(where I live) is political clout.Don Perata and Dianne Feinstein both got them with no problem,if you are an ordinary citizen with a demonstrated need,of good character who has extensive training,well,maybe.And as noted pistols have a very limited utility.I would recommend Massad Ayoob’s Lethal Force Institute to anyone considering carrying a pistol,it has an emphasis on the ethical and legal aspects of lethal force as well as excellent practical training.
Not so.
In CA there is a movement to encourage “unloaded open carry” which means the weapon has to be visible at all times, and unloaded (you can carry ammo apart from the gun) and you have to yield your weapon to a law enforcement officer on request for inspection to assure it is not loaded … and that’s it. No permit required.
Of course, the local LEOs will hassle you into next week for it. But it’s all good fun, right? And eventually they’ll give up.
I like it. I’m going to do it as soon as I can scare up $900.
cougar
Full Disclosure:
Like Yves, I think most people are stupid around guns. I grew up around law enforcement and know I can deal correctly with situations. Anyone wanting to arm themselves in any fashion absolutely MUST take measures to train themselves in aggression management, gun safety, and crowd/situation management, and it wouldn’t hurt at all to get some basic self defense training to sharpen your physical and mental perimeter.
Arming up is a mindset, it is a deliberate move to take control of your situation in any environment. This is fine and you have the natural right to do this (the Constitution having nothing to do with your natural right), but situation management is a science just like any other, with a defined skill-set, and if you are getting into situation management then get with the whole program. Or else leave it to the people who have done their homework.
Nuf said!
cougar
You are willing to pay $900.00 for a Glock 10mm? You also sound very much like a mall-ninja or someone who has little experience with firearms. I would suggest you get some training and leave the discussion to the adults.
Yes you should get some training, everyone should. Yet you have declared that you know how to handle situations since you have family in law enforcement. Have you been sworn in as a LEO in any fashion? Doesn’t sound like it. I would suggest you get some training and realize that just because your cousin or parent is a cop does not mean that you are suddenly qualified to deal with it.
As far as Goldman Sachs arming themselves, I find this disgusting. These people are only able to because they are wealthy and have political clout. How is that fair to the rest of us peasants? It should be noted that it might be easier for a resident of New York state (not necessarily of New York City) to get a permit then a resident of New York City.
John Everyman
In the spirit of calling a spade, why not from now on refer to them as Gunmen Sachs
It shows an unraveling of society. When governments and banking collude, you have a political economy. The people have bread and circuses provided by governments. In a way, the current system devolving into anarchy is a bit worse than a communist system. In reality, six billion people out of seven were left behind. The minds that are underutilized are not ignorant and inept, perhaps less educated in the scholarly sense than someone with a degree, but the Internet has been the great leveler of getting facts. Their is no turning back. Insulting the population is part of this progression Ghandi mentioned:
“First they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then they lose”.
History is replete with examples of a rebalancing of scales at the town, city-state, national, bloc of nations level. Do you think somehow this is all different on a global level? For many of us, we consider helping the people an honor that provides far more reward of all senses than materialistic wealth. Some of us could have sold out a long time ago. But we will always be able to look our children in the eyes and feel very good when they ask our generation how they overcame such odds. Read more Ghandi.
This blog has turned into a rather entertaining circus of idiots offering their nuanced “views” on bankers and, in particular, Goldman Sachs bankers. Is it not time for all these lowlifes to go reconvene with the rest of the white trash in the unemployment line? Goldman is not the reason you are eternal losers.
Of course, the blog-owner promotes all this nonsense, since she, just like Gasparino and the other disillusioned “critics”, found out first hand that she wasn’t good enough for GS a long time ago.
Really? Who do you work for?
Stick around; you might learn something. That’s what we’re here for.
Welcome!!
The BLOG has turned into it?
Really? Maybe the blog reflects the growing awareness of the American ‘losers’ (i.e. anyone who isn’t a financing parasite) that the system has become thoroughly corrupted by selfish arrogant fools like someone named Jared.
Reminds me of a great Doors song “They got the guns, but we got the numbers…Gonna win, yeah, we’re taking over!!! C’MON!!!”
Better watch your back, Jared.
If that is what is truly reflects, then I am indeed going to watch by back. I guess it is the convenient way out to blame it on someone else, when you lose your underpaid job and your house that you never could afford in the first place. Well, maybe you shouldn’t have bought that house? Maybe you shouldn’t have maxed out three credit cards? Maybe you should have some savings, like the population in most other western countries have? No, you’re probably right. Put a bullet in Lloyd’s head and everything will just go away.
Problem, Jared.
My masters degree in science and full-time employment has never provided me the income to afford a decent house without a stupid debt product since you financial parasites exploded the prices to overvaluation levels that only idiots would jump at. I also have impeccable credit and have a zero balance on my one credit card. Nice job erroneously lumping everyone else together, eh, fraudster?
You see, it is the hard-working middle class people like me who your finance games have hurt the most. I could care less about the deadbeats who got foreclosed because those deadbeats participated in your criminal schemes that have kept me from accessing homeownership. And while I don’t like those participating deadbeats, I know they were only cogs in the financing games of Goldman and others.
You think you only hurt deadbeats and idiots? You are stupider than those deadbeats if that is all you can fathom. No, dumbass, the hard-working, intelligent middle class like me is who has been hurt the most, and we are more pissed off than you can ever imagine. And we’re smart enough to know how and why, and who is responsible for the destruction. The primary blame goes to the financial parasites of Wall Street who packaged up BS mortgages and sold them off, then bought bogus protection to profit while they collapsed.
Yep, Jared, you got some highly-educated and smart enemies just waiting for the right time to join in the orgy of vengeance that is due…and is coming sooner than and from directions that you would never figure out. And that’s because people like me always were the better math students than the blowhards that went off to business school to join the ranks of financial parasites. We were smarter in every subject than parasitic exploiters like you. I know for fact that the only ‘rocket scientists’ that end up at Wall Street are the real ‘losers’ who couldn’t get an honorable job at CERN or Fermilab or JPL. Yep, the real ‘losers’ are the ones at Goldman Sachs.
And I’m more than happy to explain to any of the lesser-educated victims exactly why you are to blame, and you are the reason of our societal decay.
Sleep well, genius.
I am flattered that you took an hour of your time to reply to me. Your rocket scientist education must have taken you to a great job that allows you to argue online all day. I might even consider sending in my application to your company. Do you think your bosses might consider me even though they scored better than me in every subject?
Oh, and regarding your belated homeownership. Have you considered buying now then maybe? Prices, as well as interest rates, has come down quite a bit! Seriously, you don’t have to be bitter anymore, you too can have the American Dream.
If it is the origination and packaging of mortgages that upsets you the most, I firstly think your anger is a bit misdirected and secondly I think you might have more success getting your point across if you lined out your arguments instead of talking about retaliation from soliders.
This is another reply to the pinhead Jared.
Half-hour of my time? Try maybe 10 minutes. I can believe it took a dimwit like you a half-hour to read it, though. You MUST work at Goldman, trolling at blogs during your day. Uh-huh.
And, no, not a chance in hell a thick-skull arrogant ass like you would get through the door. Your rocket wouldn’t get off the ground. Good thing your pops was a thief so you can slide through life, eh, genius.
Like I said, sleep well, Einstein.
Jared, I have savings and my credit card balance is zero – but if the government gives Goldman the gold, it has to take it from somewhere and that will be me, the able taxpayer. Are you suprised that I resent that?
I wouldn’t help a GS person if they were about to get run over by a bus or a train if all I had to do was yell out “watch out.”
Are you the guy in the Subway commericals?
Dude, those are GOOD sandwiches. Why waste time defending a corrupt souless approach to finance that will turn our democracy into the United States of Mexico.
Really, my advice to Goldman Sachs is “take a real hard spiritual look at the way you make money, and ask yourself if there isn’t a better way for you and for the rest of us.”
PS The 5-gram Club with the works is my fave!
Yeah, we should stop talking about GS. They’re getting hip to us; can’t have that.
Brethren, keep the faith. The day will come. And on that day they will reap as they have sown.
cougar
Makes me wish I believed in the bible.
I don’t. But I do believe in justice.
Even when it comes in with the cold.
Oh, Bible got nuthin to do with it, see.
It’s all system dynamics and gears and so much connectivity and the energy cost of supporting all this entropy. Gotta let the smoke out so it can go on burning up. House gonna fall, my peeps. House gotta fall. Let the beeotch go the way it gotta go. Then the angels will look and say Oh there they are, wonder where the peeps been hiding so long so long.
Bible got nuthin on it. It’s just the Way.
Angels is coming, coming back home, bringing the fire and coming home.
da coug’a
Jared,
In Mexico, because there are so many people of your ilk here, they’ve coined a special word just for people like you. Fresas or “Juniors” you’re called:
http://inciclopedia.wikia.com/wiki/Fresa_(M%C3%A9xico)
Let me see if I can translate some of that into English for you:
The Fresa is the enemy and natural flowering of the naco. This rivalry is due to the fact that both groups possess the same characteristics, differentiated solely by the fact that the fresas have money, or act as if they do. Equally know as “junior”, the majority of fresas really don’t have money at all, but only pretend they do. There always will be these impostors in all social classes.
Los fresas have their counterparts in other parts of the world: the pijos in Spain, the chetos in Paraguay, Argentina and Uruguay, the gomelos in Colombia, the cuicos in Chile, the pitucos in Peru, the sirfinos in Venezuela, the pipis in Costa Ricas, pelucones in Ecuador, the jeviots in the Dominican Republic, the yeyés in Panama, the preppies and valley girls in the United States, the mauricinhos and patrichinhas or patties in Brazil and also the caqueros in Guatmeala.
Los Juniors
As their names indicate they are from the best bloodlines and they live in the most exclusive neighborhoods. Their attitude isn’t much different from the poor people, only that they have a lot more money to indulge their stupid caprices.
They don’t drink orange juice, only a strange mixture of exotic fruits (that the maid buys in the market on Wednesdays). The ritual of the fruit cocktail and their parents’ farewell is the same, only their parents feel proud of the arrogance of their kids (Here the parents also demonstrate their idiocy too.)
If they have time they go to the “Yim” (gymnasium) where the women try to pick up (without success) the muscular trainers and the men the cashier. Afterwards they go to eat in fast-food restaurants like McDonalds or Burger King (so that all their supposed exercise and weight lifting goes to shit) and to drink coffee in the nearest Starbucks or Italian Coffee.
Unlike the poor they use only the most fashionable cell phones and other gadgets in the word. If it’s not a Nextel (in which case they are assured to turn the ringer and speaker phone to full volume in order to tell the whole world “Look! I’ve got Nextel!”), then it is obligatory that it be an iPhone or a Blackberry with 3G, MP3, Bluetooth and WiFi, and it should be on a monthly plan and not prepaid card because this means your parents can toss $300 per month to the wind. These telephones have a value of more than $600.
For music they ONLY use the iPod Classic, Nano, Shuffle and Touch. Disc players, MP3s from other manufacturers or the mp3 inside the cell phone are taboo.
During the weekend they go to the club to play tennis, or chat with the other boys and girls of the High Society in the most exclusive nightclubs so that they can tell them of their latest adventure in Chicago.
Things a fresa should not do
• Use public transport. Remember it is a sin to share a seat with the proletariat.
• Be cultured. You cannot know anything of importance, but if asked, it will suffice to say you watched the Discovery Channel once and you already know everything about Miguel de Cervantes.
• Read. Say your read The Da Vinci Code or if you want to go a bit farther you can say you read the Bible, even though you don’t know what the hell it is.
• Use clothing from the market or of domestic production, although you know perfectly well that the jeans you’re wearing are Mexican.
• Go to a family restaurant or any business that is family-owner and inexpensive.
• Drink regular Coke, but you can drink a “light” or “zero” that doesn’t fatten.
• Drink Jarritos or any other “domestic” soft drink, better known as “Of the people” or “Of Doctor Simi”. “Domestic” in parentheses because the majority of these soft drink manufactures have been bought by foreign companies. (For instance: Jarritos was bought by Pepsi.)
• Listen to naco music.
• Have parents that have one of those cheap cars like a Chevrolet or Volkswagen or also a model that is older than 91.
• Think.
• Exist
There’s a lot more, but I think you get the picture.
TORY
Why hasn’t that word made it to North America, or beyond Canada?
King and crown, King and crown
I wonder what would happen if someone who has no real experience with firearms tried to use a pistol to defend themselves in the quarter second or so you have during an attack. They’d probably end up shooting themselves through their holster.
I was jumped in Deep Ellum (East side of Dallas) and I could have had pistols in both hands but it would have made zero difference. The attack came from behind with a hard punch around to the back of my jaw and then 4 people on top of me. (I escaped with busted lip/head/bumps/bruises not a huge deal just an ass kicking basically)
Funny stuff.
But don’t the Goldman thieves realize that we in America have learned a few tricks from the Iraqi insurgents. We aren’t going to get them from outside, we will get them from inside…in other words, the populist rage has already flowed heavily into the police forces across this country, as many are getting just as screwed as the average joe sixpack. I wonder how many of those Blankfein private guards are actually populist insurgents just waiting for those cries of ‘help me’, only to laugh and help the other side.
The arrogance of the uber-elite is pathetic at its best, but it can’t win when all it lives by is corruption: government capture and legalized theft.
Who’s protecting you, Lloyd. Blackwater guards? Think they’re on your side still? Good luck with that you greedy fools! Maybe you should start another fund with Warren, donations to the war chest to try to win points with our trained soldiers. You better hope they all stay in Afghanistan, cause when they get home and find their home foreclosed and no job, then you should really start to worry.
If I worked at 85 Broad St I’d be carrying too. I’m frankly surprised that none of the agitated masses have taken their deer rifles to that particular neighborhood yet — I’ve been expecting something like that to happen for months. And for what it’s worth, NYC carry permits have always been available to those who can show “sufficient need”, which tends to be interpreted to mean being rich and/or famous. Shouldn’t be a problem for GS’s upper tier, not that a handgun is likely to do them any good if and when.
@jared
Perhaps since DARPA developed the internet there has never been a post possessed of less compassion and greater arrogance than yours. So it is only “white trash eternal losers” who are unemployed? May you learn for yourself.
Unbeknownst to you, there are people who choose not to work at GS because we can make more money and feel better about it in the private hedge fund world, where we actually have to trade rather than use “white trash” taxpayer assistance to piggyback off the heads-up from Treasury and the Fed. There is a certain satisfaction that comes from earning the gains that the spoon-fed likes of GS will never know. Why not cowboy up and give it a shot, or do you, as I suspect, lack the guts to try?
When all hell breaks loose, as it most assuredly will, you had better hope that the masses of “white trash eternal losers” show more compassion to you than you evidence toward them.
Wow, didn’t think it was the Hedge Fund guys I would irritate with that post. Then again, you probably work with trade settlement in the back office of some tiny 10 million shop in Cleveland or something. Don’t worry, I know that you guys carry a gloria over your heads. You are indeed the true heroes!
“Wow, didn’t think it was the Hedge Fund guys I would irritate with that post.”
Um yes, maybe because you don’t seem to think at all? The worst failures are those who judge themselves a success because of where they work or where they went to school. So I’m sorry you have so utterly failed in your life up to now, and hope you are able to sort things out sooner rather than later.
Jared,
Your arrogance and narcissism are truly breathtaking. According to you anyone who dares question Goldman uber alles is a loser and unemployed, or at best a menial.
Clearly you missed some key steps in your supposed education. That’s an ad hominem attack, not a valid form of argument. Your failure to advance ANY other arguments shows you do not have a substantive leg to stand on. But you keep putting your foot in mouth and chewing, from a rhetorical standpoint. Really funny to see in someone who asserts his superiority.
Second, you presume that that makes your earning power makes you the deserving superior of the supposed losers you incorrectly chose to denigrate. All that differentiates you from them is that you figured out a way to be vastly overpaid for your supposed talents. I personally know plenty of top people with glittering resumes, both undergraduate and graduate school, who don’t work in financial service and don’t see mere money making as the pinnacle of human achievement. But that notion would be lost on you.
Third, given the inequities of the US educational system, I also know of tons of people who are as bright and talented (in the native sense, not in the perverted usage it has gained on Wall Street) who will never get an elite job because they had no prospect of getting into a fancy or semi-fancy college. You of course probably don’t get out enough in the real world to notice, or if you didn’t you’d me constitutionally unable to see that. Clearly too threatening to your world view.
Fourth your comment that the hedgie must be a back office type is just bone headed. Can you not read? Did you not take notice that Jim Chanos, hardly a menial, pointed out this article? Your learned blindness is remarkable. And I have MANY other hedge fund correspondents who are even more vocal in their disgust with Goldman and the subsidization of Wall Street excesses.
Jim Chanos? You mean the guy who stopped trading with Goldman because his neighbor cut his hedges? Yes, he is probably a guy you would turn to for a balanced view on GS.
Anyway, I best leave this blog for now. I doesn’t seem like we can expect any unbiased reporting on this subject from someone who reacts that way to my posts (which were indeed provocative) while not at all to posts with explicit threats the employees of Goldman and their families.
Whether one agrees with Jared, or not:
That’s a damn good reply.
Dan,
With all due respect, you are revealing your knee jerk contrary posture yet again.
First, this was another ad hominem attack, and again illustrates his inability to defend Goldman uber alles, merely denigrate those that question its conduct.
Second, this was cherry picking. I point out that I have many hedge fund correspondents who are as angry with Goldman as the peasants, but he chooses to focus on Chanos. And per Chanos, it’s a huge pain to terminate a trading relationship (most hedge funds choose to work with multiple brokers; this would entail opening up a new account somewhere else). It’s highly likely that even if this incident was the proximate cause, that his neighbor’s bad behavior was the straw that broke the camel’s back, that Chanos had had substantive issues that were not addressed by Goldman (and it would also be in Goldman’s interest to depict Chanos’ departure as personal pique rather than substantive).
Third, there were no threats made, if you actually bother reading even the most extreme comments. Those said they thought the GS sorts were deserving of bad treatment, which is not the same as saying they intended to take action. The vast majority of comments focused on how carrying a gun would be ineffective in a real danger situation and had the high odds of leading to bad outcomes.
Yves, since you didn’t leave a reply on your reply to mine, I’ll respond here:
Yves, Please:
Read the post about 3 down my original…the one from a guy (or gal) named Vengeance at 11:00 am:
Here, I’ll cut and paste it for you:
“a 9mm won’t protect them against multiple truck bombs packed with rusty nails rammed into their building at midday.
I,for one, think their first born should be exterminated.”
And btw:
My comment was not knee jerk contrarian-ism. You wrote an incendiary post about Goldman, Guns and Peasants. You were trying to be provocative in your own right, and you ended up getting dirty with an idiot like Jared, and I’m simply calling you on it.
But, never one to disappoint, here’s a knee-jerk contrarian post for you:
If I didn’t know better (and I do), I would think you went to one of those Comment Writing Services, and hired Jared to write “button-pushing posts” to get the Naked Cap Community all fired up. Jared’s posts about White Trash, etc…were a pathetic joke and not even worthy of acknowledgment. [Do you think it’s a coincidence that this thread brought out the Jew-Bashers?] Clearly this moron was simply trying to get a rise out of your Community –and he sure as hell succeeded.
The only thing remotely amusing about the entire exchange is that by failing to tell the even bigger moron, like the aforementioned Vengeance, not to write posts which advocate violence….you managed to make a simple moron like Jared look good.
Dan,
As much as your comments are often interesting and colorful, you do have a consistent pattern of taking the minority view, which often favors authority and convention, and defending it rather vigorously. And you also have a tendency to misrepresent what was said in the interest of scoring points. Your comment above conforms to that pattern. You even charge me with not replying to you, as if that was some slur, when WordPress does not allow a reply to a comment this deep in a thread. That’s indicative of the entire exercise here.
As for Vengence’s comment, as much as it is in aggressive and in bad taste, you choose to misrepresent it, as did Jared. Jared said that the comments made “explicit threats.” The comment was not an explicit threat. It pointed out that guns were no defense against possible ways of attacking GS staff (a point others made with less specificity). None of the over the top remarks took the form of a direct, personal threat. Read the form. He did not say he would act. That is what a threat is. What he wrote was lurid, sensational, provocative, tacky, but it was not a threat. But inaccurately calling it was a threat was the basis for Jared attempting to take the high ground, that I was insensitive to a clear and present danger. That is simply untrue.
As to the post itself, you curiously seem unable to differentiate between what I wrote, and what came from a Bloomberg columnist, who also is a former Morgan Stanley employee. And if something that appeared on an MSM outlet whose revenue comes from subscriptions paid by financial industry firms, I can hardly see you having any basis for depicting it as an “incendiary post.” The post itself is pretty tame (I’ve written far more incendiary stuff about Geither, please), but you chose, again to misrepresent it.
“I doesn’t seem like we can expect any unbiased reporting”
Well no, it’s an opinion blog, not the ABC (Australian, which is government funded). Unlike such a government funded news source that has a charter enforcing unbiased reporting – blogs (or any commercial media for that matter) have no obligation to be unbiased. It puzzles me that people would come along to someone else’s blog and try to argue what they should be allowed to say on it, let alone insist that it be `unbiased’.
Instead people ‘vote with their feet’ – which costs money if you sell papers but isn’t something most blogs care about. Apart from perhaps avoiding whingers who show up simply to disrupt.
The troll, now full, leaves.
Lloyd- Is that a gun in your pocket or are you just happy
to see me?
Schroeder:
“Common sense tells you a handgun is probably not even all that useful…”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cdYrBsWhtk
a 9mm won’t protect them against multiple truck bombs packed with rusty nails rammed into their building at midday.
I,for one, think their first born should be exterminated.
@vengeance
I think, in spite of provocations like those above, that it is necessary to use moderate speech when expressing rage on the Internet, especially justifiable rage, because the tentacles of government surveillance are not only ubiquitous, the provocation is intentional and they are prepared for it. The young man (J) above is obviously not too bright.
You don’t want give the PTB the excuse they are looking for to act. And their retaliation may not be obvious to begin with. After all, ‘they’ are sitting there with this army of domestic surveillance and all the laws they need to justify picking on anyone they choose for whatever slight.
BTW, Goldman Sachs and any other corporation have the right to ‘bear arms’ given to them by a recent Supreme Court ruling given their human rights of free speech as persons. This together with their abuse of their right to issue stock supported by the unlimited resources of the US Treasury, ergo the right to print their own money, it won’t be long before you see evidence of corporate private armies.
There is no chance for armed resistance to succeed in this country, and it hasn’t done very well outside this country anyway. so, take that as a good thing. Let them arm themselves to the teeth.
PLEASE consider a general strike for Election DAY 2010 with peaceful demonstrations and speakers at every polling place in the US within legally defined geographical limits, and resist the trend toward voting by mail or Internet. Election Day should day off anyway.
do right.
fear no one.
I’m not a 1917 russian peasant.
There are more of us than them and this fight has been brewing for centuries.
Time to start the finish.
“I find your ideas intriguing and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.” -homer
j/k.. kinda
Along the same lines as downSouth’s comment about Mexico, there’s a new documentary making the rounds about the Baader-Meinhof gang. Maybe some citizens will find it inspiring in the current climate. Personally though, I’m having a vision of ATF armored cars firebombing the GS headquarters into submission.
The comments linking Goldman to Mexiko were spot on – extreme inequality will bring violence, fenced-in enclaves, murder. Compared to Europe, the US has gone already half of the way. To the defenders of Goldman – would you like to live in a society like Mexiko’s? The maids would be cheaper.
I opposed the war in Iraq and Afghanistan. Went to the protests and everything. Violence makes me sad :(
This, though.. I’ll make an exception.
violence is like XML, when it doesn’t work you just use more.
WORD! My nominee for Quote of the Week.
haha, yeah violence never solved anything either!
Can’t the Goldman guys afford protection services? Tax deductible ya know!
Would a gun have helped Marie Antoinette probably not I doubt it but is an environment like the french revolution really safe for anyone? I don’t think so either. While GS is to blame for many of the economic problems now, consumers also over spent and didn’t save (I do not mean to group all consumers into this category). I think this will all die down and anyone at GS who has gun will probably be bombarded by the media.
As for Marie Antoinette, when the mob stormed the Tuileries in 1792 the Swiss guards fought with surprising tenacity, several to the death. (Surprising because they were just mercenaries and certainly didn’t have to fight given the circumstances. They could’ve just stepped aside.)
But no, that didn’t help the royals.
Concealed gun permits are almost impossible for ordinary citizens to obtain in New York or nearby states.
——————————————————
Only in NYC proper is that true. In most of the rest of NY, it is relatively straightforward to get a permit to own a handgun, and in much of NY, it is not all that difficult to get a permit to carry that handgun concealed.
The neighboring states are a mixed bag.
PA – shall issue state. Anyone that is not prohibited (such as felons) get a permit just for applying and meeting the requirements. Permits to carry are easy to come by with a simple stop at your local sheriff’s office. No training requirements. I think the permit is $25 for 4 years.
VT – NO permit is required at all for either concealed or open carry of a handgun.
MA – may issue state. In much of MA it is fairly straightforward to get a concealed carry license, although a few areas do not issue carry licenses to the average Joe. Getting a license to just own a handgun is starightforward in all of MA.
CT – shall issue state. Anyone that applies and is not proibited (such as felons) is issued a permit to carry.
NJ – a tough place to get a permit to carry, unless you are the Donald.
To add to this…
The people that live outside of NYC proper only have to go over to the country club to get their buddy, the judge, to sign the order.
They may work in NYC, but barring an airplane check-in they can register where they live and carry anywhere they want(schools and gov’t building aside).
State to state transport does bring in other law.
Which brings up a good question, when all the bankers are called to the treasury or fed, are they frisked? Is there a bartender that holds the weapons?
Is there a difference between the fed and the treasury? Would they have to surrender at the treasury, but not the fed? Could this be construed as proof that the fed is not part of the gov’t?
Adding guns to any situation only makes the odds of someone getting hurt go up a lot.
There is also the ‘problem’ of how amateurs usually are the ones that get themselves shot with their own guns. If you show you have a weapon, and are not ready, willing and able to use it, it will be used against you.
Sorry, different bob than the parent, should have mentioned that in the reply.
Of course, the unspoken & unmentionable undercurrent here is that Golddamn-Sachs is “associated with” (as in “so closely associated with”) “a very powerful American special interest group of a certain faith” (to put it very mildly); a faith-based “special interest group” which has close ties to a FOREIGN GOVERNMENT. And it is a perfectly reasonable & legitimate question to ask, “do these GS bankers & traders have AMERICA’s BEST INTEREST AT HEART… or do they see economically and financially DISENFRANCHING Americans as a tactical & strategic goal?” in the way that Jeb Bush & Katherin Harris _disenfranchised thousands_ of minority voters in Florida in 2000 (by stealing their votes and tossing them in the trash-can, uncounted), and thereby nearly 51 million voters (the clear popular vote majority) were DISENFRANCHISED by the stolen election of 2000.
(And the immediate and clear answer is, “Yes,” GoldmanSachs DESIRES the FINANCIAL and ECONOMIC DISENFRANCHISEMENT of MILLIONS of American working families; that IS their “profit model.”)
Needless to say, this is an extremely unpopular agenda, and the peons & serfs will want to revolt against it.
So you don’t think I know it was and is a wonderful scam! I got in a “lucky” position made a “lucky” promotion or two and had some “lucky” years. But I knew it was a scam. That’s the way it work here in the good old USof A in the 1990’s, 2000’s and now the next decade is starting. Yipee! And until the rules get changed it’s going to continue. Just keep moving the money up the pyramid. And I’ll keep getting my (not so insignificant) cut. And I know that only a “revolution” will ever stop it. Don’t imagine I don’t know the game and the risks. But the consequences – that’s a maybe and a maybe not. I don’t think the nonplayers have big enough balls yet. Maybe someday, maybe not.
In other words, you’re immoral and unethical and you don’t care what the aftermath is or which innocents or civil societies you destroy in the process.
Congratulations, you and Jared are quite the pair.
With the Christmas season upon us, may each and everyone have their very own bankster ornament on their tree. And we’ll reserve that extra special place on top for God’s special worker, Lloyd. I’m sure someone can find room at the top for that superstar.
If you really were a GS banker then you would know that revolution is far and away the very least of your concerns.
Hell, you could make serious money funding and betting both sides of a revolution.
No, the most serious threat you would be staring at would be crushing, grinding, lethal irrelevance.
But of course you already knew that.
cougar
All right.
Here are the top 10 Reasons why Goldman Sachs employees want to carry firearms.
Reason #10
So you can rob a bank the old fashioned way if the regulators ever reign you in.
Reason #9
If you can’t be Clint Eastwood, at least you can feel like him.
Reason #8
It works in a pinch if you can’t find a corkscrew.
Reason #7
So you can shoot your way in if you lock your keys in the car.
Reason #6
When you finally get arrested by the police for looting, at least you’ll feel like a real con. Whoa!
Reason #5
If a banking client needs a revolver, you’ll have one.
Reason #4
Ladies, you can skip the personal trainer if you carry the extra weight around all day.
Reason #3
So you have a good reason for wearing that pearl studded holster around the office.
Reason #2
You’re thinking of becoming a born-again Christian, and want to dress like one. Ka-Ching!
And . . . drum roll please . . .
Reason #1 why Goldman Sachs employees want to carry a firearm . . . .
To be ready when the lap dancer really wants to stroke your rod!
Boooowhahahahahahaha ahhahahahaha aahahahahahah!
Easy People ” Can’t we all just get along!!” Let’s put some of this pinned up energy and thoughts into how to fix this mess.
It looks to me like we already are.
There were a number of anti-Semitic comments and I deleted them. That sort of thing is not acceptable here (and neither is bashing of other ethnic groups, for the record). And it reflects considerable ignorance about Goldman. It was a Jewish firm back in the 1980s, and ceased being one a while ago. Did no one notice that Paulson, Thain, and Thornton were all goyim?
Here is a bud of a new idea.
If you can detect an ambigram in any of the 89 or so posts above, you would know that we have been penetrated by a very powoerful secret society – our real adversary and Homo Not-So-Sapiens Not-So-Sapeins of Science.
I had a dream the other night.
God appeared in that dream (it is debatable whether the real God came to me in my dream or I simply just dreamed a not-real-God in my dream in much the same way I dreamed a not-real-Miss-America as my date in my dream), in any case, He said to me, ‘I would have spared Sodom and Gomorrah had there been 10 righteous men. But Goldman is much more difficult. If they can find just one honest man, I will let them continue with My work, God’s work.’
Wow!
‘Just one honest man in Goldman and they can continue with God’s work.’
How should I interpret the dream?
Disclaimer: This is a fictionalized work. So, call off your operation.
I did know one really nice guy at Goldman who would have qualified as a honest man, but he quit. Of course, he was a very senior staff guy, not a producer, who had a role that put him in regular contact with the management committee. He left nearly two years ago, largely out of disgust with the crowd now running the firm. They are only about making money, while the firm under Paulson, Thain, and Thornton was also concerned about its standing as an institution, which would tend to curb the worst excesses. Note that the famous shorting subprime while still peddling the product to customers occurred on Blankfein’s watch.
I’m not saying the firm was a paragon before, but that there is good reason to believe its conduct took a big ratchet down.
Yves,
I don’t understand your optimism. You make it sound like if one were just to get rid of a few bad apples at GS then the US economy would magically become the paragon of capitalist virtue.
Please show me some data to support that dream. The view from here seems to show systemic moral corruption across the country.
psychohistorian,
I think you are missing the point. I knew ONE person I could call honest at Goldman, he was a staff guy (meaning he had no power) and he left. That is hardly a positive account.
Makes you wonder….what must be ahead of us in the future..that Goldman has to arm itself today?
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/2445928/us_treasury_department_asleep_as_borrowers.html?cat=3
What a party! Um where to start…guns me thinks, with a raise of electrons how many have used one in defense or on a regular basis’s (and *no* seasonal hunting is not allowable, tis an amateur’s affair as the pray is not packing). Just look at our countrys police and their spasming trigger fingers when the time comes too shoot, all adrenalin, the frontal lobe synapse should fire so fast lol.
I can see it now, a group of GS or others firing blindly with adrenalin filled brains. Not checking their fields of fire, counting shots fired (empty clip syndrome), pay back strays (I never really liked that guy standing next to him) or falling to *I’m packing syndrome* well the call girls will notice a difference and lady’s at the office too lol.
I say let them have H&K 7.62 assault rifles, briefcase’s with ammo pouches on the out side, web gear suits ha ha! Just stand back out of range and let the good times roll.
@Jared…mate any time you feel like some time down-south give me a bell, well hang with the gallo’s! Lets see how your tough business acumen serves you around people that don’t give a shit about titles, the cut of your garb, or crap you have stuffed in your head (they might just crack it open to see how the fk it works).
@DownSouth…I’ve come to the conclusion that most Americans minds are fried, deep fried with 7 secret herbs and spices. The damage is done, instilled by mom, dad, family, community, the public and private education system and the pontiffs of MSM..feeder tubes straight from the corporate Ayn Rand feeder tubes. May we live long enough to see the end of this little chapter, with out ringing up old cohorts in the dead of the night after our mortal demise, and ask for the last two pages.
Skippy…Don’t now about the rest of ya, but I’m looking forward to living off the grid soon. Been watching a few friends with means making plans of late, selling up and finding tropo accommodation.
PS..if an electron moves at 299,792,458 meters per second that equates to 0.13 seconds around the equator or one bad trade could cascade and take all that we call normalcy out in 0.13 seconds, and people are worried about Bullets ROFL!
skippy
I completely agree on the choice of weapon. With a legal to carry 7 round clip, and the amateur marksmanship, they would be lucky if they hit anything.
If you’re hoping for an orgy darwinism and bullets, they would need a lot more fire power to be able to clear themselves away.
On the other hand, if they are inside their usual stone and concrete edifice when fighting breaks out, LOTS of full metal jacket 7.62 would be best for the world. No innocent bystanders.
“I believe that libertarianism, with its emphasis on private property, its reigning dogma that “private property = freedom,”
That is not the underlying principle of Libertarianism. It is “no physical coercion of person or property”. Which ties into “ownership”. What is ownership but self control.
A bunch of sociopathic nebbishes running around with loaded weapons thinking they have ‘defense’. Hilarious. Just like those idiots who thought they had protection because they bought CDS from AIG.
Die, mofos.
Great News: Now we will get to hear breaking news stories about banksters “Going Postal” at board meetings. This will cheer up people (Maybe the process can be enhanced by the cleaning staff spiking the water coolers with drugs).
I could forgive Goldman IF… They did the right thing by paying down our Nation’s debt. We pulled them out of demise… now it’s their turn to save our Country from bankrupcy.
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number,
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you –
Ye are many – they are few.
‘What is Freedom? – ye can tell
That which slavery is, too well –
For its very name has grown
To an echo of your own.
‘Tis to work and have such pay
As just keeps life from day to day
In your limbs, as in a cell
For the tyrants’ use to dwell,
‘So that ye for them are made
Loom, and plough, and sword, and spade,
With or without your own will bent
To their defence and nourishment.
‘Tis to see your children weak
With their mothers pine and peak,
When the winter winds are bleak, –
They are dying whilst I speak.
‘Tis to hunger for such diet
As the rich man in his riot
Casts to the fat dogs that lie
Surfeiting beneath his eye;
‘Tis to let the Ghost of Gold
Take from Toil a thousandfold
More that e’er its substance could
In the tyrannies of old.
‘Paper coin – that forgery
Of the title-deeds, which ye
Hold to something of the worth
Of the inheritance of Earth.
‘Tis to be a slave in soul
And to hold no strong control
Over your own wills, but be
All that others make of ye.
‘And at length when ye complain
With a murmur weak and vain
‘Tis to see the Tyrant’s crew
Ride over your wives and you –
Blood is on the grass like dew.
‘Then it is to feel revenge
Fiercely thirsting to exchange
Blood for blood – and wrong for wrong –
Do not thus when ye are strong.
‘Birds find rest, in narrow nest
When weary of their wingèd quest
Beasts find fare, in woody lair
When storm and snow are in the air.
‘Asses, swine, have litter spread
And with fitting food are fed;
All things have a home but one –
Thou, Oh, Englishman, hast none!
‘This is slavery – savage men
Or wild beasts within a den
Would endure not as ye do –
But such ills they never knew.
‘What art thou Freedom? O! could slaves
Answer from their living graves
This demand – tyrants would flee
Like a dream’s dim imagery:
‘Thou art not, as impostors say,
A shadow soon to pass away,
A superstition, and a name
Echoing from the cave of Fame.
‘For the labourer thou art bread,
And a comely table spread
From his daily labour come
In a neat and happy home.
‘Thou art clothes, and fire, and food
For the trampled multitude –
No – in countries that are free
Such starvation cannot be
As in England now we see.
‘To the rich thou art a check,
When his foot is on the neck
Of his victim, thou dost make
That he treads upon a snake.
‘Thou art Justice – ne’er for gold
May thy righteous laws be sold
As laws are in England – thou
Shield’st alike the high and low.
‘Thou art Wisdom – Freemen never
Dream that God will damn for ever
All who think those things untrue
Of which Priests make such ado.
‘Thou art Peace – never by thee
Would blood and treasure wasted be
As tyrants wasted them, when all
Leagued to quench thy flame in Gaul.
‘What if English toil and blood
Was poured forth, even as a flood?
It availed, Oh, Liberty,
To dim, but not extinguish thee.
‘Thou art Love – the rich have kissed
Thy feet, and like him following Christ,
Give their substance to the free
And through the rough world follow thee,
‘Or turn their wealth to arms, and make
War for thy belovèd sake
On wealth, and war, and fraud – whence they
Drew the power which is their prey.
‘Let a great Assembly be
Of the fearless and the free
On some spot of English ground
Where the plains stretch wide around.
‘Let the blue sky overhead,
The green earth on which ye tread,
All that must eternal be
Witness the solemnity.
‘From the corners uttermost
Of the bounds of English coast;
From every hut, village, and town
Where those who live and suffer moan,
‘From the workhouse and the prison
Where pale as corpses newly risen,
Women, children, young and old
Groan for pain, and weep for cold –
‘From the haunts of daily life
Where is waged the daily strife
With common wants and common cares
Which sows the human heart with tares –
‘Lastly from the palaces
Where the murmur of distress
Echoes, like the distant sound
Of a wind alive around
‘Those prison halls of wealth and fashion,
Where some few feel such compassion
For those who groan, and toil, and wail
As must make their brethren pale –
‘Ye who suffer woes untold,
Or to feel, or to behold
Your lost country bought and sold
With a price of blood and gold –
‘Let a vast assembly be,
And with great solemnity
Declare with measured words that ye
Are, as God has made ye, free –
‘Be your strong and simple words
Keen to wound as sharpened swords,
And wide as targes let them be,
With their shade to cover ye.
‘Let the tyrants pour around
With a quick and startling sound,
Like the loosening of a sea,
Troops of armed emblazonry.
Let the charged artillery drive
Till the dead air seems alive
With the clash of clanging wheels,
And the tramp of horses’ heels.
‘Let the fixèd bayonet
Gleam with sharp desire to wet
Its bright point in English blood
Looking keen as one for food.
‘Let the horsemen’s scimitars
Wheel and flash, like sphereless stars
Thirsting to eclipse their burning
In a sea of death and mourning.
‘Stand ye calm and resolute,
Like a forest close and mute,
With folded arms and looks which are
Weapons of unvanquished war,
‘And let Panic, who outspeeds
The career of armèd steeds
Pass, a disregarded shade
Through your phalanx undismayed.
‘Let the laws of your own land,
Good or ill, between ye stand
Hand to hand, and foot to foot,
Arbiters of the dispute,
‘The old laws of England – they
Whose reverend heads with age are gray,
Children of a wiser day;
And whose solemn voice must be
Thine own echo – Liberty!
‘On those who first should violate
Such sacred heralds in their state
Rest the blood that must ensue,
And it will not rest on you.
‘And if then the tyrants dare
Let them ride among you there,
Slash, and stab, and maim, and hew, –
What they like, that let them do.
‘With folded arms and steady eyes,
And little fear, and less surprise,
Look upon them as they slay
Till their rage has died away.
‘Then they will return with shame
To the place from which they came,
And the blood thus shed will speak
In hot blushes on their cheek.
‘Every woman in the land
Will point at them as they stand –
They will hardly dare to greet
Their acquaintance in the street.
‘And the bold, true warriors
Who have hugged Danger in wars
Will turn to those who would be free,
Ashamed of such base company.
‘And that slaughter to the Nation
Shall steam up like inspiration,
Eloquent, oracular;
A volcano heard afar.
‘And these words shall then become
Like Oppression’s thundered doom
Ringing through each heart and brain,
Heard again – again – again –
‘Rise like Lions after slumber
In unvanquishable number –
Shake your chains to earth like dew
Which in sleep had fallen on you –
Ye are many – they are few.’
So in other words, when law enforcement comes in to arrest them, they’re actually going to shoot?
Like the mob?
Well alright. Now we’re cookin’ with oil.
Having a handgun and no experience is a recipe for disaster. Expect accidents, family tragedies and innocent victims.
Anyone knows that the really poor people have no money to buy guns, they either overpower by numbers or burn things (by means of lighters or fire bombs)
No single gun is gonna help you, ever, against an uprising
To add to this…
The people that live outside of NYC proper only have to go over to the country club to get their buddy, the judge, to sign the order.
Adding guns to any situation only makes the odds of someone getting hurt go up a lot.
There is also the ‘problem’ of how amateurs usually are the ones that get themselves shot with their own guns. If you show you have a weapon, and are not ready, willing and able to use it, it will be used against you.
————————
NY pistol permits issued outside of NYC are not valid inside NYC, although NYC permits are valid throughout the state.
The problem of amateurs being shot with their own guns is wildly overstated. It is true that when the time comes you need to use it, as opposed to mean threatening to use it. The bad guys know such a threat is meaningless.
The GS defenders should note that the anger is real.. America is mad!
Whether or not you wealth is defensible or not does not matter. What matters is perception. The fact is they increasing perceive see your wealth as result of their poverty. In the long this may not fare well for you
So, if I were you,I wouldn’t go around flaunting it.