Goldman Arrogance

With all that's transpired in the past year:

• Lehman Brothers, one of the few remaining Goldman rivals, being *not-bailed* out by a Big Government dominated by Goldman alums.
• Goldman Sachs converting to a bank for a bailout; then converting back to an i-bank for bonus time.
• Goldman Sachs getting a whopping $13 billion or so from bankrupt, taxpayer-owned AIG.
• Goldman Sachs eliminating December 2008 from their earnings results!
  
• A furious, *technical* bear market rally that saw a near 50% retracement from March 2009 lows that can only be explained by *quant trading* - which is dominated by Goldman.
• The curious case of Goldman's former programmer - see Bloomberg for that one. And Ritholtz.
• And while the rest of the economic world crumbles, Goldman Sachs is poised to hand out record bonuses.
• Etc. Etc. Etc.

Everyone is piling on Goldman Sachs at the moment - and most deservedly so.

The article du jour that's spreading like wildfire over the internet is Rolling Stone's article subtitled - "How Goldman Sachs has engineered every major market manipulation since the Great Depression."

Note Goldman has also targeted and harassed critical bloggers like Mike Morgan and Tyler Durden.

While I may long to have the stature of those other bloggers....on second thought, when it comes to the omnipotent Goldman thugs, I think I'll cower in fear of retribution.

But I do have one anecdote from this past weekend.

At a social gathering of just 5 couples, I met a guy who worked for Goldman.

He was on the equity side so I asked him what he thought the market was going to do.

GoldmanDude - Flat on the year....it'll sell off a bit in the summer and then rally back.

[S&P at roughly 900 at the time; sharply up from the March low of 666.]

Okay. Fair enough.

Then I joked that I was more of a "permabear". He instantly snapped back:

GoldmanDude - Well, that's an intellectually s-u-p-e-r-i-o-r position.

Say what? Did this guy just call me a Moron to my face?

To cap it off, he scoffed at me in his foreign accent, while turning his head away.

Now I just met him but 30 minutes ago. This was a laid-back, holiday cookout. I was speaking sardonically. But, even if I wasn't, who the eff is he to make such a crack?

The guy was about 135 pounds for crying out loud. How about I jump up, break him in half, and throw his poorly-marbled frame on the grill!

That was what I was thinking for a split-second anyway.

Instead, I calmly retorted in my same jesting tone, "Well, it worked last year."

[Future readers note that 2008 saw stock markets worldwide plunge 40-50%. So it was hardly the time to be mocking *perma-bears*!]

But I was livid on the inside for a multitude of reasons.

Here's a guy who traffics in other-people's-money, who doesn't risk a penny of his own taking a know-it-all, haughty posture. Unlike him, my money and mouth are always in the same place. Furthermore, he works for the most depraved, criminal organization on this over-heated planet - Goldman Sachs. And he's in a position to condescend on me?

I don't think so.

Now normally, any other person acting this way wouldn't bother me. But this guy was just teeming with arrogance. Over three hours and much conversation Mssr. Goldman didn't ask me one single question about myself. This neighbor of mine wasn't interested in where I was from, what I did for work, how old my kids were, or any other informational tidbit that's normally exchanged at very small dinner parties.

We'll surely cross paths again. And next time, the S&P will hardly be 900 and neither my diction nor my tone will be hamstrung by my wife.

You see, these are her friends - a couple of whom I've already severely offended in the past. On the way over to these coed affairs, I have to really coach myself up to be extremely polite and avoid, well, just about every interesting subject: politics, religion, education, weather,....in their midst.

I do my best to just sit there, tongue bleeding from bite marks, whilst they discuss *how cheap homes are*, *how the market will bounce back any day now*, and *the benefits of windmills*.

It is great that I have this outlet here; before I started Marginalizing Morons, I simply could not keep my mouth shut.