As if Goldman Sachs did not already have enough image problems as the biggest pig at the Wall Street trough, it is now the most serious contender for the 2009 Marie Antoinette Award, which recognizes singular achievements in out-of-touch condescension.

Goldman has made no secret of the fact that it has set aside some $16.7 billion to be paid out to its employees as bonuses for the year 2009.  Now, this is a pretty big pile of money to have amassed just one year after coming close to a meltdown and accepting government (i.e., taxpayer) funds.   In fact, it’s more than just pretty big, it’s obscene.

It’s big enough and obscene enough to make ordinary people who are struggling to find jobs, pay the bills, keep the house out of foreclosure, etc. want to do things to Goldman that usually only happen in chainsaw movies.  After all, these people figure, we pulled their butts out of the fire with taxpayer money and now they’re rubbing our noses in these outlandish bonuses only a year later.

These violent urges are compounded by the knowledge that Goldman’s excesses are part of what brought about the severe unemployment situation, the cratering housing market and the all but invisible credit market.

This rage is strong enough that it apparently has reached the ivory towers of the executive suites of Wall Street and caused some (minor) tremors.  What if the politicians who up to now have been in our pockets grab hold of this rage and use it to start fencing us in?  Or the more likely scenario: What if this rage becomes so strong that these politicians have no choice but to grab hold of it, even if they don’t want to leave our pockets?

In the face of this, Goldman’s CEO Lloyd Blankfein apologized, sort of.  Just recently he said, “We participated in things that were clearly wrong and have reason to regret.  We apologize.”

But as we all know, words are cheap.  So Goldman decided to put some of its money where its mouth is.  It announced that it would be taking $500 million of that $16.7 billion and using it to support some 10,000 small businesses.  That is, it would take $100 million a year for 5 years to finance that support.

Do the calculation and you come up with 3% of the bonus pool.  I’m sure Goldman is hoping that this pittance will satisfy the rabble and calm them down. 

However, for a company that has no trouble whatsoever putting two and two together, it is likely that this gesture will prove to be a rather large miscalculation.  It’s hard to think of any act in the last few years that smacks more of “Let them eat cake” condescension.

And so, my friends, it is for these crumbs that Goldman is crowned the winner of the 2009 Marie Antoinette Award.  

May Goldman’s reputation for insufferable condescension live as long as the award’s namesake.  And may that reputation start to have a corrosive effect on the only place for which Goldman has any real feeling—its bottom line.

Here we are in November already, well past the first-year anniversary of the Panic of 2008, and any heat, not to mention action, on financial reform has been reduced to a slow sauté from a flame more suited to stir-fry.  The debate on whether some companies are too big to fail has just kind of gone poof.

This should surprise no one for a number of reasons.  For one, who do you think owns the Representatives and Senators that would have to craft legislation to rein in these trillion-dollar monsters?  Sorry, ladies and gentlemen of Capitol Hill, but we just don’t feel like putting on the bridle today or any time soon.

For another, the financial meltdown had its 15 minutes of fame. In the entertainment world that is the U.S. in 2009, it’s time to move on.  There’s Kate and Jon, Jen and John, Brangelina, etc., etc. to compete for the limited attention span of most people.

Sure, Goldman releases blowout earnings for the third quarter and outrage bubbles for a moment. But then like bubbles do, the outrage bursts.  And we’re back to Kate and Jon…

I have very little faith in the ability of Congress to summon up the courage to do what is necessary in the case of those companies whose collapse might endanger the financial system; in other words, companies too big to fail.

Some enterprising capitalists might want to think about starting a business called ‘Cojones For Rent’ and seeing what kind of business they could drum up from our legislators.

Or, we could take a page from the book being written by European regulators who don’t seem to be shy about cracking the whip when necessary.

The European Commission indeed did just that last week when it forced ING to divide itself in half.  ING is a worldwide banking and insurance giant.  Its properties are well-known and in the U.S. at least, its insurance units are well-respected.

The problem is that ING sank a ton of funds into investments that went south, including bad mortgages, and had to go to the Dutch government for a 10 billion euro bailout and guarantees for toxic mortgage assets that were in the range of 20 billion euros.  This year that particular bird came home to roost, with the EU demanding that ING get smaller and divest itself of some operations in order to repay the loan.

The plan that ING announced is that it will sell its U.S. insurance operations and its online banking company, thus raising some of the money to start repaying the government. 

The rationale behind the EU’s demand was that the company had to reduce its exposure to risk.  There was also the feeling that the Dutch government had perhaps treated ING too lightly and thus gave it a competitive advantage over troubled companies whose governments did not treat them quite so well.

Contrast that with the kid-glove treatment that has been accorded Goldman, Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, among others.  They repaid the TARP funds to the U.S. government and now it’s back to business as usual.  In fact, business is better than ever since everybody now knows the government won’t let these companies go down.

I know we hate to think that Europe has anything to offer us or can do anything better than we can. But considering what they’ve done in regard to ING, I think it’s worth inquiring whether the EU has some cojones for rent.

I have to admit I don’t know any sheep farmers, but even I know that it’s not customary for these folks to ask the wolf for suggestions about protecting the sheep.  Questions about fences and guard dogs are not something about which the farmer would consult with the predator.   This is not horse (or sheep) sense.  It’s just plain and simple common sense.

That is why I have to laugh whenever I read in the mainstream press about how Wall Street, meaning the big banks, is “resisting” new rules and tighter regulations in the aftermath of the catastrophic meltdown that the Street brought about.

My response to this “resistance” is quite simple: Who’s asking them what they think?  And why?

It doesn’t take an Einstein to figure out who the predators were in the events of the last few years.   And it certainly doesn’t take a genius to know who the prey was!

Yet, here we are a year after Lehman Brothers collapsed and we are no closer to tougher regulation for these predators than we were before. 

Can I understand that Wall Street would “resist” being overseen more stringently?  Of course. 

But in point of fact, the Street through its reckless machinations and “innovations” nearly brought this country’s and the global financial system to the very edge of the cliff.  The only reason all of us weren’t dragged along with Lehman was that the government pulled out all the stops to prevent it. 

Since it was the government that saved the butts of almost every major Wall Street firm and big bank, the government should be calling the shots when it comes to creating a system where these firms don’t carry us to the brink again. 

It’s a year later and here we are (in typical American fashion) marking the first anniversary of Lehman’s demise. And we’re doing it almost as a historical exercise. I fear we have already forgotten just how terrifying last September was and the stomach-churning that marked day after day of failures and bailouts.

There is yet another pocket of resistance to stricter regulation, greater consumer protection and restructuring the financial regulatory system, and that comes from the very regulators who failed us so terribly in the lead-up to September 2008.   None of these banking regulators wants to give up turf—not to another regulator or to a new agency with the express mandate of protecting consumers.   

My reaction both to Wall Street and Bernanke and Co. is ‘tough,’ a word the street knows and respects.

So I hope that President Obama is tough and means to follow through on his stern message to Wall Street on Sept. 14.  Speaking to those who “are misreading this moment” and “are choosing to ignore” the lessons of Lehman, the president said, “We will not go back to the days of reckless behavior and unchecked excess at the heart of this crisis, where too many were motivated only by the appetite for quick kills and bloated bonuses. Those on Wall Street cannot resume taking risks without regard for consequences, and expect that next time, American taxpayers will be there to break their fall.”

After what’s happened I don’t believe that firms should even have the option of “choosing to ignore” the past. Recklessness and malfeasance have to have their consequences.

Settling for anything less, and especially to placate Wall Street, is the equivalent of putting the farmer inside the fence, while the sheep are left on the outside with the wolves.