Yet another anecdote illustrating the disconnect between Wall Street and Main Street. And with it, one more reason for public frustration to focus on Goldman Sachs.

A Goldman executive has shot from the hip and hit himself in the foot. Bloomberg reports today that Goldman Sachs International adviser Brian Griffiths said:

We have to tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all,” Brian Griffiths, who was a special adviser to former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, said yesterday at a panel discussion at St. Paul's Cathedral in London. The panel's discussion topic was, “What is the place of morality in the marketplace?"

Firstly, Griffiths has his facts wrong. Income inequality does not “achieve greater prosperity and opportunity for all.” In other words, you don't need gross income inequality to attain prosperity. The U.S. economy soared after World War II despite a relatively small income gap.

From the close of World War II to Richard Nixon's reelection, non-supervisory workers real wages increased as the GDP increased.

But real wages stalled by 1972 and never recovered. The average annual salary today is actually several thousand dollars lower, not adjusting for inflation, than salaries in the mid 1980s. The wealth gap began to soar in mid 80s. An oft cited statistic illustrates the point: in 1980 the CEO-to-worker ratio in annual earnings was 42-to-1; by 2005, it was 411-to-1

But, it bears repeating, while 401ks were not rising proportionally with the rich they were still rising with the rich. This recession changed that. Now much of Wall Street is earning record profits, offering record bonuses, while Main Street languishes.

The tone of Griffiths' comments may be most important. They betray yet again Wall Street's shame (or I should have written, shamelessness). So many on Wall Street appear utterly clueless to the debt they owe the public. It was government intervention that stopped a run on banks like Goldman and Morgan Stanley. For more information, read this excerpt of "Too Big to Fail."

And Griffith is not the only executive lately with a tin ear. As I wrote Monday:

Here is John Mack, the CEO of Morgan Stanley, recently speaking on CNBC: "To be honest with you," he said dismissively, executive pay is "an easy target" and "enough's enough."

It appears not enough for this White House. In news sure to offer political gain, but also based on real Wall Street impropriety, Bloomberg also reported today:

The Obama administration will order seven companies that received the most government assistance to cut salaries of top executives by 90 percent on average, a person familiar with the situation said.