There’s something wrong, fundamentally wrong, with these people. First it was the auto executives, flying in three private jets to lobby for billions in bailouts. Then AIG took a “me day” — and spent hundreds of thousands on spa treatments. Citigroup decided it, too, needed a new private jet, even after a $25 billion bailout. And now Wells Fargo, a major culprit in the sub-prime mortgage meltdown wanted to send its — get this! — top mortgage executives for an all-expenses-paid trip to Las Vegas.

I’m banging my head on my desk! Go ahead and find a table or a wall and do it. I’ll wait. There, doesn’t it hurt less now?

Day after day, month after month, we read stories about this absurd and tone-deaf greed. And like lemmings approaching a cliff, despite so many of their colleagues’ mistakes being skewered, they pay no heed and take the plunge.

I promise, sometime in the next few weeks we’ll read a story about some CEO paying $50,000 for a toilet — whoops, read that one already too!

Bang. Head. On. Desk. Repeat.

Their argument is so absurd it almost doesn’t merit writing, but I’ll write it anyway. Executives say if they don’t treat their people right, they’ll leave.

Umm ... good? Yes, good! They should leave! Of course they should. They should be fired — run out of town on a rail. They lost trillions and flushed the entire world’s economy down the toilet — and not one of those really nice $50,000 toilets, either.

It’s greed and vanity at its worst. People so far removed from reality that they wouldn’t hit water if they fell off one of their six yachts.

And then there’s Obama. Mr. Hope. Mr. We’re-gonna-do-this-different. Accountability. Transparency.

How many of his cabinet members haven’t paid their taxes? That would be two — but he does get irony points for a third a non-cabinet appointee who didn’t pay Uncle Sam, but was supposed to be put in charge of making government more efficient.

Turns out there’s some drama with Obama after all.

I never thought I’d write this, but I want the old railroad and steel tycoons back. Give me some 19th century Robber Barons! At least Carnagie and Rockefeller had the good sense to give back some of the haul after they realized buying all the $50,000 toilets in the world still wouldn’t put a dent in the money they raked in.

So the public got some really nice concert halls, a few lasting charitable endowments and some colleges. History forgave most of the sins.

And for what it’s worth, guys like Carnagie and Rockefeller at least earned their money the old fashioned way, by building stuff better than other people. Maybe they treated their workers like dirt, paid them a pittance and forced out the competition. Somehow that seems more honest that pushing a bunch of paper across the globe, only to take a taxpayer bailout when it all goes to hell.

I don’t get it. I never will. I’ve never seen, let alone lived a life so lavish that one could lose touch with basic reality.

My family was never rich. We made enough to get along. We saved up for a vacation or a new car. I took out student loans to go to school. So did my brother. My parents worked overtime at average jobs to pay for the few luxury items we treated ourselves to.

And then there’s these Wall Street types, whose families haven’t had so much as a fleck of dirt under a fingernail in six generations. Whose parents’ parents pushed paper well enough to send their kids to a private school. From there, it was the Ivy League and the country club. And onto Wall Street, where investment banking was a way of life. Corporate jets taken to lavish junkets. Bank accounts in the Cayman Islands, Washington fundraisers, personal drivers. Stock options and golden parachutes worth billions.

And now that it’s time to pay the piper, they’re all looking at each other saying, “who, me?”

Yes, you — put down the caviar and get over here. Your bank is worthless. The little guys are banding together to try to right the ship and you need to cancel that appointment with your personal shopper at Neiman Marcus.

Theirs is a life I’ll never understand. Thank God.

Managing Editor Eric DuVall’s column appears every Wednesday and Sunday. Contact him at 693-1000, ext. 112 or by e-mail to duvalle@gnnewspaper.com.