"Gold Man-Sacks"

Well, I had my first final exam yesterday! It went well, I think. I finished first, which isn't necessarily a good thing, but I'm relatively confident with it. If you take a look at my Twitter feed (lower right hand corner of the page), you can see some of my Tweets regarding it. Pretty much I owned the quote identification part, but was not expecting a definition portion. Needless to say, I used my extensive background in Latin to make up definitions (to clarify, the only Latin I know is from random sayings (illegitimi non carborundum anyone?) and from Harry Potter spells). My made-up definitions ranged from "a Greek delicacy" to "newer than Old English, but older than New English." I also identified some random guy I didn't know as "presumably a medieval scholar or author, who is important enough to be on this exam- which is quite the honor."

Now, to move onto more pressing issues. In the news, Goldman Sachs announced that they would be altering their bonus policy because they have gotten enough hate from the public (or to "quell uproar" as they might have you think). What do I have to say to this?

Finally, we know
The cause of the recession
Won't be too pampered


Am I right in thinking that? They're altering bonuses to be less ridiculous? Maybe?

Well, let's see what the article says:

"With a resurgent Goldman set to award billions of dollars in bonuses... the bank said that its 30 most-senior executives would be paid in the form of a special stock, rather than in cash. Goldman said that it would also let its shareholders vote on its executives’ pay, although the decision would be nonbinding." Source

Okay, great. Instead of money, they get "special stock." I suppose that's a reasonable substitute. Now what do they mean be "special"? Is it "special" like my mommy says I am or "special" like the special effects in movies? I personally would not mind the latter, if it entails explosives.

Well, the actual answer is that a "special stock" is one that cannot be sold for five years, and can be taken away if the executive is in need of a time-out. This is much better than a real stock, because it means that they can't instantly sell it (like they would normally). Instead, they need to invest it, something that they probably never do with their money. The horror. I suppose it's all just, though, right?

The second part is that the shareholders can decide the salaries. I think that may profit the company, in the end, what with all of the negative salaries the shareholders would demand. Oh, except the decisions are non-binding. In other words, it's like saying "we'll let you vote on the ice cream for our ice cream party, and we'll definitely take into consideration. However, in the end we are more than likely going to choose our favorite type of ice cream, even though we never, ever do things with our own profit in mind" I mean, come on- with a history like Goldman Sachs's you can't exactly trust them to listen to votes that might not satisfy them.

Well, that's enough rambling for now. Too-da-loo.


Credit for the title goes to Jon Stewart, who had that phrase on an episode of The Daily Show