Yes, Obama is Getting Serious About Banks. He is Now Calling Them Bad Names!

The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times both slap the news on A1, with the WSJ headlining that “Goldman Blinks on Bonuses,” implying it’s backing down on pay, when it’s doing no such thing. The Times’s hed is not much better: “Goldman’s Curbs on Bonuses Aim to Quell Uproar.” That implies that Goldman is curbing or cutting pay.

It’s doing no such thing. In fact, the move in all likelihood will increase the already-astronomical amount Goldman executives—and I do mean executives: these supposedly A1-worthy changes affect only the top thirty employees—will get this year. That’s because the big move, such that it is, is that Goldman is going to pay its top 30 people not in cash and stock, but in only stock—shares that they can’t cash in for five years.