Another late Friday afternoon drop: Goldman CEO gets $9M bonus

Another late Friday afternoon drop: Goldman CEO gets $9M bonus
  –Another news drop postponed to a late Friday afternoon, another postponed announcement by Goldman Sachs. Goldman, if you recall, previously did its bit for Scott Brown by delaying its annual bonus announcement–scheduled for the day before the Massachusetts special election–until a couple of days after the election to fill the seat long held by Edward M. Kennedy.



Goldman London office

A further delayed release dribbled out late yesterday–the amount of the 2009 bonus for Goldman CEO Lloyd Blankfein. This item is not hitting the news cycle quietly, however; already there are hundreds of carries on it. The New York Times among numerous others also notes that the business press, especially Rupert Murdoch’s Wall Street Journal, is emphasizing the minuses in the Blankfein bonus. True enough, the $9 million for 2009 does represent a decline from Blankfein’s peak bonus of $68 million. Also to be noted, as hundreds of publications have, is that Goldman Sachs had a record-breaking profitable year in 2009.

These people are not subtle.


More good news on the financial horizon; also, GOP proposes privatizing Social Security

Some more good news on the financial horizon
  –Following yesterday’s post. With Republicans and tea partiers becoming ever more aggressively irrational–radio hostess with the leastest Heidi Harris said yesterday on the Ed Schultz Show “I don’t know,” when Ed asked her whether President Obama was born in the United States–it is essential that the public be reminded when rational moves are made in the realm of finance. One positive move previously mentioned–New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has filed a lawsuit against Bank of America and its former head.

Another example–

Now that the GOP has come out more-or-less overtly with a proposition to privatize Social Security, Democrats in Congress are going to compel a vote on it. The privatizing proposal, which is already drawing some reportage, will be foregrounded by the Democrats’ move, which also will force congressional Republicans to vote up or down on an unsavory proposal from one of their own.



Congressmembers John Larson (D-Conn.) and Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.) introduced the resolution for the vote.

From the resolution:

“Social Security has provided the foundation for Americans