[credit: Tom Toles]
Wackydoodle sez: Blankfein must have read the news from Beijing*!
The Wall Street bank is
altering the compensation scheme for its top executives after coming under intense public pressure to stop paying its management committee huge cash bonuses that one senator called "obscene". Instead of cash, the managing executives will receive restricted stock. Some observers think the move has more to do with window dressing of its operating statement because the deferred compensation scheme does not start to vest until next year. Therefore the first charge to expenses will not be until 2010. Gold Sacs has repaid with interest its $10 billion in loans from the Treasury. Despite the need for government support the bank paid employees a near record $16.7 billion in the first nine months of 2009.
*China executed a securities trader convicted of embezzlement on Tuesday. The death sentence is believed to be the first ever in the industry. Sixty-five million of stolen yuan are still missing.
