The price is a pricey thirty-eight bucks, because, hey, it's the première, and there will be a bonus discussion afterwards with me and some of the cartoonists, and maybe some big-name moderator who has nothing else to do on a Sunday afternoon.
President Obama described the results as "a shellacking" -- a slang term for a thorough beating (no one is sure how the word, which originally referred to applying a coat of shiny polish to something, came to mean the same as "thrashing," "drubbing" or "pounding". Bonus discussion: how do you think "shellacking" came to mean a big defeat?).
Thus while MPs' expenses won a highly respectable 10,606 mentions in the national press, and 11,378 articles were published on the subject of bonuses, feverish discussion involving the word "recession" (u-shaped, w-shaped, brief or bottomless) brought a total of no fewer than 52,368 articles in 2009.
Still, what is disappointing about the current situation is the fact that few senior executives and bank boards have led the bonus and compensation discussions and tried to shape the industry's future from within.
Sports Direct said on Wednesday that Ashley had decided to withdraw from the bonus scheme after discussion with the company's remuneration committee.
Even so, the banks' discussions about bonus timing underscore how focused the industry is on protecting every dollar of pay.
Since last fall, he has been in discussions over bonus payouts with the eight largest banks that received rescues.
The first products are performances and (on bonus CD's) extended discussions of Mahler's Ninth Symphony (CD-80527; two music CD's) and Beethoven's Fifth and Seventh Symphonies (CD-80471).
A bonus is inclusion of discussions by the participants at the end of each chapter.
