atkinreport.com

As a self-professed wordsmith, it’s always thrilling to learn a new one–especially one that’s visually evocative of what its actual meaning. That word is “clawback,” and maybe people in the financial industry knew (and dreaded) it, but it was news to me–until I saw it in font on CNBC (with the sound off) while trying to work off some New Year’s celebrating on the elliptical. Definition: taking back bonuses from corporate executives. In these times, that means executives who ran their companies and their shareholders into the ground. People like Lehman Bros. Richard Fuld, who walked away from that nuclear financial implosion with $484 million in salary and bonuses, and was unrepenentant when testifying about it before Congress. And here’s an alternate definition of “clawback:” what most Americans are doing to maintain the same standard of living they had at the beginning of 2008, much of it the responsibility of the greedy bastards trading bundled mortgage debt, derivatives and other arcane financial instruments–while regulators looked the other way– that have left our economy in a shambles.