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Lou Rowan

We're asked frequently, "Golden Handcuffs?"

"Golden handcuffs" are the large sums corporate boards and management pay themselves for their valuable services swelling "shareholder value." The term was widely-used in the 1980's, the overt heyday of mega dealers, the "barbarians at the gate." I was working with Bankers Trust Company (now Deutsche Bank) then, and sharing some of this lingo on a walk in Philadelphia with Toby Olson, who said something like, "That's great. If you do a magazine again, why don't you call it ÎGolden Handcuffs.'

            Now the barbarians occupy the three thrones of our republic, and since the Reagan era titans of industry rule our iconolatry too, eclipsing both sports heroes and their coaches. Perhaps there's comfort knowing we've survived this forswearing of decency before: witness President Polk's lies justifying the aggrandizing Mexican war.

--Well, "we" have survived, but our victims don't.

The title should also suggest Blake's songs.

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