It's very Merchant-of-Venice-ish - Antonio owed Shylock money via a legally valid contract which permitted Shylock to claim a pound of flesh in case of default.

It's very Merchant-of-Venice-ish - Antonio owed Shylock money via a legally valid contract which permitted Shylock to claim a pound of flesh in case of default. The court ruled in Shylock's favor - he could claim the pound of flesh - but said that if Antonio died that Shylock would be tried for murder. I'm starting to read more thorough explanations of the bonuses - they were approved 1Q 2008 to encourage retention during the 2008 year, with payment at the end of the year. As such they're probably legal, but the proposal to tax them 100% - or better yet, scrutinize the actions of the bonus recipients during the last year and hold them to a high standard of responsibilty - seems appropriate to me. Holding highly-compensated executives to high standards is what we should be doing anyway. With rewards come responsibilities. EDIT - It wasn't threat of murder - the court ruled that Shylock couldn't take any of Antonio's blood on pain of forfeiture of all of his (Shylock's) assets. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Merchant_of_Venice