Goldman Sachs has no testicles

...is the only conclusion to draw from today's announcement that they are not going to pay deferred bonuses after April 1st to avoid an extra 5% in tax:

The Bank of England governor told MPs he regarded such attempts as "depressing".
Further pressure was being exerted behind the scenes by the Treasury minister, Sajid Javid, who spoke to Goldman bankers to seek assurances that the bonuses from 2009, 2010 and 2011 would not be delayed.

The conversation that Goldman Sachs should have had with Mervyn was as follows:

MK: You shouldn't defer payment to avoid tax, that would be bad publicity.
GS: But completely legal?
MK: Yes
GS: And we're going to get slammed from every corner of the media when our comp allocation and results come out, no matter when we pay the bonuses?
MK: Yes
GS: And you're talking about a decrease in tax paid from 65.8% to 60.8%?
MK: Yes
GS: You can fuck right off.

Lordy. If you're going to be rapacious capitalists, at least do it properly. The conversation with Javid should have been shorter - indeed, the final response of GS would have sufficed.

Let's also remember that a wave of firings is an annual occurrence at these places:

Sanford Bernstein analyst Brad Hintz predicted average pay per employee at Goldman would rise from around £238,000 to £260,000 after a wave of redundancies.

That's several thousand jobs gone, just like that. No whining, just time to find a new gig (and hope that you'll lose no more than 20% of your base pay, and forget about a bonus).

Needless to say, the Opposition knows an opportunity for risk-free posturing when it sees one:

The shadow Treasury minister, Chris Leslie, predicted that the bonus season being launched by Goldman this week will be "very lucrative for thousands of bankers" as a result of the cut to the top tax rate.

I think he omitted "not to mention the Treasury" by accident. What do you think?