What the Buck?

[Baker, John]

        But it's still the case that a money market fund's failure to
maintain a constant net asset value of $1.00 per share is "breaking the
buck."


John Baker


-----Original Message-----
From: American Dialect Society [mailto:ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU] On Behalf
Of Doug Harris
Sent: Friday, December 19, 2008 1:11 PM
To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU
Subject: What the Buck?

A NY Times business story today ("On Wall Street, Bonuses, Not Profits,
Were Real ") included a new-to-me escalation of the amount of money that
might be referred to as "a buck":
_On Wall Street, the first goal was to make "a buck" - a million
dollars. More than 100 people in Merrill's bond unit alone broke the
million-dollar mark in 2006._
--
The second sentence suggests how widespread that understanding of 'buck'
apparently is in the rightfully-endangered fast-buck community around
Wall Street.
It seems like only yesterday, or so, that a 'buck' was a dollar. Then it
became five dollars, then a hundred, and I seem to recall hearing it
used to represent a thousand dollars a time or two.
Maybe, if you hang in the right circles, the 'buck' moniker has been
attached to assorted other specific amounts -- say, $100,000, or
$100,000,000. Or is Wall Street's (recent?) usage unique, escalation
wise?
dh

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