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Reader question: Please explain this sentence: “Golden handcuffs are incredibly tough to break.” Golden handcuffs? My comments: It means that people find it very hard to leave well-paying jobs. At least, that’s what golden handcuffs are supposed to mean. That’s what golden handcuffs are for. Handcuffs, you see, are the ring-shaped metal shackles we see on a criminal. The policeman handcuffs the criminal so that he can’t use his hands. A prisoner in jail may get shackled at the ankles also in order to further impede his movement. Anyways, thus shackled, one is unable to move as freely as he otherwise can. That’s the idea of golden handcuffs being lucrative deals to keep employees from moving, golden signifying the lucrative nature of these contracts. The idea, essentially, is this: make a pay package so sweet and rich that your best employees cannot refuse. And make it long term so that they’ll work for you, like, forever. In other words, handcuff them with gold. By definition (Dictionary.com), golden handcuffs are “a series of raises, bonuses, etc., given at specified intervals or tied to length of employment so as to keep an executive from leaving the company”. Golden handcuffs as a phenomenon are relatively new, becoming popular only in the 1990s coinciding with the Internet and Dot.com bubbles, when executives began to secure exorbitantly large pay packages. | 
