http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-12145612

They all deserve a pay cut, and be forced to work on minimunm wage for a month to see how the rest of us are managing.

Good on Camerooooon, for saying he is going to get tough, doubt it though.

Did you expect anything different?

I’m wondering what i’ll spend my dividends on. We do get dividends dont we?

Cameron cant do anything to stop them. Whats he going to do, draft a special law just for rich bankers. They’re untouchable. They know it, & he knows it. Who’s he going to target next…footballers, pop-stars. Empty words, nothing more.

Don’t worry I’m sure Nick and Vince wont let that happen it was in their manifesto that they had a five point plan to stop them. 🙄

Interesting one. We own most of the company so it is in our best interests that the company does well. To do well it has to attract and maintain suitable talent. The folk getting the bonuses have helped the company get out of difficulty which means they can pay back the taxpayers quickly. But it feels wrong to reward them.

If we took project’s approach and massively slashed wages and bonuses then no one with any talent would want to work there. The company would collapse and we’d all lose the money we invested, but we’d feel happier that no “greedy bankers” got bonuses.

I often say tough things and I’m the biggest pansy going in reality. He’ll give them a real vicious tongue lashing when the payouts are made and sweet FA else. Don’t forget which end of the financial social spectrum we are talking about. After the lashing he’ll clarify though that these remuneration packages are needed to keep key personnel (the ones who failed) in key positions. Or maybe he’ll let the Gimp Clegg do it to show he’s sharing the power and the blame.

+1 to what GrahamS said.

GrahamS for prime minister.

speaker2animals – Member

“After the lashing he’ll clarify though that these remuneration packages are needed to keep key personnel (the ones who failed) in key positions”

How many of the people in key positions do you think were there before the banking crisis?

how about this for a thought, these highly paid bankers, FAILED. Yup the bank had to be bailed out by the tax payer because they screwed up. Correct me if i am wrong but there is a tendancy for workers who fail to loose their jobs not to receive huge bonuses and keep their jobs.

I am sure their are other individuals who could do a better job. So if failures don’t want to accept that they have failed and are to be paid accordingly, maybe they should look at getting a new job. I am sure that their are plenty of people around, we do have nearly 3million unemployed, who would like their job.

So as al;ready stated above we own the company so we should get a bonus and a dividend , not the management who just play with an abacus all day.

It does make me laugh that these bankers need multimillion poouynd bonuses to motivate them but lower paid workers apparantly do not need incentives to work hard

Its gross hypocicy and I am certain that reigning in the bonuses dramatically would not stop them. No way woud they all go to germany or the USA.

One bank made a few billion profit in its investment arm the employees took more than half of it it bonuses.

For these guys the bonuses make no difference – earn a million or earn 5 million – it does not alter the lifestyle or the motivation. Its purely a scoring system to see who has one

its rank greed and hypocrisy.

TJ theyve obviously got a very good unnion to fight their place.

The best people will work for the bank that rewards the best.

Interesting one. We own most of the company so it is in our best interests that the company does well. To do well it has to attract and maintain suitable talent. The folk getting the bonuses have helped the company get out of difficulty which means they can pay back the taxpayers quickly. But it feels wrong to reward them.

If we took project’s approach and massively slashed wages and bonuses then no one with any talent would want to work there. The company would collapse and we’d all lose the money we invested, but we’d feel happier that no “greedy bankers” got bonuses.[

Apart from it takes very little talent to make money when you are riding the largest wave of cheap money in history, financed by central banks lending money at 0.5%.

US THE TAXPYER, PWNED BY RBS

is how this title should read

According to call-me-Dave on Andrew Marr this morning its owned by “the government” i.e. him and his fat-cat trustafarian mates, so really he couldn’t give a monkeys, but he’ll pretend he does

Oh look Graham S has done it for Mr Cameron, nice one.

How come the massively talented staff allowed it to go T up then in the first place. They were worth all the money they got paid weren’t they? The remuneration package for the head of Tesco in the last annual accounts published was £90m. How can anyone be worth a package of that value? Tesco is obviously a massively successful company but you can’t tell me that that man did anything of that value. And don’t tell me that he’s in a risky position if business tailed off. How many people at that level get given the boot without a golden handshake?

How about bankers can have a bonus but it’s paid 5 years in arrears? The first payment would be based on the business done in year one BUT would also have a review clause of the 5 year activity. So if business had dropped off over the five years there would be a reduction in the bonus. There would be no payment of any bonus accrued if the position was vacated before the first 5 years was completed and this would role over, so if you left year six you would only get the bonus piad for year one, year 2 on would be forfeit. This would then role on year by year. Maybe then the positions would attract skilled but also committed people. My feeling is that too many of these high value chief executive roles are filled by people who know that they will probably move on ASAP if things start to look dodgy and they probably have a high financial value escape clause written in.

lower paid workers apparantly do not need incentives to work hard

Well, apart from the threat of losing their jobs, their homes, their self-respect, etc….

GrahamS – nice troll 😉

I’m not a fan of bankers…. 😈

Don’t get me started…………..

The ‘talent’ angle is the biggest load of BS. Absolute rubbish.

as a followup to speaker2animals, I have known some great reps over the years, they could sell anything.

Problem was that they didn’t actually know what they were doing, so they would get some good sales figures, but then just before things go horribly wrong they move on. so many CEOs and the like work the same game, i have known people shunted sideways because they couldn’t be fired but were a liability if given any real responsibility.

The only consolation is that they’re going to be paying 60% tax on it (plus NI and weird pension rules I didn’t bother trying to understand).

But I’d still quite like my employer to try to incentivise me a bit more with a couple of million or so. Just to see if it works or not, obviously.

if they are like the contractors i know working at barclays they will not be paying 60% tax as they will have set up a company based in croatia and will be payed in Kuna and avoid tax that way

I’m sure for all the talk the Government is happy that the country (through tax/NI) will get the 50%.

to quantify my pevious statement…
RBS managed the banking of the business I worked for – they stopped the cash flow, I lost my job….
RBS had my account – when I lost my job they cancelled my overdraft and stopped my credit card….
RBS had my mortgage – when I lost my job and my credit was shot because they had decided to this, I lost my house….
RBS employed my wife – she had to leave…..

And bankers get a bonus 😈 😈

If I could get a job in ‘banking’ I would do it for the country…
Would you???

Put it this way:

If your boss said to you tomorrow, “we’ve decided to halve your pay because of some of the bad decisions that myself and the board have made.” And there were plenty of competitors that would give you a job straight away then would you stay?

The question isn’t “Are bank bonuses justified?”, the question is, should the state-owned bank, who has a lot of taxpayers money invested in it, offer wages that are hugely below the current job market?

One bank can’t stand alone and expect to survive. It would fail and the other banks would look at it as evidence that they need to pay big bonuses. The bank wage/bonus market needs to be moved as a whole, and that is far harder!

The ‘talent’ angle is the biggest load of BS. Absolute rubbish.

These people were, and still are, making billions for their companies. Are you?
They may not have more “talent” than you, but they have more earning power.

Much as I despise the ****s, Aren’t they contributing something like 11% of our GDP at the moment?

If we actually had a manufacturing base, or anything so old-world and quaint then we could tell ’em to sling their hooks over to Hong Kong or wherever. As it stands they’ve got us by the short and curlies. And by god, don’t they know it!!

Where do all these profits come from that allow banks to pay such huge bonuses?

What do the likes of RBS do that is so wildly profitable?

Graham S

-Do banks have to give bonuses? The govt could force them all to abandon bonuses, but it wont in a million years. Should doctors get a bonus for saving lives? Should Engineers get big bonuses? Army?… and so on…

-These people are speculating on companies, they can have a nasty effect on these companies with their “deals” and short selling

-A lot of it is psychology and BS.

-Imagine if Mr Jerome Kerveil’s dealings had worked.

Kerviel had told investigators that such practices are widespread and that getting a profit makes the hierarchy turn a blind eye

-Bankers let them leave, where they going to go? And someone is always ready to step up/replace. Sure the job is pressured, but do you need to be a rocket scientist to do it?

Right time to chillax. We’re all doomed anyway 🙂

What do the likes of RBS do that is so wildly profitable?

Gamble, what do you think drives the commodity markets.

Conqueror – Member
Bankers let them leave, where they going to go?

To other banks who still offer those rewards. if you don’t have international consensus on this, you put at risk a massive income earner for the UK. Plus, the “failing” banks never recover and the UK govt/taxpayer ends up out of pocket. Like it or not, it is in the interest of us all that these banks start to make lots of money. Then the market will want the shares and the government can sell them off at a massive profit.

To satisfy everyone* what ought to happen is that RBS should be obliged to operate un-profitably. Lend at discounted rates, borrow from savers at inflated rates. Cut transaction fees on corporate finance deals. Provide large volume of small scale higher risk business loans (but not private loans), not small numbers of high volume, high risk corporate/real estate loans that take on the bulk of the deal risk to the benefit of the borrower’s equity.

That way a financial service provider is undercutting the market, bringing market profits down to more acceptable level, and hence bonus capacity. It would have the effect of forcing other banks to cut profitability to maintain market share.

Bank clients benefit from the essential liquidity service of the industry. Banks can still, if they want, play their naked games (derivatives with no direct exposure) and the reduced capital they have left after that.

* unfortunately Im pretty certain that would count as state intervention in a private market, effectively subsidised service. And so be illegal under EU law.

druidh, personally Im not as comfortable as others with an economy that is so reliant on the financial services. But like it or not, thats what weve got.

Just my opinion.

If your boss said to you tomorrow, “we’ve decided to halve your pay because of some of the bad decisions that myself and the board have made.”

I’d say “why are you paying me barrowloads of cash if you make the decisions that matter ?” 😉

Out of interest, how can all investment banks (Lehman aside, though I seem to remember that their UK arm was supposedly profitable) make a profit – or am I missing 50% of the sector that makes correspondingly massive losses ?

Druidh – serious question. Do you really think these guys would leave the country if their bonus was reduced to hundreds of thousands rather than millions? Are they that irreplaceable?

I so doubt they would go to Germany or the US. And would there be jobs for them in Germany or the US

TandemJeremy they can all speak German and the US would bowl over and hand them green cards on arrival.

Out of interest, how can all investment banks (Lehman aside, though I seem to remember that their UK arm was supposedly profitable) make a profit – or am I missing 50% of the sector that makes correspondingly massive loss

Why should any banks make a loss? banks are in the position to efffectively create money. If every customer went to the bank and said they wanted to withdraw their money the banks can’t do it. There is far less physical money in circulation than electronic money in the system.