Speaking to an audience at St Paul's Cathedral in London about morality in the marketplace last night, Griffiths said the British public should "tolerate the inequality as a way to achieve greater prosperity for all".

Is this bloke for real?

The more I hear this kind of shite, the more I'm inclined to restructure banking using nothing more than a rifle and a wall. 👿

It's aspirational, innit?

to the barricades, comrade!

There's aspirational…. and there's taking the piss.

*stocks up on ammo.

To be honest, I don't think there's anything he could have said that wouldn't make him sound like an insensitive money-obsessed fleshbag.

if they learn to tolerate the inequity of the rest of us breaking in to their house and stealing it back as a way of achieving greater prosperity for all tehan I am ok with this.

i think a lot of the high powered bankers genuinely believe that they are doing good pumping money into our economy
and maybe they are probably right, to an extent

but under the last 20-30 years of financial boom (and bust) we have seen the rich poor gap increasing and child poverty targets not being met etc etc
our apparent prosperity increase has been fueled by the credit culture and unsustainable growth in house prices

if he genuinely was working for the good of the country he would automatically donate half his salary to charity wouldnt pay his accountant so much to evade paying tax, hed pay his cleaner a sh!t lot more than minimum wage and so on

kimbers – passing the buck is disingenuous.

Redistribution of wealth is the role of government through taxation, not the wealthy through philanthropy.

Not to mention that philanthropy invariably has strings attached – it serves the whims of the rich, not the needs of the poor.

If you want to point fingers, aim it at No.11, Theyve had 12 years to introduce laws of progressive redistribution of wealth and they've Ballsed it up.

The spineless tinkering of the progressive components of the tax system together with the underhand pillaging of the un-progressive duty system as lead us to a less equal society under 4 parliaments of Labour than when they came to power. Who'd have thunk it?

you are 100% right that the government have failed woefully to tax the rich

but i disagree, the "rich" should be a lot more altruistic especially if they are gonna stand up and whine that its not their fault they earn such obscene mounts of money and no one likes them

the trouble is the city and nu labrador have been far too chummy for too long and now they are favouring the torries

and lets be realistic the government that gets in is the one supported by big business whether its financial powerhouses or media moguls like murdoch they have the influence they also have a moral responsibility but their own moral bankrupcy leaves us all fuct by them daily

i like the comments and the editing, but the bigger picture is no one cares.

The average mail or sun reader will still harp on about europe or immigrants, the way they have been screwed over in bailing out the banks doesn't register.

kimbers – back in the day when Mrs S worked at a US bank, there was an unwritten, but widely followed convention that employees were expected to give c.5% of their income to charitable causes over the course of the year.

Marathon sponsorship used to be a big winner – just wave the form around and you'd get loads of £100-500 pledges from colleagues keen to stand up to their promises.

But no matter how many instances like this are dug up, the view of the many will be far less charitable than most bankers actually are.

What percentage of the profits on which bonuses are being paid is generated from mark-to-market revaluation of assets that were previously written right down in the books? ❓

damn! Rumbled!

😉

If you want to point fingers, aim it at No.11, Theyve had 12 years to introduce laws of progressive redistribution of wealth and they've Ballsed it up.

No Government on the crest of a financial boom(at the time) was going to change anything to upset that particiular applecart, even if they knew it was unsustainable. Forgive me Stoner, but is it you that often comes out with the phrase "turkey's don't vote for Christmas?"

nope. not me.

I dont do hackneyed.

Ok, must be some other accountant… 😉

accountant

steady-on!

This seems to me like having a guide take you up to the top of a mountain th ewrong way and being avalanched but surviving only to find the same guide and say take me back up that mountain.

well id like to think if i was about to get a $700000 bouns this year (thats what the average goldman sachs employee is getting apparently)

that after id bought myself a shiny new bike or 2 and the missus a bit of bling or some nice flowers and paid the rent id give the rest to charity or perhaps donate it a worthy political party 😯

kimbers – that would be the "mean" not the "modal" figure.

Some will be getting $10m+, vast majority will be closer to $50,000-$250,000.

Not saying that's not a huge number, but once you've taken tax and NI at 50%, converted it into sterling your down to £12k-75k.

The high maintenance missus will be wanting £5k-10K for the holiday and the kids school fees are costing £15k a year.

Its damn near the breadline to be honest.

median i believe 😉

actually i have no idea, a $50000 bouns or even £12k is so alien a concept to me

as a scientist i can expect never to get a bonus in my life and yes im bitter about that

I think Lord Griffiths is spot on.
And because of this, will understand entirely that although slightly unfair, me smacking him in the face with a shovel will benefit the rest of society immensely.

as a scientist

you should have paid attention in World Domination classes.

You could have had death rays, interplanetary lasers, and skimpily dressed birds but instead you've probably got a mouse with an ear on its back. Scientist Fail.

Its damn near the breadline to be honest.

Naughty, naughty Stoner. 😀

instead you've probably got a mouse with an ear on its back.

Still better than hunching over a ledger all day, counting someone else's money and wearing one of those funny green visors. 🙂

seems more likely that we all sit hunched over our monitors waiting desperately for an exciting thread to appear on stw

He has a point to be honest. It may be a shit one, but he has a point.

Viva la revolution.

This man is an utter tube. Fact.

seems more likely that we all sit hunched over our monitors waiting desperately for an exciting thread to appear on stw

Hush up there! If people realise that we're just a bunch of saddoes participating in a text-based version of Second Life where all the participants do is have repetitive discussions about politics and suspension linkages, they'll leave this place in droves, and the chances of getting any exciting threads will go out the window. Let's maintain the illusion that we have lives, eh? 🙂

Let's maintain the illusion that we have lives, eh?

Like the Matrix but without the exciting bits?

Weren't the bankers paying 9% of all the taxes in the country before that little upset we had?

Perhaps comrades we should lynch them/force them to flee abroad.

Anyone want to have the job of telling 9% of our doctors and nurses where the dole office is?

No, thought not.

no borris johnson claimed they made 9% of GDP and accounted for 13% of VAT

i would be interested to know where he got that info from

im pretty sure that they dont pay 13% of the income tax

[edit] i wonder how many have shady swiss bank accounts- accounts that are safe for now as the swiss just rolled on polanski to stop the USA from forcing them to declare the info on who has what there

@ Stoner

Redistribution of wealth is the role of government through taxation, not the wealthy through philanthropy.

That's certainly the case in this country. There's an interesting comparison to be made with the USA though–there's no real desire to redistribute wealth through the federal or state taxation systems, but a far better developed culture of philanthropy among the very wealthy. You see it in the charitable trusts created by people like Carnegie or Rockerfeller and still in the donations that even moderately wealthy alumni make to their colleges / universities. I agree with you completely–it's clear that successive Labour governments have come nowhere near meeting what we could expect of even a moderate social democratic party. But I think there's also something profoundly wrong with a culture in which excess wealth does not also carry with it a sense of public duty.

Why do those with wealth not feel a sense of public duty ? Is it because the society they find themselves in is not one they want to be part of.

Perhaps Trimix–but they are part of it, in the sense that they are able to exploit its taxation and regulatory systems (or lack thereof), the inequalities around which its labour markets are organized, the educational opportunities it provides etc. etc. etc…

no its coz they are still living by the greed is good mantra

the 80s are still alive and kicking in the city

the problem with philanthropy as I mentioned is that it only serves that public good favoured by the philanthropist, i.e. Bill and Mrs Gates' vaccine fund for Africa. It doesn't necessarily follow that the state will redistribute its resources to balance the inequitable distribution of funds by a philanthropist.

The power of taxation is to have money spent on those things that we as individuals might not choose to have it spent on.

I see philanthropy as a more a moral imperative or duty, but not necessarily a social good to do anything more than support the role of taxation. It can never be equitable, and it almost certainly will never be more than a few percent of redistributed wealth anyway.

Bring on more redistributive taxation on income, preserve an incentive to invest and save though, simplify the system but leave total tax take around 40% of GDP.

While I agree that the power of taxation is to have money spent on those things that we as individuals might not choose to have it spent on it also seems reasonable to suggest that part of the power of large-scale private philanthropy is that it can spend money on whatever it likes without worrying about whether this wins votes.

@ Stoner

I agree completely–though the operations of philanthropy are slightly different for those trusts in which the original beneficiary no longer plays an organizing role (because they're dead). It's also the case that there can be a discernible 'public good' achieved across a broad area even through the actions of an individual philanthropist–I'm thinking in particular about the relatively large number of Carnegie Libraries in the UK here. You're right, that philanthropy can't play a redistributive role but it can provide key services which the state is unwilling to support at a particular moment in time.

Mind you, my take on this as historical rather than political–i.e. I think the state should be providing those key services.

Without people striving to make a fortune lots of others would be without a job/product. Without greed we would lack some of the drive needed to compete in a global market.

Imagine if no one wanted to make big profits from manufacturing mountain bikes. We would all be riding 40lbs, sidepull braked, scaffold pole framed nonsuspension monsters. But no, due to profit motivated business people we ride great bikes.

Put it in perspective, the are millions of middle class and poor people for ever millionaire. Those same middle class and poor people were also benefiting from zero % credit cards, multiple income mortages and buy now, pay next year deals on stuff they didnt really need. Greed works for the poor as well as the wealthy. Greed is what kept the human race alive when things got tough. Everyone with a house was happy to see its value shoot up each year, they never said its bad and greedy then.

Stop moaning and go and create some wealth and spend it. Leave the boom and bust regulation to enlightened economists, the polititions wont sort it as they are too greedy for votes.

TBH I wouldn't have a problem with bankers being paid huge bonuses if they were actually creating wealth by assisting the efficient and productive allocation of capital. Instead they sit back and collect a % of any deal that's done, whether its a good deal or not and their only recent efficient allocation of capital has been to help shift a load of capital into dodgy mortgage instruments that neither they or their investors understood.