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Original poster

to think that bankers who sue take legal action to protect their bonuses should ...

286 replies

MmeReindor · 22/12/2011 07:54

be made to live in a grotty mouldy B&B for a month, so they can see the consequences of their actions. There are people who have lost their jobs because of the recession, who have lost their home, lost everything.

And the bankers still insist on a bonus. On top of their already well paid job?

I am speechless.

The Guardian reports today that this may happen.

Already in Germany, the Commerzbank is facing a legal challenge from its subsiduary, DresdenKleinwort

The bankers claim that Commerzbank, which bought Dresdner Kleinwort, should have honoured an agreement to provide a ?400m bonus pool for 2008. Dresdner Kleinwort reported a ?6.3bn loss for 2008, which Commerzbank believes changed its commitment to the bankers

What really gets my goat is the comment about taxes, from a think tank.

City bonuses are expected to total £4.2bn in 2011, down 38% on the £6.7bn paid out last year, ... will generate about £2.5bn for the Treasury, ... this is still some distance ...from the £6.8bn collected in the peak of 2007-08, clearly illustrating how the taxpayer also misses out when the City pays lower bonuses,"

How in the name of all that is holy, does that even make a bit of sense?

We bail the banks out with taxpayers' money, but should be grateful that we are getting £2.5bn back - if we even get it back, as no doubt some of it will vanish in an off-shore bank account, or via shady tax avoidance.

OP posts:
larrygrylls · 22/12/2011 10:54

Ninky,

Look at real numbers. Look how much of UK GDP is accounted for by the PS. Look at PS inflation during the time of New Labour vs private sector inflation.

A certain section of the public sector is overpaid and corrupt. If you were to condemn bankers and compare them to the SME sector, where entrepreneurs and employees are really having a hard time, then it would be a much better basis on which to bash bankers.

The attitude of "public sector good, private sector bad" is plain wrong. The corruption may be on a smaller scale, and there are less (though by no means none) people getting seriously rich by doing very little. However, it is multiplied by far more people. And there is a huge nexus between bankers' bonuses and public sector inflation. New Labour were more than happy to underregulate the banks and use the taxes paid on bonuses to vastly expand the public sector and create public sector inflation.

That is not to say that there are not a vast number of underpaid very worthy people who do public sector work. I am not condemning them or including them in my comparison. However, I assume that when you are blaming bankers for the ills of the UK, you are not intentionally including the guys who input the tickets etc, maybe paid on average £18k per annum.

Bankers are a symptom of society's malaise, not the sole disease. If you banned bonuses tomorrow and capped bankers' salaries at £100k, you would find people in plenty of other professions maximising their own pay packets without regard to the broader implications to society. And plenty of them would be (and are) at the top end of the public sector.

larrygrylls · 22/12/2011 10:55

"I am an erudite and widely read free-thinker"

Classic.

DeePanCrisPandEeeven · 22/12/2011 10:58

Oh just a bit of modest self-disclosure.Grin

but I've monoplised you. sorry about that.

FreudianSlipper · 22/12/2011 11:00

still wanting to know who these bankers are that are earning less that 40k a year Hmm

coraltoes · 22/12/2011 11:01

Deep
How do people like you get by in life? So blinkered it is scary.

larrygrylls · 22/12/2011 11:02

Freudian,

Go into a bank and ask for "back office". You will find a vast room overlit with fluorescent light where 100s of people are beavering away for, on average, a LOT less than 40k. Or, if you want to do it online, just Google "banking, back office jobs".

coraltoes · 22/12/2011 11:02

Freudian. Junior analysts, graduates, back office staff, middle office...all n banking but on lower wages.

coraltoes · 22/12/2011 11:03

Cross posts with Larry. Sorry

QuintessentiallyShallow · 22/12/2011 11:06

We have not increased salaries for our staff for 3 years. My dh and I have taken a significant paycut. A much bigger pay cut for 2012 will be necessary for us.

The rich have the money and financial nous to fight for their wealth to a much higher degree than us normal folks.

My banker friend flew to new york last week with his wife, to buy a lamp. A lamp. He had to go all the way to new york for a lamp. A pretty crystal chandelier. My other friend went down to look after their baby for a week. They missed his first birthday. For a lamp.

It is just an example of the enormous greed in the industry.

And if you raise an eyebrow, it is jealousy.

Well, maybe it is, because I cant even afford to go to New York for the museums, let alone seeing to my Lightening needs!!

DeePanCrisPandEeeven · 22/12/2011 11:07

coral - how do peple like me get by? Well in a few good ways tbh. Having a lively but focussed imagination and using it to cut through hogwash and baloney when I come across it is but one way.Smile

Christmassy things to do. sorry again for monoplising Larry recently, though the Bankers Bingo Card was quite good. adieu

coraltoes · 22/12/2011 11:19

Not such a lively imagination if you enjoy bullshit bingo games! Thought they had been done to death by now.

I assume you stow all your cash under your mattress lest the evil bankers get their mits on it. Enjoy spending it for Christmas!

FreudianSlipper · 22/12/2011 11:20

larry i worked in the city for years

back office are not bankers, if working in the city they are still on a good salary and earn a good bonus with the potential to earn a very good salary plus other perks (private healthcare, good pension schemes, cheap gym membership, travelcard interest free loan, and io you are in with the traders taken out on the corporate days out like motor racing, ascot even skiing)

FreudianSlipper · 22/12/2011 11:24

Junior analysts and graduates should be on a lower wage but again if working in the city they will still be earning a lot more than many and with the potential to earn a very high wage

RealLifeIsForWimps · 22/12/2011 11:32

But Freudian- Not all "bankers" (i.e. person's who's employer is an investment bank) work in the city and not are all on a career trajectory. eg JP Morgan has an absolutely massive back office function in Dorset. These people basically do the support functions of banking (hence "back office") as opposed to the fee earners who are "front office". A lot of this work can only be described as admin- making sure trades have gone through properly etc.

Missingfriendsandsad · 22/12/2011 11:38

Last year benefit bill was £7bn - about the same as bonuses paid to 30,000 bank staff last year on top of their salaries. On average a banker could employ 50 people on minimum wage from the dole queue out of their extra pocket money ON TOP OF THEIR SALARIES. btw at Warwick Uni 19 staff earn more than the prime minister (£147,000) if that is across the sector, that's £88million so its true that there is inflation in the public sector too.

FreudianSlipper · 22/12/2011 11:39

that is what i said back office are not bankers who considers them bankers (larry) but many working in the city who are back office receive a high wage plus a nice bonus

coraltoes · 22/12/2011 12:24

And what is your point missing? Just because they could afford to doesn't mean they should... Or indeed can!

Serenitysutton · 22/12/2011 13:21

I don?t get this comparing of salaries and lifestyles. If you know nothing about being a banker, how can you compare it to a teacher or social worker or whomever? Its an extremely high stress environment and takes a certain type of person to tolerate that. You nave to be extraordinarily sharp- as someone else mentioned- having your finger on the button all the time. I think a lot of people think that maybe they could do it, or a teacher could do it, and I don?t think they understand the calibre of people we?re talking about. Most people could not and thus do not, do it. If I were a highly specialist surgeon, I might earn incredible amounts of money and would anyone begrudge me that or even know about it? probably not. Would you think a teacher or social worker could do that job? No way. It?s a bizarre comparison, to people who earn average amounts, but also against those who earn very little. Its no comparison at all.

BTW its a fallacy that bankers or high earners in investment banks avoid tax or are well connected enough to use tax avoidance techniques- they are employees. Its very rare for a standard employee of a corporate to be able to do anything about their tax. Self employed people yes- the company itself, yes- but staff on PAYE and payroll? No.

coraltoes · 22/12/2011 13:30

Serenity, that is correct, all bonus etc comes through payroll / PAYE and we pay tax on it. then again some people would have you eleven we eat children for dinner washed down by bottles of krug.

Also what the fuck is a banker anyway?! A trader? An advisor? Someone in structured finance? Someone in M&A? Anyone who works for a bank? Corporate? Which bit of the bank do we hate so much?? So bloody simplistic to lump it all under one umbrella.

Serenitysutton · 22/12/2011 13:37

yeah that bitch on the end of the phone in the barclays call centre eats babies too.

MrGingleBells · 22/12/2011 13:46

So bloody simplistic to lump it all under one umbrella.

I think most people don't look at someone behind the desk at NatWest and think about greedy bankers. Ditto back office people. Kind of an obvious thing to say but there you go.

There is some 'genericness' to it but I think it's clear the sort of people that make the average person in the street angry are the high earners who make massive profits betting huge sums of money, and have zero responsibility when their actions cause the rest of the world to slide into a depression.

Sir Bob Goodwin or Bob Diamond are a couple of high profile examples.

FreudianSlipper · 22/12/2011 13:51

bankers are people who raise money for others to borrow to make money on

people have every right to moan about what these people receive as a bonus (be it bankers, traders that make money for the banks) as many have made big mistakes, have kept their jobs becasue everyone in this country (and in europe) has paid some form of tax that has gone towards keeping the banks from going under and now education, nhs and other much needed services are having cutbacks becasue the money is now longer there

i am not sure if it was right or wrong to pay out this money but it is very very wrong for them to still expect such high wages when they have received so much help from governments

coraltoes · 22/12/2011 13:55

So CEOs are to blame? Or the people who work for them and do the actual trading? So we just hate traders. Well that simplifies things a bit. Now would that be traders who dealt and packaged risk as products, or commodity traders, or foreign exchange or bonds or repos or money markets....I just do not understand how we can be so angry against a group we haven't even defined! So they are hated because they made enormous profits and took a cut of them. Um... Performance related pay is nothing new. The trouble we have now is banks paying out bonuses that are not linked to performance as they have had to guarantee bonuses to traders to ensure they retain talent to drag them out of the mess they made. Again hardly a shocker. Would you prefer them to have instead hired solely graduates who would have their arses handed back to them in the market by foreign banks worsening performance for their trading books and banks and exacerbating the problem?! They need to be able to perform in the markets they deal in!

pastafantastic · 22/12/2011 13:56

To the OP - do you have a credit card, mortgage or any investments? Consumers pushing for lower rates on debt, along with the greed of the banks and the lack of sensible regulation (I.E. allowing the banks to offer these rates) is what caused the credit crunch.

If there was no appetite for low interest credit cards and people taking out mortgages that were too big for them (which would be why the majority lost their homes), the banks wouldn't have been able to sell the products in the first place.

Yes, banks are guilty, but so are the public for their greed. Take some responsibility.

Serenitysutton · 22/12/2011 13:58

But its the same as say, the CEO of Oxfam earning £150k. people think he should take less because its charity, what they don?t understand is a good person who is capable will not do it for peanuts. The charity don?t need to be led by some do gooder hippy, they want someone who can run a large company efficiently. You have to buy in expertise. If you have to pay good people to retain them you will. That person sin?t going to voluntarily earn less, and have the freedom to leave the company if less is imposed. What do the company do? Get left with the crap who can?t source alternative employment?