To not see the problem with bankers bonuses? Politics of envy?

[What1]

This is not a thread about a them read but I just read a comment which inspired me to ask ; why do so many people have a problem with bankers bonuses or the high salaries in the City? I mean, these are private institutions (nnot supported by the public ; except for the odd bank), so I just don't see why people think the salaries will affect them.

The way I see it, if they paid less and didn't give bonuses, then the shareholders would get to keep more to themselves and the general public don't benefit anyway (I may be wrong?)

It's just quite annoying reading all these comments which seem to stem from envy. So I have to ask ; why do you (oor people you know) have a problem with big bonuses and high salaries ; AIBU to not care about their salaries and be annoyed by these politics of envy?

Has your economist found a neat solution to address shareholder apathy as well Lurking?

Sorry, but that all sounds a bit glib to me, especially your supposed 9% ignoring extrinsic industries and company financing. It doesn't describe the regime which we have to work with in practice, which still exists because it works. I tend to respect those who do make millions of pounds as knowing what they are doing - yes, there are exceptions and high profile ones at that, and no system is static. But I prefer to follow the successful than the jealous onlookers.

Its very easy to pick holes in something, but less easy to offer genuinely credible alternatives. I'm guessing if the alternatives were that credible, we would have an alternative stock exchange. Oh wait...

Ah see there you go "jealous onlookers", poor arguing. In no way am I jealous. Critique is a fine way of pointing out weaknesses in things, and I thought the alternative was clear from my arguments. A financial industry that yes rewards its staff, but not the level that it does. The "talent" argument simply does not stand up to scrutiny when you look at the number of CEOs (and others) for failure.

Extrinsic industries? Again is a poor argument as the piece of data for 9% is not simply banking but ALL financial industries (insurance, pension companies etc) please do not attempt to educate me on my use of data.

It stands to reason that an industry which caused a such massive impact through its largesse needs reform. Reform on rewards encouraging dangerous risk taking, reform on the type of deals that it is allowed to do, much like the reforms after the 1929 banking crash. It is not ironic that after years of lobbying in the US the Glass-Steagall act was repealed as the finance industry said it could self regulate, and within 10 years it had made many of the same mistakes yet again?

The city plays a vital part in our economy, but it is not the be all and end all that it is played out to be. In order to continue to be vital it needs to be harnessed to reality, not to ethereal values placed on stocks and shares because of the way they have been traded, churned or shorted.

" I tend to respect those who do make millions of pounds as knowing what they are doing."

I thought the crash showed that they didn't know what they were doing. Half the people trading didn't know what SIVs and collatarized debt obligations were or how they really worked. They also gambled on interest rates remaining low when lending money to "sub prime" markets.

Loads of money was made and lost, they didn't know what they were doing. Just chuck some on black and some on red and see if it comes up ( weak analogy I know).

Sorry to come back again, but didn't the ratings agencies Standard and Poor and Moody's also make huge mistakes with their debt ratings on these things? Pfft they know what they're doing, if it was a few exceptions then why was there such a mass crisis?

OK, well, I'm sure you'll find plenty who will have more pleasing views to you on the internet.

Extrinsic industries? Again is a poor argument as the piece of data for 9% is not simply banking but ALL financial industries (insurance, pension companies etc) please do not attempt to educate me on my use of data.

As you say...

www.finextra.com/blogs/fullblog.aspx?blogid=7311

With professional services it accounts for up to 14 % but financial services alone is about 9.4 % . Data is from 2013 the latest available. Ta.

Sorry, I realise I got wayy too into this. My degree is in econ, and I probably go a bit over the top.

I'm a competition lawyer lurker. I have no imagination. I simply interpret the current status quo for the benefit of my clients. I do have a limited understanding of economics, so far as its necessary for competition law. Obviously, I tend to quite like the Harvard School and consider the market is best placed for delivering consumer benefits and that fluctuations/problems are within tolerable limits.

We are a very rich country. The con of that is that its an expensive country to live in. We also have the luxury of arguing about things like this. In many countries, there is a much more self serving elite and little public input. Many of those countries purport to be socialist and redistributive of wealth.

I do think that public sector bonuses are part of the same virus and should not be left out of the equation. The public sector should be setting a good example - how can you justify the public sector having to rein in bonuses and conform to differing business models when the public sector, which implements it, goes untouched? Its a bit like selective hearing.

its all kicking off in the world of banking fraud and corruption again i see
politics of envy my arse

its all kicking off in the world of banking fraud and corruption again i see
politics of envy my arse

Yeah it has, unfotrtunetly the forex fine has already been priced in to most shares and renumerations as its been expected for the past few years, our toothless regulators managed to get a mere ~2m from them while the Americans took them to the cleaners, it's no wonder our government wanted to dump a load of our public shares in rbs, to be fair though the UK desks that was involved in this was only a couple of teams of around 30.

It's not a partisan problem either, it's the reliance on the banking industry and house price inflation that we have built our economy on.