To feel depressed and angry about Bankers Bonuses

[SapatSea]

Most people in the country are facing a cost of living crisis. We have had austerity for over a decade due to bailing out the banks and the "we're all in it together" mantra (lies). Although our GDP doesn't look too bad as a bald figure the GDP per person is falling year on year and the multiples of difference in salary/wealth between those at the bottom and top is ever widening. We are becoming a more and more divided society in terms of the have's and have's not.Most people are deeply worried about fuel bills and the future and then we have this
www.theguardian.com/business/2022/feb/16/weve-had-a-run-on-champagne-biggest-uk-banker-bonuses-since-financial-crash
barely reported by the MSM. It's obscene.

(I do realise that just a few months after the crash and bail out that bankers got bonuses again but this just really hurt reading it this morning)

Stop acting so unbelievably entitled to other people's hard-earned money

I wish we’d said that to the banks when we bailed them out in 2008.

@shilohh

The last crash was caused by banks and the government had to bail them out and subsequently we've had a decade of austerity which we are paying for. Its affected the poorest and vulnerable in society and it's just getting worse.

And the bankers deserve massive bonuses? Horrendous.

The banks paid back the money they got from government a long time ago. Austerity was only linked as the public chose a party who said they wouldn't borrow as much. Because borrowing was bad.

There are a lot of bankers’ wives on here saying how tough it is, less so the bankers themselves (two or three on this thread perhaps). I am not sure these wives/partners have a real clue what their husbands do.

Bankers work extraordinarily long hours but some of this is client lunches, some chatting to colleagues about weekends/sports etc. There is plenty of downtime in banking.

Sure there are intense periods but the stress of a banker is nothing like a doctor. Ultimately the worst outcome is you lose someone else’s money and your job. Most who lose their job get rehired pretty quickly and are back in the bonus game within a few months.

Actually bankers are far better paid by footballers. It is a tiny fraction of footballers who make a few million a year, it is 10s of thousands of bankers. And the very top bankers (I am including hedgies here) out earn the top footballers by a considerable margin and have far longer careers.

All the tax bankers paid is paying some of your child benefit and free childcare.

@pateu

f you were making millions of pounds for your employer through your hard work and decision making, wouldn’t you want that to be acknowledged in your pay package?

I think the issue is bad decisions & mistakes are often also rewarded...

This. With a cherry on top.

The questions should be - are we happy for investment banks to operate out of London / the UK? If so, when they make large amounts of money, what should happen to that? Should it be paid to the shareholders of the company and then taxed that way, or a large amount of it paid to the employees who made the money for the bank, and then that taxed as normal income from them? As a nation, we would end up with about the same amount being paid in as tax either way. Why is it better for shareholders to get all of the remainder, rather than some of the top performing employees?

I find the idea that sharing the profits with the staff members who earned it for the company is more socially responsible than keeping it all for the company owners. (Shareholders.)

@TheReluctantPhoenix

There are a lot of bankers’ wives on here saying how tough it is, less so the bankers themselves (two or three on this thread perhaps). I am not sure these wives/partners have a real clue what their husbands do.

Bankers work extraordinarily long hours but some of this is client lunches, some chatting to colleagues about weekends/sports etc. There is plenty of downtime in banking.

Sure there are intense periods but the stress of a banker is nothing like a doctor. Ultimately the worst outcome is you lose someone else’s money and your job. Most who lose their job get rehired pretty quickly and are back in the bonus game within a few months.

Actually bankers are far better paid by footballers. It is a tiny fraction of footballers who make a few million a year, it is 10s of thousands of bankers. And the very top bankers (I am including hedgies here) out earn the top footballers by a considerable margin and have far longer careers.

Do you work in a related sector? Or something that lends more insight

Out of interest

@MarshaBradyo,

It is a sector I worked in (at a relatively senior level) for a long time.

Doing something completely different now…and that is all I really want to say.

[quote TheReluctantPhoenix]@MarshaBradyo,

It is a sector I worked in (at a relatively senior level) for a long time.

Doing something completely different now…and that is all I really want to say.[/quote]
Oh that’s fine. You don’t have to say

I just wondered as your posts seemed to have more insight but it makes sense as you did do it for a fair while

Op as a teacher I can assure you I wouldn't last 5 mins as a banker. It's not an easy job. Why don't you apply if it's so easy?

@MarshaBradyo,

I started just before the Big Bang and got into it almost by accident. Was amazed when a bonus bought me a car.

And then, of course, my best bonus after tax would have bought me a decent London one bed flat (I was never in the super league).

Of course I took, it but never thought I had ‘earned it’. I looked at what I did and realised that I was earning more than a top surgeon or academic and had neither their skills or their dedication.

In addition, the profession changed as the money exploded. When I started Morgan Stanley and Goldmans were partnerships and, in a bad year, the partners had to write cheques. Banks also provided liquidity in tough times at a cost to themselves, as they felt honour-bound. None of that is true any more.

Strangely, most bankers, after the first few years, would not rate their job satisfaction very highly. The job, once mastered, is quite repetitive and boring (generally). The general bar talk is about how many bonuses until one can ‘get out’.

But, of course the lifestyle is nice, and your skills are very specific.

I am telling my children to pursue more worthwhile careers.

@CrimbleCrumble1

All the tax bankers paid is paying some of your child benefit and free childcare.

Right. So what are those of us who don’t have kids getting from their largesse?

A relative burnt himself out as a banker....he did make ££££ though. In hindsight i wish id done it when i was younger. I did work experience for the Deutsche bank but i didnt fancy it at the time. More fool me.

Blossomtoes NHS, paying doctors and nurses salaries.

I have reservations about encouraging my son into investment banking. It's a dog eat dog business and I'm not sure he could absorb the amount of s**t that gets thrown at you and remain emotionless.

The hours culture gets very draining. When I was 7 months pregnant, I went in at 7am one day and got home at 9pm the next day, with zero sleep. It was pretty brutal given that you're still expected to make complex decisions. I just wouldn't have done it without the financial incentive. They own you so they pay you accordingly.

Reducing bonuses isn't going to create some kind of trickle-down equality. The taxes on bonuses, and corporate tax, do though. And if you don't pay the big bonuses, they'll go to New York or another financial centre.

@TheKeatingFive

I feel that the nuances of living under capitalism aren't well understood. If you want to be paid the big bucks, the best thing to do is go where the money is. No better place than banking.

But by its very nature, it's not going to be the public sector. When you're being paid from taxpayer generated funds, there's always going to be a ceiling. There are other advantages though.

I think people could do with more educating before making their choices.

Yep. Not everyone is motivated at the age of 18 to be a rich f*cker in monetary terms. Rich comes in many forms though....

I wouldn't choose a career which meant I could be hired and then fired in the blink of an eye. Or give up holidays with family. Life is too short. I will always value time over money - every time.

I would not get into a relationship with someone who's always working - Life is for living!

No one needs obscene amounts of money, come on. We all just need enough to be comfortable.

I think that’s a big factor

It’s not for everyone and that’s fine. I studied something that leads to finance so it was an option and friends did it. I’m fine with not pursuing that path as I know my personality, I don’t think I would have lasted tbh

I also agree that people are mobile, especially when young and if they want the money it pays they’d go elsewhere if not London

@MasterGland

Meh. I can't get worked up about it. Capitalism is the least worst system that we have tried to manage large human societies. My brother works in finance in the city. He is driven by the pursuit of money and the things that money buys. He makes other people a lot of money in the process. He probably works 90 hours a week. He started having heart palpitations at 38. He looks about 10 years older than he actually is. I have no interest in any of this. I value my time, reading books and playing with my child. I wouldn't work 90 hours a week for any amount of money. Financial rewards are higher for jobs that few people either can do or will do. I have no intention of doing it,and neither do most other people.

Stop the bus! Thought I was the only other poster with similar views there😂

@Shortofspace

I don't think it's easy at all. It's just not the kind of thing I would ever have been interested in, ethically speaking.

Same here. The inequality is staggering.

@CrimbleCrumble1

All the tax bankers paid is paying some of your child benefit and free childcare.

Ssshhhh, net contributors must be vilified and told how horrible and selfish they are for having the audacity to earn so much that they can support people who are net recipients.

It's the biggest pile of bullshit ever. Yanbu

So working in investment banking IS pretty stressful.

Well I'm no banker and I got my pay rise and bonus in January...I took it. I worked for it as did they.

I disagree that “Many seem to get given & expect to receive their bonuses & other incentives regardless of how well a business is doing.” My knowledge through having worked in the city briefly and knowing many financial workers who have and do work in finance is that bonuses go up and down based on how the year has been for the firm. Even if a person works in a part of a bank that had a great year they do not get a big bonus if another part of the bank lost money and the bank didn’t have a good year as a whole.
I haven’t read this in mainstream media and I don’t know why the government doesn’t come out and say it but I believe the reason for the policy of removing the bonus cap is to enable banks to reduce their fixed costs so they can adapt to the poor market conditions. When banker bonuses were capped the banks responded by increasing base salaries which changed the the salary/bonus ratio and made the banks’ fixed costs (salaries) higher. The banks want to be able to reduce base salaries again and only pay bonuses based on the performance of the banks. That is what this policy is about.

I don't have any issue with Bankers getting large bonuses.

What I do have an issue with is privatisation of the profits, but socialisation of the losses.

If Bankers screw up with their crazy bets, then it should be them who pays the price, not the taxpayer.

Back in the mid 2000s the bankers screwed up and the taxpayer had to bail them out because their screw ups caused so much systematic risk that the whole financial system was at risk of collapse. Retail and investment banking should be completely separate (Glass Steagall) so that when bankers screw up, it's them and them alone that pay the price.

Retail banking should be a pretty boring, almost formulaic process.

When investment bankers earning millions screw up, it should be their houses, bonuses and pensions that are on the line. Not mine.