in feeling that the bankers are REALLY taking the piss?

[glasjam]

It's almost as if we aren't expected to notice OR that we notice but that's it's so outrageous we can't really process it but - listen here, I just watched the guy from RBS on the news look very humble and self-satisfied because he has refused to take his 1.6 million ANNUAL bonus this year............for the sake of the economy, business etc....

Sorry for all the ellipses BUT really - are we to be grateful for that?? I think we all have to have a huge big economics lesson to have half a chance of understanding WHY it is a BAD thing that bankers do not get their ridiculous bonuses. And PURLEASE they are not the kind of bonuses that bring a basic wage up to something more liveable on - these bonuses ARE the wage if they would care to admit it.

Do we really have to support the million pound incomes of bankers in order to keep a roof over our heads? I loved the way Norman Lamont spoke of the Treasury as a fantastic Oxbridge club. He's right - but then why are we all holding the buckets under their leaks??

I understand your sentiments but here is a question: this year someone I know in the City is likely to generate £10,000,000+ for his employer. His total compensation will be a percentage (probably double figures) of the amount of income he produces. He isn't, by the way, a prop trader or a sales trader nor does he work at an investment bank, nor does he work at an institution which received state funding. In order to generate that kind of money he gets up every day during the week at about 5.30am and he doesn't get home until 9pm but often much much later. He'll pay 50% income tax on his earnings plus NI, his employer will also pay NI. Now, do you think anyone would work that hard and at that level if they aren't going to be rewarded by more than the minimum wage? Let's play Chancellor of the Exchequer for the day, how much would you pay him?

Well for every £100 a banker gets, the treasury gets £90* in tax revenues so it would have been better for you if he'd accepted it

(*40% income tax paid by the individual plus 50% one off tax on banking bonuses paid by the bank.

I know very little about banking, lost over £48k in shares of savings in the recession, don't have a clue about London 'city life' etc but here are my thoughts:

If the bankers should only get bonuses for massive profits, then surley that encourages them to take more risks.

As a country we were all happy to go along for the ride of the good times- and the sterio type of the risk taking, arragence, long hour worker of the bankers was well known (see various comedy sketches) but we all happily turned a blind eye.

Then we hit recession - partly due to the bankers, capitalism and people borrowing beyond their means- who are very rarley blamed.

We have to rebout the whole system but keep the skill- if we keep the good bankers surley they need incentives and the financial means to live in the city.

I now don the hard hat...

It is true that many people in he City work incredibly hard. I used to work there and 90 hour weeks were not uncommon.

I do not want to denigrate anyone else for the work they do but really most people have absolutley no idea what hard work is compared to how hard people work in the City.

HOWEVER.....

The bonuses being handed out now are beyond obscene and totally unecessary. They are an abuse of the regulatory sysem that first allowed risk to taken that threatened the entire fiancial system and then second bailed out the banks with taxpayers money. Te bankers played teh syte for all it was worth. It is what they do for a living - making deals. The bailout was just another deal to make money out of.

The banks should have been allowed to go bust and the narrow banking system of retail deposits and loans saved. The casino bankng system should not have been saved - that is where the fault lies. If it had been allowed tto go bust these bankers would have no jobs now and no bonus.

I have nothing against fairly earned bonus but that is nt what is going on here. Lloyds tis rning announced it had written off £24 bn of loans and made a net loss of £6.3 bn. Even so, many of its bankers got a massive bonus in the past few years and will in this year too. That is absolutley wrong when the bank is being propped up by the tax payer.

TYPO: "The bankers played the system for all it is worth."

They can't win. They get crucified for being awarded the bonuses and then they get crucified for giving it back. He is giving it back because the bankers have had so much flack for being blamed for the recession. And they are being criticised for still giving out bonuses when they took gov money. Most of which had to go the the lower paid employees. is a selfless symbol.No more. The fact that this guy probably doesnt need the money and yes, would pay most of it away in tax, doesnt't really matter. A small minority of bankers get these bonuses, and the majority are hardworking people, not taking any risks and waiting the year to get a bonus that will buy them their family holiday or maybe a new car. That is part of their salary. It annoys me when they are all lumped together.
It's not all like Wall St or Rogue Traders, the risk taking is misunderstood.

agree Riven, it's unfair. and the big bonus system should be reviewed, not just for the bankers, thinking big bosses of BT, eg. But you can't change it overnight, the precendents that have been set will be difficult to overturn.

I kind of agree with ABetaDad but one thing which hasn't been taken account of is the legality around paying the bonuses. In many cases, these % payment bonuses will be written into the employees' contracts and if they are not paid the employee would be entitled to take the bank/organisation to court for payment. That would cost the country even more.

There is one area of glaring discrepancy, also. In many cases, the banks (Lloyds, for example) are paying bonuses to their higher earning staff because they either have to or need to in order to retain them and also the very low paid workers but for the vast majority of staff - those on salaries between approx £25k and £100k - there will be no actual bonus payment for three years. The payment is being deferred BUT the employees have to pay the tax associated with it now. These people are not "bankers" - they are IT professionals; admin staff; contact centre managers etc. These are the people who are being penalised because of the public outcry against bonus payments. I'd say they are people like us...

Belle, yes, for the big High St banks those people are in the majority. That's what annoys me, they have no say or control over risk or the way the bank invests its money

I'm sorry but I don't agree with the comments about bosses of BT either... BT is a privately owned company competing with hands tied by legislation (in order to keep the market competitive for consumers). As with all privately owned, non state assisted companies, it's up to them what they pay their staff. As it was with the bankers before the recent crisis.

i can't help wondering why they aren't paying the country back, why there wasn't an agreement that said that we would lend them obscene amounts of money to prop up the crumbling capitalist economic state but they should pay us back with minimal intrest.

the whole thing just makes me vomit.

rich people keeping other rich people rich.

and bankers might work long hours and work weely weely weely hard for their pay - proportionally its still utterly discusting the bonuses they get

there are other people in other sectors who work just as long and just as hard and don't see 20k a pissin YEAR

Sorry skinsl, I feel so strongly about that point that I'd skip read the earlier posts and didn't see that you'd already made the point

If a steel company went bust and we bailed them out, do you think the staff would be receiving outrageous bonuses? If hard work equated to hours worked then doctors and nurses would be millionaires. YANBU they are taking the piss big time as usual.

claig I bet the senior management would be recompensed in the same way they are now!

'If a steel company went bust and we bailed them out'

Except we wouldn't

And thanks to Corus shutting down at Redcar, there will be another 1,500 people out of work on Teesside, already an area of high unemployment. And not forgetting all the businesses that relied on Corus for their custom.

Yet we support the feckless & reckless - i.e. the city bankers and their obscene bonuses.

My DH works for a division of one of these banks, in non-banking, but a related financial service. His part of the bank has always been profitable.

DH works hard to be his part of this profit-generating business, but his performance-related bonus has been taken away.

We're talking a few thousand here, btw, not hundreds of thousands or millions. And his has been taken away (like that of all his colleagues) because it's not seen to be in the public interest.

This despite the fact that it was supposed to be a bonus to reward performance.

We're lucky in that we don't depend on that money, but it irritates the hell out of me that the bankers, who are losing money, are still getting theirs.

BelleDameSansMerci, the senior management in the company would unfairly cream off more than they are entitled to, but it would be nowhere near the millions that the pirates in the City award themselves. The banks write their own rules and expect us to thank them.

Please stop saying bankers, narrow your field. I work for a bank, I got a bonus, my bonus puts me on a living wage nothing more. What you mean are the people like Bob Diamond/Brian Hartzer or other people in wealth management/investment. I worked my arse off for my bonus and quite frankly deserved it. My bet is that most people on the front line in the bank I worked for had to work bloody hard for the bonus we got and yes it would be much better if they gave us a decent wage to begin with.

It'sBeginingToPissMeOffGettingLumpedIntoOneWithThesePeopleAndIt'sSloppyThinkingTiggaxx

the disdain that they show towards us reminds me of Marie Antoinette and her "let them eat cake" statement.

I just have a problem with the term "bankers"
They are not all at fault, and it's not even these high paid, high profile, high fliers who are necessarily at fault.
A lot of them aren't worth the money they are paid and have "fallen" into these positions.

xposted tigga!!

You're right, dawntigga. Apologies.

Bonuses are still being given to those who work in banks who earn below a specific threshold. And as you say, it puts you on a living wage, which is why these haven't been taken away - no doubt the unions would have a lot to say otherwise!

But I think when we say 'bankers' most of us aren't thinking of the people who are working on the frontline, dealing with members of the public on a daily basis - and generally keeping the banking system running.

What we mean are those in investment banking, taking the risks, doing the deals, etc, etc. - and therefore the ones taking the risks.

Apologies for lumping you in with those!!!