When I heard that the City bonuses are going to amount to £7 billion this morning, I sincerely wished that someone somewhere would start a revolution

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Coming as it does after yesterday's Child Benefit announcement, I am beginning to feel positively anarchic.

I think there should be a General Strike over this, or at least a protest march in London.

Erm, that'll be the government who has to clear up (and pay) for the mess they caused by a total lack of integrity and pursuit of greed.

The right thing to do is always the right thing to do.......

You know the policy : "Tough but fair"

I recently attended a meeting at a city pensions fund. The offices were screaming in your face affluence. I read that the pay of ordinary workers in the City was up 12% in one year. That in Holland the same pension would pay out twice as much due to the fees charged by fund managers in the UK, etc, etc.

At the same time, I see cuts following the bank bailouts to things like school repairs, new playgrounds, and a friend will probably not now be able to fund her son's riding for the disabled as her Dh earns just over the tax threshold and she will lose the child benefit which paid for it. Why isn't that riding therapy free... more questions.

I find it so galling that the people affected and the people who caused our financial crisis are so very different. Different lives, often different part of the country.

It is easy to say cut hard when it is not your children who will be affected.

I have never felt so politically furious.

I type too slowly!

"Bankers may be involved in making profits, but it is funny that they don't seem to feel the fall-out as a consequence of making severe losses."

A mate of a mate was a trader and made LOTS of money for his bank. Then his model stopped working and he lost his job. He certainly felt the fall-out (and hasn't managed to get a job since I might add)

I regularly do 60 hour weeks and got no payrise last year. sorry don't buy that argument.

I know plenty of people who work in banks who are back office staff and still earn a fortune in bonuses. Back in the day I was a corporate lawyer and my salary, although high, was still very low compared to bankers.

I agree that it is wrong wrong wrong given the mess the banks got us into and the mess the country is in. But feel unable to argue coherently what the answer is.

I'm sure I read somewhere that if it came down to it not so many people would leave as threaten to.

Bring on the revolution I say!

Would love to know how these figures break down. I can assure you that these headline figures for bonuses and payrises are far from universally applicable. There is a huge range within "the city" and among "bankers" but of ocurse the media just like to reinforce the stereotypes.

The banks would all be bust if governments didn't step in to save them. They didn't just save the ones that they openly rescued. They saved the entire financial system because the system is inter-related and the failing banks were counterparties in deals with the 'successful' banks. The government had to act as final guarantor otherwise the whole house of cards would have collapsed, when certain counterparties failed to meet their obligations. That's why the inter-bank lending market seized up and banks refused to lend to other banks. Without the tax payer standing behind the Rolex-watched high-rollers, they would all have been bankrupt.

The banks that are now profitable, are profitable as a result of the billions that have been pumped in by governments. Without those billions, they would be out of business.

Here is what Martin Wolf said in the Financial Times

"First, all the institutions making exceptional profits do so because they are beneficiaries of unlimited state insurance for themselves and their counterparties. As Andrew Haldane of the Bank of England argues, the state has ?become the last resort financier of the banks?.* In the UK, total support amounted to a staggering 74 per cent of gross domestic product. These must be the largest business subsidies ever.
Second, the profits being made today are in large part the fruit of the free money provided by the central bank, an arm of the state. The state is giving the surviving banks a licence to print money."

"At the same time, I see cuts following the bank bailouts to things like school repairs, new playgrounds, and a friend will probably not now be able to fund her son's riding for the disabled as her Dh earns just over the tax threshold and she will lose the child benefit which paid for it. Why isn't that riding therapy free... more questions."

Those cuts are not directly caused by the banking bailouts. The cuts are caused by the Government spending far more than it's been earning. While the income of the Government slumped it just kept on spending and spending and spending.

Last year the Government spent £160 billion more than it earned. When it's total spending was about £620 billion you can begin to see the scale of the problem.

And that gap isn't down to bailing out the banks.

Even if the bailouts had never happened, even if we had absolutely no national debt, even if we didn't pay any interest on our national debts (about £40 billion a year) we'd still be spending more than we earn to the rough total of £120 billion a year.

That's not sustainable.

And that's why there are cuts.

um how come they're finding money for free schools then badgers paws

Banks are licensed to operate. Since they are capable of making such huge profits and paying such huge bonuses, then part of their licence could be to pay far more back in tax than other businesses. if they didn't want to agree to the licences, then they could exit the business. I doubt that many of them would.

Don't think I can agree that the current financial problems have nothing to do with the bail out, Badger...

Though, I agree that there was an increasing gap between spending and income before the crisis.

Sorry but LOL at cries for revolution because some people make more money than you. (Or perhaps such jealousy has always been at the heart of all revolution?)

Government cannot tell private companies not to pay their employees what they see fit. That is not possible and it is never going to happen.

This is not about "bankers threatening to leave". Individuals who will leave for less stifling jurisdictions will not be many. UK's primary concern here is not to lose entire financial institutions. In recent years, London has surpassed NY as the financial center of the world. Losing this coveted status would be foolish, given the tax revenues and all sorts of spending from high-income families who work in this industry.

You may be working as hard or have gone to the same school as an investment banker making huge bonuses. That only means that he has chosen an industry where hard work is rewarded more handsomely, perhaps foregoing his passion of becoming a teacher.

and of course wayne rooney and his ilk really deserve the money they get paid????!!! I think not. That is something that really sickens me.

Bear in mind that the treasury has already lost c. 250million pounds in tax revenue from bankers who have had enough of the "banker bashhing" in the uk and moved to Geneva where the Swiss are happy to have them and the money they bring to the local economy. Maybe when the UK coffers are short of another 2bn or so people will start to get the picture.

As a few posters have said, its not 70k for everyone who works in an investment bank. its alot more than that for a very select few. 80% of bonuses go to 20% of the people as a rule and they have worked very hard to get there, and are generally very clever people who generate alot of commission for their employer. I have worked in the city for 15 years and you dont get handed bonuses for just "doing your job" .....

Claig - I think many folk would like to play hard ball wiht the banks. And I can quite see why.

But should we risk it?
The emmergence of the financial sector in the UK was relatively recent. They were induced here by low level regulation and reasonable tax laws.
I'm not convinced it would take that much for them to go elsewhere.

And given how much they owe the tax payer, ought we to risk it?

I do agree with Cote there is bugger all to do about it. Some sectors can pay more due to profits.

Nothing to do with long hours or working hard or worth to society,

claig - What exactly do you think "exit the business" mean in the age of the internet and the ease of money transfers in today's world?

You try to tax financial institutions at a higher rate and many will close shop in the UK, pure and simple. They will extend their services to UK customers over the internet. They will not be based in the UK so will not be liable to pay taxes in the UK at all.

Your understanding of "banks" is maybe limited to high street banks who rely on customers walking through the door, but a large chunk of the industry are private equity firms, funds, investment banks, financial research providers etc who don't have to be face to face with the client every day.

In other words, what you are proposing will never happen, and for good reason.

"um how come they're finding money for free schools then badgers paws"

Probably because compared to £160 billion the costs are peanuts and some bean counter has claimed that they might save some money by involving the private sector in education. So saving money is no doubt one of the biggest goals of what they're doing.

"Don't think I can agree that the current financial problems have nothing to do with the bail out, Badger..."

Well some of the deficit, about £40 billion, is due to interest payments on debts which are partly made up by the bail out. But £120 billion of the Government overspend has nothing directly to do with the bail outs.

Where the connection does come in in that the economy got trashed when the banks crashed. Money stopped flowing, business shut down, tax revenue went down and benefit payments went up.

Alas Litchick the 60-70 hour work week argument holds no water with the teachers who do that as standard and earn a tiny fraction of the bankers wages.

you're right, they were enticed here by offering a lower level of regulation than in the States for example. The States is the heart of the capitalist world, and people like Bernie Madoff are in prison cells over there.

Where would they go? They need to be in Europe due to the time zones. They need a communications infrastructure, ancillary services, airports and travel networks. They need the English language, they need to be able to attract the Rolex watch crowd to want to live there. They need schools which can educate the Rolex watch crowd's children and they need top universities. France and Germany want more regulation, so they wouldn't offer them a free ride. Where would they go? Luxembourg? It's a lovely place, but they go to bed at 10p.m, there's not much entertainment at night. London is an international capital with all sorts of attractions for the high rollers and provides an environment that the international high rollers want to bring their children up in.

I agree about footballers, actually. I find some of their salaries hard to stomach because they are employed by the club, the club has to earn the money to fund the payroll, a proportion of the clubs' money comes from ticket sales, ticket prices are now scandalously high in the premiership so that football is no longer a game accessible to many working class people. £50 minimum to see Chelsea, for eg.

As to everyone else, Cheryl Cole, Simon Cowell, JK Rowling, Julia Roberts - they are simply self employed. Yes, of course, they will take advantage of tax loopholes and those urgently need to be addressed too. But otherwise, fair play to em.

Claid - they are leaving already - and going to Geneva. very nice lifestyle. Skiing on the doorstep, lots of international schools, friendly business environment, lower tax, french/english and german speaking all possible. same time zone....

I agree that the high rollers like it here.
But let's be honest, they liked NY before, but still came.
They are greedy.
They will go where they can best make money.

claig - you put into words what I was scrabbling towards with "materialisation", blah, blah, blah. I have to say, I do think you have a point.

"I do agree with Cote there is bugger all to do about it".

And this is exactly what causes the peasants to revolt. A feeling of powerlessness in the face of gross inequality. I wonder how much further the chasm between the haves and the havenots can widen before something snaps!

Vive La Revolution!

Am interested to know if it is only banking that folk think the government should be involved in?

Or do folk think that they should involve themselves in anyone's business affairs? IE in telling them how much they can pay/earn.

I do find it hilarious that some think it is a threat to say I personally will leave.