Bob Diamond of Barclays

[newwave]

12 million salary AND now in line for a 9 million BONUS

"Dave" is now wiping the spit out of his eye.

I await with baited breath "Daves" fire breathing condemnation of this obscenity of greed the same as he would if the public sector workers went on strike for a pay rise.

Still "We are all in this together" says "Tax avoider" Gideon "trust fund" Geeko in a message from his ski holiday in Kloisters with his banking mates.

No doubt someone will tell me it's the "politics of envy"

'Just maybe if he called the likes of Diamond a load of greedy bastard'

if only things were as simple and black and white as that. They are that simple in the minds of Kevin and Perry, the stroppy teenagers.

I just think the Stance of Cameron goes to show (as I have always believed) that a Tory government is a government:

Of the rich, for the rich and by the rich.

I am surprised that you seem to think Cameron should not have a publicly stated opinion after all many people will look at Diamond & Co and think if this is an example of the Tory bullshit "Big Society" then you can stuff it.

It also gives the lie to "We are all in this together" as if we ever were.

I hope Cameron keeps his trap shut when (as is inevitable) the public service workers take industrial action for a miniscule portion of Diamond package.

claig, so you don't think greed is wrong and should be condemned.

The "Big Society" as I understand it is about building a bigger civil society and encouraging voluntary and charity work so I don't see what bankers pay has to with it.

Regarding possibly strikes Camerons going to get involved as they'll presumably be striking against public spending reductions which are being implemented by the Government.

I don't think Tony Blair should be condemned for earning lots of money and buying up properties. I don't think Bob Diamond's salary has got anything to do with greed. He is in charge of a business that employs thousands and that is presumably making a profit, so he deserves to be rewarded for that. Just like Fernando Torres, Ronaldo, Rooney, Sor Paul McCartney, JK Rowling and all the rest are rewarded. Good luck to them all. I am not envious of them.

claig, so you don't think greed is wrong and should be condemned.

byrel, they were not "silly promises" they were outright lies.

claig, it has noting to do with envy, it is about a fairer society although I dont expect a Tory to understand that concept.

I would be gratful if you would answer this question please.

Is the phrase "we are all in this together" just a load of political puff when taking into account the tax dodging of Osbourne and the greed of Diamond and others like them.

Or maybe "Dave" meant to say "we are all in this together except for me, my mates and the rich and powerful"

I think 'we are all in this together' is accurate. The whole country is in the mess bequeathed us by the lax regulation of the Labour Party. Haven't MPs even taken a pay cut? Of course, some people are millionaires and are wealthier than us, so they will not feel it as much as us. But they have the decency to say that the whole country is in this together and that they are trying to help the whole country get out of the mess that Labour left us. They aren't like the socialists who campaign against private scholls and grammar schools for ordinary children, and then send their own kids private. They never were in it all together, they were only in it for themselves. Now the hypocrites, who never were in it with the people, say that the Coalition has broken the 'British Promise' and that young people will fare worse than their parents. They should know, they were the ones that started it off. But don't worry about them, they will do alright, because they were never in it with us.

So to sum up your position, we are all in it together but some are more in it than others. Please correct me if I am wrong.

As a family with two adult children how am I "in it" i dont have any CB, Tax credits or benefits to lose, I/we dont earn enough to pay the 50% tax band and come out on top (a bit) with the changes to tax bands. It's the poor and unemployed who are being shafted by the Tories (as always)

Even as a non Labour voter I dont fully agree with your stance on the Labour parties guilt.

FWIW, I would point out far more Tory MP/ministers send their children to private school than Labour Mp/ministers did or now do.

How do you view the lie that the rich will take more of the burden than the poor.

BTW Diane Abbott if a fucking hypocrite of the highest order.

Tories send their kids private, but they aren't hypocrites, they don't campaign against public schools and grammar schools. They want everybody to have the maximum opportunities possible.

Of course some are in it more than others. Some will lose their homes and others won't. No one is denying that. Osborne will keep his job, along with Miliband and the shadow cabinet, and other people will lose their jobs. Everybody is still in it, because the whole economy is affected. Who knows which business will fail next and who will be out of work next?

Who said the rich take more of the burden than the poor? Was that a lie spread by the arch spinners, the socialists, in a futile attempt to discredit the Coalition, which was voted in by the public? If it was so, then why isn't Iain Duncan Smith, coming up with policies to help the distressed rich instead of trying to help the poor?

Tories send their kids private, but they aren't hypocrites, they don't campaign against public schools and grammar schools. They want everybody the rich to have the maximum opportunities possible.

As I have said many times before I am no apologist for New Labour. You will find that no NL cabinet minister campaigned against Public of Grammar schools although some MP's (quite rightly) did.

The labour government did ask the Charity Commission to look into why Public schools had charitable status and was it justified (which it is not)which seems reasonable and in an age of cost cutting the Tory government should follow this up. Far better a few rich bastards should pay higher fees and VAT than children's centers should close.

"Who said the rich take more of the burden than the poor?" that would be "Dave" :) or a least he said the rich WOULD shoulder more of the burden, another of his many lies.

If, when you risk huge amounts of someone else's money for profit, you are entitled to a personal share of the profit, why are you not, morally, personally responsible for a share of any losses?

Very good question, rabbit.

Suspect you'll be waiting an awful long time for a response from anyone in the City that is more than flannel, though...

good question rabbitstew. It's known as moral hazard. If you were liable then you wouldn't be able to gamble recklessly and profits and bonuses could suffer. Plus you know that the public is always there to carry the can. It's not a zero sum game.

Maybe the concept of "private profit and public loss" comes into play as it did
during the banking crisis. A sort of bankers version of heads I win tails you lose.

newwave/claig/edam - you point about socialising losses and privatising profits is spot on.

I used to work in the City for a commodity trader The firm I worked for was a private firm - wholly owned by its senior managers. We had no Govt guarantees behind us. Win lose or draw all the money on the line was private money. I am no socialist. I believe in markets.

My DW used to work in the City too and we are both incredibly annoyed and absolutely aghast at the bailout of the banks. It is TOTALLY wrong. The bankers should have lost their jobs and all the invetsors lost their money apart from small depositors. New banks should have been allowed to flourish and those bankers with real talent allowed to risk their own money in new ventures.

Nothing has changed at all to prevent another disaster happening again and another bailout being required. Taxpayers are being taken for a ride.

The banks need splitting up so that normal every day banking services are never ever contaminated by investment banking risks again.

Surely, if the banks hadn't been bailed out, it still wouldn't have been possible not to bail out investors or loan out colossal amounts of money, given that the State cannot allow its own Local Authorities, etc, to be financially ruined or left in the dark as to what is going to happen to them and the money they invested? Too many people and organisations had their fingers in the wrong pies - a huge proportion of them without even realising it. And to allow banks to fail and then sort out the fallout, and worry about which banks, directed by or from which countries, will take over where the others have left off, is a little bit alarming when you have foolishly allowed your economy to become completely dominated by and reliant upon the financial services industry. It would require a colossal confidence in the ability of the markets to sort themselves out, when they've done a pretty good job of demonstrating their herd stupidity.

I had a lovely dream last night - all investment bankers had donated their bonus pool to HMR&C. And pigs were flying about the skies on golden wings.

ps apologies, my ds1 has started using capital letters in sentences in a very Germanic way and I find it impossible to stop more and more creeping into my sentences. Still, Local Authorities are very important. As are State schools...

Is there any way of splitting up "normal every day banking services" from investment banking when the banks themselves are so dead set against it (which is hardly surprising, since if you link the two, then the taxpayer can be made ultimately responsible for the cock-ups)? Who is it that is preventing this from happening? Are our governments deliberately weak because they are unconvinced by the merits of doing this, or genuinely powerless? And can there really be such a clear and obvious divide between the two???

And was the overlending on mortgages to the wrong sorts of people a result of every day banking services people going mad, or a result of every day banking service people not worrying about it because they were also dabbling in packaging up bad debts in financial instruments that nobody understood and selling them on to somebody else???? Or are residential mortgages not every day banking service type things???... Or should they just not be packaged up in anything by investment bankers???

Does anyone have the sense that I'm getting a bit confused, here? Is there a helpful City person out there????

Big Society my arse.

Now, if the Big Society really were a reference to the increasing size of the average Brit's arse, then we'd be getting somewhere.

The Big Society could be great - make lots of people who were doing a good job on a reasonable wage redundant, and then get them to come in and do their old jobs for free, because they are the only ones with the time on their hands (and the skills) to do it properly.

BeenBeta - I find it terrifying that you are lecturing people on this site about finance when you apparently don't even know the difference between an investment banker and a prop trader. And as for your investment bankers take home 50% of their pay. Where, in la-la land?

Are you going to enlighten us, then, PelvicFloorTrauma? I'm still waiting for my helpful City person...