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City bonuses reach an all-time record £14bn

City bonuses have increased by 30% to a record £14bn this year. The rise is twice as big as in 2006 and likely to exacerbate the widening gap between executive and shop-floor pay.

The bonuses come against a background of record debt, rising bankruptcies and home repossessions.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2157247,00.html

How can this obscenity ever be justified?
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Comments

  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    well when people work harder and make more money for companys surely its right for the companys to pay bigger Bonuses?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    If it comes down to hard work, why is it that only the CEOs ever see the bonuses? Hm?

    Does the CEO work 100,000 times more than an average employee? If he does, then fair enough, because I wouldn't want to work a 480,000 hour week...
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    If it comes down to hard work, why is it that only the CEOs ever see the bonuses? Hm?

    Does the CEO work 100,000 times more than an average employee? If he does, then fair enough, because I wouldn't want to work a 480,000 hour week...

    Hard work doesn't just mean long hours. Responsibility etc plays a large part in this and if they've worked hard to get themselves up the ladder, then woo for them! For example, if your latest strategy wipes £500,000,000 off the worth of the company, you're pretty much fucked. However, if your strategy INCREASES the face value of the company by a similar amount, you're damned right to be getting rewarded.

    I'm not belittling the shop floor workers, but you're not going to get massive bonuses for keeping some shelves stocked, are you?

    Somebody is always going to win, somebody else is always going to 'lose'. It's just life. These traders in the City play with vast amounts of other people's money - I'm pretty sure that if they fuck up a few times, they're most likely out the door.

    Think of it as commission. If you work in a shoe shop you make, what, £5 commission for each £50 pair of shoes sold? I'm guessing here as I have never worked in a shoe shop, but I know some work on a commission basis. Now, inflate that figure somewhat... You make somebody £500,000,000 profit on a hedge fund - your commission on that deal could about to £5-10 million. I, for one, don't see anything wrong with that. It's all just taking a look at the situation on different scales. If you ended up with just a pat on the back for making somebody else all this money, then you'd be pretty bitter and would have zero motivation to do the job and work the bloody long hours these people do.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    A free market capitalist system is based on worth. How valuable are you, in monetary terms? An executive who's signing contracts worth £50k a day for the company is worth a heck of a lot. A shop floor worker who stocks shelves full of a couple of hundred pounds worth of stock a day and processes transactions is not worth so much to the company.

    That's why in a completely free market doctors would be stupidly rich, we have the government to intervene in things that are very important. They even brought in the minimum wage (which is good compared to a lot of countries even in Europe) to look after the shop floor workers.

    The record debt is due to people borrowing more than they can afford because a few years ago when the economy was booming majorly banks couldn't give enough credit cards out, even to people with poor credit history / no credit history who weren't on a massive wage were given credit cards with limits of thousands. As many here can attest to, the temptation can prove too much.

    Now we've come to a massive credit crunch which is causing massive debt as interest rates rise and people owe more by the day. But the executives who put the plans into place to sell all these loans off to people are having a party because thats all money for them.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Lots of people work longer hours, and have more responsibility, but because they're not as scarce their pay is much less. Midwives have life and death in their hands, but their pay is often 1% of what a fat cat City CEO would receive.

    I've yet to see a CEO be given his P45 without a big fat compensation cheque, either, so the "danger" of the job doesn't wash with me either.

    As you say, the fat cat City bankers gamble with other people's money, and give the winnings to, er, themselves. And the losses, well, who cares, eh? Nick Leeson certainly didn't.

    CEO pay is graded according to scarcity; that's not scarcity of talent, either. CEOs are paid so much because there can only be one CEO. It can't be that hard to sit in a big office and sack 20,000 staff, which as far as I can see is all the CEOs of Boots and HSBC do; the most dangerous part of the job seems to be the risk of serious injury from picking up the cheque.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    Lots of people work longer hours, and have more responsibility, but because they're not as scarce their pay is much less. Midwives have life and death in their hands, but their pay is often 1% of what a fat cat City CEO would receive.

    I've yet to see a CEO be given his P45 without a big fat compensation cheque, either, so the "danger" of the job doesn't wash with me either.

    As you say, the fat cat City bankers gamble with other people's money, and give the winnings to, er, themselves. And the losses, well, who cares, eh? Nick Leeson certainly didn't.

    CEO pay is graded according to scarcity; that's not scarcity of talent, either. CEOs are paid so much because there can only be one CEO. It can't be that hard to sit in a big office and sack 20,000 staff, which as far as I can see is all the CEOs of Boots and HSBC do; the most dangerous part of the job seems to be the risk of serious injury from picking up the cheque.

    Do you want some fish to go with that chip on your shoulder?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    Lots of people work longer hours, and have more responsibility, but because they're not as scarce their pay is much less. Midwives have life and death in their hands, but their pay is often 1% of what a fat cat City CEO would receive.

    I've yet to see a CEO be given his P45 without a big fat compensation cheque, either, so the "danger" of the job doesn't wash with me either.

    As you say, the fat cat City bankers gamble with other people's money, and give the winnings to, er, themselves. And the losses, well, who cares, eh? Nick Leeson certainly didn't.

    CEO pay is graded according to scarcity; that's not scarcity of talent, either. CEOs are paid so much because there can only be one CEO. It can't be that hard to sit in a big office and sack 20,000 staff, which as far as I can see is all the CEOs of Boots and HSBC do; the most dangerous part of the job seems to be the risk of serious injury from picking up the cheque.

    However, being the CEO of a big company, they have thousands of employees to choose from, you need to ask: why is the CEO, the CEO. Like any of us in our jobs - why is our boss our boss and why don't we do their job?

    Qualifications. Experience. Capability. Chance. Past achievement.

    You're right it's about scarcity, but that makes the top positions even more competitive. Although I myself am slightly suspicious that there still exists family cartels / oxbridge 'groups' that tend to give each others backhanders - removing the most capable from the running. Having said that, the very capable are still more towards the top than the less capable and experienced.

    Unless someone here has a 16 year old boss who just left school with his GCSEs, is two pay grades above you and is clueless about his job.

    With a lot of companies though there is bloat of poor quality management. I.e retail :yeees:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Quite often the CEO is the CEO because he was a failure at another large company. Look at the current CEO of Royal Mail, Adam Crozier, who was an abject failure at both the Football Association and Saatchi and Saatchi, as an excellent case in point.

    I don't think for one second that everyone should get paid the same, but there is something very very wrong when the CEOs of Britain's biggest companies are earning in a few minutes what their lowest workers are earning in a year.

    I find it very interesting that the bonuses don't end up getting shared out amongst all the workers, the board and the CEOs keep the whole lot for themselves? If thinking that is grossly unfair means I have a chip on my shoulder, then smoke me a kipper.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    g_angel007 wrote: »
    Hard work doesn't just mean long hours. Responsibility etc plays a large part in this and if they've worked hard to get themselves up the ladder, then woo for them! For example, if your latest strategy wipes £500,000,000 off the worth of the company, you're pretty much fucked. However, if your strategy INCREASES the face value of the company by a similar amount, you're damned right to be getting rewarded.
    Yet that is not the case for most people in receipt of those bonuses. Many have been parachuted in from elsewhere and have worked but a small fraction of the time that most floor workers have devoted to the company. And as for strategies, they usually come from an individual or a small team at most- not from all of the dozens of CEOs, boardroom members, directors and other senior executives who all pocket obscene 5 and even 6 figure bonuses while the bulk of the company's workfoce gets sweet fa, or if they're lucky a couple hundred quid so they can smarten their apperance or something.

    And as for strategies going wrong and the CEOs taking the rap for it, yeah right. Time after time after time you see companies that return losses and yet the boardroom award themselves nice bonuses all the same- while making workers redundant to 'cope' with the bad results.

    For all the 'responsibility', 'brains' and 'strategy', without the floor workers the company would go to shit overnight. They are as deserving of bonuses as everyone else.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Same old crap, who cares?

    The money is also an incentive for people to perform better throughout their whole careers to reach the top.. Would you turn it down?

    Agreed though, everyone should get a bonus if they performed.. but why shouldn't they earn in a day what others earn in a year? That's life.. we're not all equal..
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    The money is also an incentive for people to perform better throughout their whole careers to reach the top.

    If money is the only incentive that gets people going then we're all going to hell in a handcart.

    It'd certainly explain the behaviour of most of the UK's most profitable companies.

    Not that this discussion will change anything- they have the power, and we don't. What was it that Orwell said about the overriding image of society being a foot stamping on a human face?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    If money is the only incentive that gets people going then we're all going to hell in a handcart.


    For most people, this is indeed the case at the end of the day.

    Six figure upwards salary + a large bonus (for example) would be enough to motivate even the laziest person, in my opinion.


    Anyway - what on earth is wrong with being motivated by money? It's certainly one of my main things when working. There is no way I would do the job I do for £20k, as opposed to £100k for example.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Being motivated exclusively by money leads to greed, and greed leads to exploitation and abuse.

    Greed in Britain's boardrooms is why fat cat salaries go up by 1000% whilst Britain's lowest paid workers have to fight tooth and nail to get £5 an hour as a minimum wage.

    Greed in Britain's boardrooms is why HSBC can post £10bn profit whilst removing the profit-sharing bonus scheme from its lowest-paid workers, who are often on minimum wage. Greed is why HSBC can hound people to suicide over debts of a few thousand pounds.

    Greed is why Tesco run everyone else out of business, why the Tesco board take home tens of millions whilst the people who do the legwork take home £6 an hour if they're really lucky, and they work hard and are good boys and girls.

    Now I don't work for free, but I could quite easily earn £8-10k more in a corporate setting repossessing people's homes, but instead I work for a charity helping people with debt.

    I have no problem with CEOs earning more than me, but 200 times more than me? Maybe if someone can show that they are 200 times more skilled or intelligent than me I might have some sympathy.

    I can't believe how people always leap to the defence of those who have everything and still rape us for more.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    g_angel007 wrote: »
    Anyway - what on earth is wrong with being motivated by money? It's certainly one of my main things when working. There is no way I would do the job I do for £20k, as opposed to £100k for example.

    Personally, I would rather work in an enviroment that I was happy in and wasn't earning that much rather than working somewhere I hated and was getting loads of money.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    Now I don't work for free, but I could quite easily earn £8-10k more in a corporate setting repossessing people's homes, but instead I work for a charity helping people with debt.

    Exactly, you would rather help people than be a 'corporate' - that's your choice, no one is forcing you? You want to feel good for your work and essentially want a pat on the head for taking a hit to help others - for me, charity starts at home.

    IMO 10K is such a life changing amount of money I would work in the corporation every time, just to provide a better life for my family..

    Nothing wrong with a bit of greed either imo - keeps me motivated anyway..
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Nothing wrong with a bit of greed either imo - keeps me motivated anyway..

    At the expense of others, it's wrong.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Who mentioned anything being at the expense of others???
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Nobody is forcing me, and I'd rather be helping others than exploiting others (especially as I'm more than comfortable as it is).

    As I say, I don't have problems with CEOs earning more, its the gap between the rich and the poor that I have a problem with. It's the exploitation, its the abuse.

    One of my friends is a high-flying grad with RBS, and she earns probably five times what I do. Fair dos, she fucking well earns it. But I really doubt that the CEO works 200 times harder than me, or is 200 times smarter than me, especially given my academic background.

    It's this greed that leads us to bank charges, robbing the poor of what little they have to buy another yacht for the fat cats. It's this greed that leads us to mass redundancies after companies have posted record profits, it's this greed that destroys communities and destroys families. It's this greed that gives us anti-social behaviour.

    ASBO kids learn their behaviour from the top.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Well where else do the companis get their money to pay your wages from then?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Who mentioned anything being at the expense of others???

    Madness.

    HSBC post profits of £10bn. They charge upwards of £100 every time you go overdrawn, and that can be the difference between putting food on the table and not for Britain's poorest families. They pay their cashiers £10,500pa, and have recently withdrawn the bonus scheme to all cashiers, whilst awarding themselves huge bonuses. HSBC's executive bonuses are some of the best in the country.

    But you're right, I'm sure the huge HSBC bonuses are not at the expense of anyone else. It's magic money and it grows on magic trees :rolleyes:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So let me get this straight Sofie, are you saying all companies money comes from other peoples expense, and this is negative?

    rofl.

    So who's expense is the fat cats bonus at then ?
    It's this greed that leads us to mass redundancies after companies have posted record profits

    So Kermit, do you expect companies to keep staff on they no longer require, just because they are making more money?
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    You only have to look down my road to see it. The new sportsworld that's opened, I see the polish workers cars down there all the time, so they're probably working for peanuts while the guy who owns it can fly to and from work in his helicopter.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Sofie wrote: »
    Personally, I would rather work in an enviroment that I was happy in and wasn't earning that much rather than working somewhere I hated and was getting loads of money.



    Ah - but it's a balancing factor.

    If you had a choice of two jobs, both would make you happy, but one paid £10k more than the other - tell me which one you would choose? :yeees:

    I'll put up with up to so much for an extra £££ pile of cash. The last one took the biscuit, no amount of money was enough to keep me there, but that's the first job I've had that I've genuinely hated. You win some, you lose some.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So let me get this straight Sofie, are you saying all companies money comes from other peoples expense, and this is negative?

    Well, when the companies charge stupid amounts, yes.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    g_angel007 wrote: »
    If you had a choice of two jobs, both would make you happy, but one paid £10k more than the other - tell me which one you would choose? :yeees:

    That would depend on alot of things. (distance, hours, people I was working with, etc)
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    So Kermit, do you expect companies to keep staff on they no longer require, just because they are making more money?

    I don't expect companies to offshore all their staff so that their executives can buy another yacht. I expect hard-working employees to be rewarded, and not dumped in the dole queue because its cheaper in Bongo Bongo Land.

    I don't go in for treating employees as human resources- they are people, and companies have a responsibility to them, and the communities that these companies operate in.

    But loyalty and fairness are very outdated and unfashionable concepts in this country. The only thing that counts is cash. Fuck loyalty, fuck communities, fuck families, just so long as there's cash in it. Heaven knows why we have so much anti-social behaviour, and why violent robbery is on the increase, its a complete mystery.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    They charge upwards of £100 every time you go overdrawn,



    I can tell you straight away, right now, that they do NOT charge upwards of £100 everytime you go overdrawn. That is utter bullshit.
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    Madness.

    HSBC post profits of £10bn. They charge upwards of £100 every time you go overdrawn, and that can be the difference between putting food on the table and not for Britain's poorest families. They pay their cashiers £10,500pa, and have recently withdrawn the bonus scheme to all cashiers, whilst awarding themselves huge bonuses. HSBC's executive bonuses are some of the best in the country.

    But you're right, I'm sure the huge HSBC bonuses are not at the expense of anyone else. It's magic money and it grows on magic trees :rolleyes:

    HSBC charge £30 standard for going overdrawn actually (I bank with them) - Unless you are RIDICULOUSLY overdrawn in which case the charge increases in line with that.

    The fat cats are going to get the bonuses whether bank charges exist or not.

    How much do you expect a cashier to earn? It's not exactly a skilled trade..
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Sofie wrote: »
    That would depend on alot of things. (distance, hours, people I was working with, etc)

    I'll be clearer for you.

    EXACT SAME JOB and circumstances but £10k more.

    :chin:
  • Former MemberFormer Member Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
    Kermit wrote: »
    I don't expect companies to offshore all their staff so that their executives can buy another yacht. I expect hard-working employees to be rewarded, and not dumped in the dole queue because its cheaper in Bongo Bongo Land.

    I don't go in for treating employees as human resources- they are people, and companies have a responsibility to them, and the communities that these companies operate in.

    But loyalty and fairness are very outdated concepts in this country. Heaven knows why we have so much anti-social behaviour, its a complete mystery.

    Are you for real? It's not even a british fucking company! By that right they should have all their staff in hong kong lol.
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