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Bank/bonus ....
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
These people think they can always blackmail us.
They aint as important in the scheme of things as they would have you believe.
If they don't get what they want they will resign.
Well I say sack the fuckers before they can.
There is a huge amount of talent out there just waiting in the wings to fill their boots.
They aint as important in the scheme of things as they would have you believe.
If they don't get what they want they will resign.
Well I say sack the fuckers before they can.
There is a huge amount of talent out there just waiting in the wings to fill their boots.
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Comments
We haven't dealt with the major issue which is the unaccountability of bundled up debts. If (like with shares) all of the banks knew who was holding which debt there wouldn't been this whole crash in the first place. Granted some banks would have gone under but it was the fear of the unknown which was the issue.
Fuck knows many more will be earning at least £200,000.
That is a fucking obscenity at the best of times. When we're in the middle of a recession and when so many banks have been bailed out by the taxpayer after their own greed and incompetence nearly ruined them, it is nothing short of fucking criminal.
Put the fucking lot of them on minimum wage.
/thread
The only reason they have a fucking job right now is cos we covered their bad workmanship.
They should be thankful to Joe public and accept that this year the bonuses will not be appearing.
Sack the blackmailers now.
When all the companies were making pots of cash, everyone was happy to share in the proceeds. Now we aren't, those in profit-making divisions, and there are several, even in RBS (the FX trading division being the biggest one), people are reluctant to forego their bonus when their particular desk might have made whacking great profits and had nothing to do with all the toxic stuff that got us into where we are now.
I can understand it if you're a top trader or director, whose desk never had anything to do with sub-prime or toxic assets, whose desk has continued to make huge profits despite the crisis, and you're annoyed at not getting a slice of that pie. We all would be. That's the line that the boards of RBS and co are arguing.
If the banks are to repay the government's shareholding, they need to retain their best talent and believe me, though the Daily Mail would have you believe every banker is completely incompetent, that's far from the truth. A very, very small number of people got us into this mess and they have gone. The vast majority of investment bankers in the City are very competent individuals who will make lots of money for their companies. If the talent doesn't stay (and given that the US banks are not playing ball on this whole no-bonus plan), then the banks will continue to be run as government departments. And we all know how efficient those are...
envy much
im going to go against the grain and say bankers deserve their bonuses, and no government should even consider intervening. feel free to impose regulation on the industry in terms of acceptable gearing and risks (look at pension funds, they cant get corporate bonds that arent less than AAA ranked, so basically bonds from governments or perhaps microsoft / super companies).
but these guys work hard in a field the majority of people would struggle to understand, and end up making the country a lot of money. if over heavy regulation was employed we wouldnt have had freely available credit and we certainly wouldnt have had the nice growth from 1996 - 2006 ish where we are still today quids in.
some people just dont like the idea of people making money from hard work, especially not a lot of money.
unfortunately, bankers, like lawyers, and even managers, are the kinds of jobs where when everything is fine nobody says anything, and when things go tits up everyone complains how you're greedy / incompetent / spawn of satan. id love to see joe public daily mail readers trying to manage the financial leveraging of RBS or something and see how long they last.
I'm also not convinced there is skill or talent involved.
For the small investor, researching their investment and making decisions on which companies to invest in - yes that takes skill, but that's not what fund managers do.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/05/bankers-bonuses-public-spending-cuts
unfortunately I didn't find anything convincing, just more anger and envy. it comes down to the same thing, 'bankers dont need these kind of salaries, so why should they have them'. but footballers dont need silly salaries either, do they? but they generate a lot of wealth for their football club so are worth the money.
like i said, if things need changing, then the government should regulate -rules- on what the banks can and can't do. Maybe banks can't lend more than 1.5x at any one time of total deposits? Maybe they shouldn't advertise credit cards to people in financial difficulty?
they should absolutely not go into banks and say 'hey, its really politically inconvenient that bankers earn a lot of money - even more so now that so many people have been hard done by, so new law (cos like, we're the government), now you can't earn more than 3x the national average salary'. = lots of votes from foaming at the mouth liberals who hate the idea that some people earn more than they ever will, also = lots of highly skilled workers going 'fuck this' and moving abroad.
consider that in the sciences all our experts already leave because they get better pay abroad, do we really want to handicap our main export by forcing salaries down?
everyone says its a huge misinterpretation that these guys do anything other than twiddle their thumbs all days, but finance is a field I'm looking to go into (because I actually find it interesting) and have spent the last 2.5 years on an undergraduate degree in that field, and by no means is it inconsequential or easy.
I'm also curious as to what fund managers actually do then, as typing it into google the second link http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/06/fundmanagerinfo.asp?viewed=1 seems to imply they have to do *something*.
You'd be right, if we as the British taxpayers weren't the ones paying their bonuses. The bankers fucked up, we bought their banks out in order to save their companies and their jobs. They're the ones who owe us money now, not the other way around. If they want to pay themselves millions in bonuses then they should think about getting a new job that isn't funded by us. So I say it again, fuck them.
welcome to china.
Usual shortsighted taxpayer approach. If you want monkeys pay peanuts. Why is it only in the public sector that people think that you can get the best services from the best people in their field, for the least cost?
Fine, let the new board resign, let those bankers and leave to go to places where they *can* earn this sort of bonus (like it or not, it's the market value) but promise not to complain when the taxpayers don't get back the £800bn bail out. Ever.
I do so hate the politics of envy.
They have taxed my grandchildrens future to make life easier for themselves and I'm not convinced there are loads of jobs in big banks elsewhere that these people can just transfer themselves into.
Keep the bonus system by all means ...I don't think anyone has a problem with that at all ...but not this year or next.
They need to face some consequences.
Don't they pay taxes themselves, don't they have children and grandchildren too?
These peope are no different to anyone else. They have contracts of employment (of which the bonuses are part) and these have to be honoured. The only difference between these individuals and any other employee is that they earn more ...
I don't know, I think if they put me in a suit in one of their offices I'd give it a damn good try
You do have a point though, who are these people to practically blackmail/threaten us. "Give us what we want or we'll quit". If they'd earnt it, then I'd be on their side. But they haven't, all they've managed to do is gamble away more of our money. So let them quit, perhaps a mass overhaul is what it needs. If the bankers realise we won't cave into pressure, maybe they'll start working a bit harder not to fuck up next time.
The arrogance and selfishness of the cunts is beyond belief.
Does that apply to doctors mechanics bricklayers politicians etc ...we should dip in our pockets lose our jobs etc and they should be protected at all cost?
They destroyed a bank and have ruined many lives b ut ...no consequences ...does it say that in their contracts?
Joseph Cassano's contracts awarded him over £200m for wiping out AIG, haha.
Wrong actually.
Pre-crisis RBS board:
Chief Exec - Sir Fred Goodwin
Chairman - Sir Tom McKillop
FD - Guy Whittaker
Head of Global Markets - Johnny Cameron
Head of Risk - Peter Nathaniel
Current board:
Chief Exec - Stephen Hester
Chairman - Sir Phillip Hampton
FD - Bruce van Saun
Head of Global Markets - John Hourican
Head of Risk - Nathan Bostock
Your willingness to open your mouth and vent your spleen despite knowing bugger all about the subject on which you choose to opine smacks of the same ignorance and jealousy, trussed up as some sort of karmic egalitarian schadenfreude, that has come to categorise the most vocal elements in this debate.
I could even go as far as to say that Peter Nathaniel didn't really have much to do with it as he only joined in 2007 but sadly was a victim of Fred's imperialism and had to go because of who he was rather than anything he did.
These are not the people who made the calls that got us into this mess. They're gone. These are the people trying to sort it out. The whole GBM and Risk divisions in RBS have had such a massive clearout that basically anyone who was responsible for what went on is *not* there at the moment. Take it from someone who works there.
No, I'm saying that those who are entitled to these bonuses should not pay for the people whom preceded them.
Nor should they lose out because people are envious.
Very few people are chilling out feeling envy right now.
The fact there have been a few casualties is the way these things go.
The industry failed us ...to our cost ...but not too much their cost.
Thats why people are angry.
What other industry would be able to hold the country to ransom to make sure they're ok?
Ransom it is too.
With threats some of which might be real.
What happened to capitalism here and it's values?
Gamble and they win ...they make money.
Gamble and they lose ...they take our money and win again.
Thats criminal.
Ignoring public anger and opinion is foolish.
If they take thirty quid off you for being overdrawn ...they don't even have the deceny to send you a bill like every other company on the planet would have to.
Nope ...just take and ...this just helping themselves can throw people into more problems ...do the banks care about you?
The evidence would suggest not.
Well they haven't explicitly said that, and people like myself, I'd be happy in finance just because I find it really interesting. But its demand led. The CEOs of these organisations want to make money for their shareholders - that is their main job. If they are seen to be failing, they would get cut from their job. One way of maximising money in a service and 'information' industry in a way is to get the very best people working for you. And so starts the bidding war, as firms try harder and harder to get top talent, which will probably make them 10x the amount they cost anyway so they're all good value - that's why they get up to the silly amounts they do.
It's the same as footballers, all the different clubs want to win championships, so they bid up the price of the very best footballers. But if Rooney had scored say 30 goals in a season which earnt him a bonus, but at the same time people weren't happy the club hadn't won the cup, should he be stripped of his bonus because it's unpopular?
Everyone keeps pretending that everyone in this entire field is completely incompetent when that's not true. And even a little hurtful tbh. But I guess it's the same for anyone in (or aspiring to be in) an unpopular profession, people won't like you and assume you're shit at what you do (example, police officers anyone?).
The big, big, fuckup was in America, and the way they handled their sub prime mortgages. Our banks as any other financial institution diversified its investments and that included buying mortgage portfolios in America, and mispricing the risk. But it wasn't just the banks, it was the -entire- market. And the -entire- market frequently misprices things. It's like herd mentality, if something is priced high even if its value would appear to be lower, people will 'believe' it is worth more because other people do.
And people make millions by manipulating behavioural finance and getting ahead of the crowds, including the banks.
BTW I agree 100% with MR on the bank charges front. But that's retail banking not investment banking, where the entry requirements are a bit lower
Not saying you're wrong, but does that also include the tellers, cash in transit drivers, mortgage advisers e.t.c.?
If anything, they're in the same boat as us. The banks fuck them over just like they do us
From reading Cityboy's book, it seems the bonus culture in investment banking is much less based on real skills than on schmoozing, blagging and gambling. However since he's a complete twat too it's hard to trust what he says either.