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Greedy bankers abusing taxpayer bailouts to splash out huge bonuses.
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Story.
I really can't believe the fucking cheek these guys have, throwing the country to the brink of bankruptcy and then demanding to be rewarded? Apparently it's a breach of contract to cap their earnings, surely these guys lost their right to obscene payouts when they started sucking from the government teat. When is this shit going to end?
Their excuse is they need to pay out big to retain top talent, what a fucking joke when a) these are the fuckers that got us into this mess, and b) where are they gonna go? Financial services isn't exactly booming lately....we should be letting the banks fail, seizing their broke ass and firing anyone who isn't thankful to still have a job, ungrateful fuckers the lot of them.
I really can't believe the fucking cheek these guys have, throwing the country to the brink of bankruptcy and then demanding to be rewarded? Apparently it's a breach of contract to cap their earnings, surely these guys lost their right to obscene payouts when they started sucking from the government teat. When is this shit going to end?
Their excuse is they need to pay out big to retain top talent, what a fucking joke when a) these are the fuckers that got us into this mess, and b) where are they gonna go? Financial services isn't exactly booming lately....we should be letting the banks fail, seizing their broke ass and firing anyone who isn't thankful to still have a job, ungrateful fuckers the lot of them.
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Absolutely disgraceful. Greedy, thieving, amoral fucking bastards :mad:
My surprise is at your surprise. I thought you would have expected this. As sure as night follows day.
A long way to go is my prediction to your question. Sit back and enjoy the show.
BTW the Daschle quote brought a smile to my face. More of that Change We Can Believe In.
Nuff said.
Lol I'm not surprised so much as pissed off to see it in print.....it's hard to enjoy the show when you know the consequences of what these idiots are doing, everyday we get closer to a monetary reset and joe blogg just shrugs his shoulders. Meanwhile I have had some setbacks of my own which means I'm not ready to leave just yet and I have to live with it like everyone else, maybe ignorance is bliss.
And yeah, I find it quite funny that Obama can't seem to find anyone in politics who isn't a tax dodger (I mean, 4 in a row what are the chances?), yet he wants ordinary citizens to keep paying their taxes so he can fund his trillion dollar bailouts for his buddies on wall street. Sick joke.
What would you do? A bank is a financial service. The people who work within work 9-5 like the rest of us. There is too much scapegoating of the banks and not enough of the FSA or even (shock horror) the people who took on massive mortgages by lying on the form about how much they earnt and then consequently couldn't afford to pay it back.
This isn't exactly about the day to day running though is it. The banks and the wankers within have royally fucked up. WE bail them out with our money, and instead of investing it wisely, or using it to help US, they dish the fucker out to their top earners.
If this government had any balls they'd take the money back, but it doesn't. So we're the ones who are fucked over.
Surprise surprise, there's no talent leaving the banks because shock and horror, there's no jobs with insane bonuses on offer today. On the contrary, most companies are doing everything they can to cut salaries for existing staff. The deal is pretty much: 'You've got an option of a X% salary reduction or if you're not keen you'll be sacked.' :chin:
if the banks were making their own money without any help, then it would be envy - but they gave out bonuses in the good times citing their workers take risks, even though personally i disagreed and have been proven right since the government has been writing them out nigh on blank cheques
they should of been left to fail imo let the ones who aren't as dumb survive, they might as well give them croupier outfits
Jaloux - about retaining skill - the financial services market as an export service or whatever is far and away one of the UK's cornerstone industries. There are plenty of other countries that would like to have the London Stock Exchange. And they will be willing to pay. By tying our own banks hands with what they are allowed to remunerate their staff, we are restricting free-market competition.
Northern Rock has been nationalised, Bradford & Bingley has been nationalised, councils have lost a fortune because they invested in Icelandic banks, around 20 high street names are in potentially serious trouble because of the failure of the aforementioned country - and it looks increasingly likely that more banks will have to be nationalised before the recession is over. Much of this was brought about by the supposedly brilliant people running our banks. To think this all started with prats thinking it would be a good idea to sell dilapidated sheds to "unemployed black men in vests".
If this lot are the best of the bunch, I daren't imagine what the worst could have brought about!
Alternatively certain banks who are now partially owned by the taxpayer could start paying dividends to all of us, seeing as we're shareholders too.
You simply cannot extend your hand and get massive amounts of money to save your business and then award some of it to yourselves a few months later. That is taking the piss.
The fact it has hit isn't a symptom of any single incompetent indvidual, but more a symptom of the current market system we use. This is not the first time things have gone tits up because of agency problems etc. and it will certainly not be the last. By all means we should call those in power to account but I don't understand why everyone thinks that means they should be literally crucified, when if it was you or I doing those jobs we would have done exactly the same.
Why have they?
But banks should have known full well that this was going to happen. The idea of giving someone a mortgage that is 125% the size of the value of their house is retarded in the extreme - just ask anyone at Northern Rock. Incidentally ShyBoy, do not believe Gordon Brown when he says nobody in the world saw this recession coming. As Jeremy Clarkson observed "we know he's lying" on this subject like on so many others. This is not a worldwide recession, there are whole areas of the planet which are hardly exposed at all to this. The Central Bank of Lebanon saw this coming two years ago. What did they do? They consolidated the weaker banks and made sure that the economy was ready to weather the storm. As a result, they're now still doing surprisingly well.
What happened in this country? McBroon spent money as if there was no end to it. He's been running up huge debts whilst Chancellor, a debt which is now getting worse and worse. The UK now has a worse credit rating than McDonalds, for God's sake. Brown, Darling and Mervyn King are jokers whom we can have no confidence in. That's why they should be punished.
Greedy bankers, bastards, meddling spivs etc. etc. etc. ad nauseum.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/thereporters/robertpeston/2009/02/bonus_buck_stops_with_brown.html
For once, I'm in agreement with Peston about something.
Let me, again, state some facts.
1) Not everyone who works for a bank was responsible for this (you think your local bank manager had anything to do with it?) Come to think of it, those few people who were responsible within the banks are / were only a third of the problem
2) Those who were responsible for this are either now redundant or not getting bonuses this year (at least in my organisation)
3) What of those people who have worked very hard this year and merited recognition beyond their standard remuneration - should the majority be punished for the actions of the minority? Because you can bet your arse that they will be feeling fairly sore about this (myself included).
I doubt many people here would turn down a £140,000 Bonus .. the bankers are doing what comes naturally to themselves and looking out for themselves .. It wasn't the bankers that got us into this - it was the politicians around the world that didn't pass the laws that prevent them from what bankers are allowed to do.
Au contraire.
Politicians around the world have for centuries passed laws that (legally) allow bankers to do what they do.
The Bank of England have achieved a gradual monopoly through laws since it's formation. The Bank Charter Act 1844 being particularly significant. The First World War and the subsequent ending of the relationship between banks and REAL money was in my consideration the trump card.
(The US politicians passed the Federal Reserve Act 1913 and the Emergency Banking Relief Act 1933).
Today's apparent woes are the chickens coming home to roost. The result of a long partnership between politicians and bankers.
I just had a thought aboutn this point in particular.
Bonuses are supposed to be to reward exceptional performance, right? So if the economy is doing very well, it shouldn't be every single employee who gets a bonus, only the good ones. Of course, if your target is to increase sales by 10% and the whole market improves by 10%, you get a reward regardless of whether you did any work yourself or not.
Conversely, if the market is doing poorly, even if you do a fantastic job, and your company loses 5% of profit or whatever, compared to the market that has dropped maybe 25%, the people who are crying for blood will say you don't deserve a bonus. Even if you did an exceptional job.
Whether the targets set to directors are the right ones and all that is a bigger question, but after studying the issues governance last term (albeit not as in depth as others I'm sure) the optimal way of running a market is to let it do it's own thing, and use governance to restrict it where it might go 'too far' (i.e. irresponsible lending).
Bizarrely, we seem to be headed towards China's governance model currently, where rather than relying on these market controls, the governmant has a controlling stake in everything and can do what it thinks is right. Which often means all the other investors in those companies get screwed. Which is exactly what would happen if the government blocks plans to give bonuses to bank employees due to the politics of it all.
Here's another situation: there's a global plague and millions upon millions die. A fantastic doctor saves hundreds of lives, should he be given a reward based on his personal contribution, or should he be punished based on 'the market's' direction...?
SG - what I meant when I said 'nobody saw it coming' was that I don't believe anyone (or enough people) understood the true scope of it. It wasn't a case of people ignoring it - the big investors have probably lost more money than any of us in this fiasco, tied up in hedge funds and things like that.
As Namaste said, peaks and troughs are symptomic of the system, not of any individual *thing*. Bear in mind our whole economy depends on greed - the need / want to have more stuff, services, you name it. We happily criticise the banks, but don't criticise the people who habitually use credit to buy things. I'm not saying they're deserving of criticism, but it's the system we live in that we have enjoyed in the good times, and now in the bad we are looking for a scapegoat.
As for the claim that some bank cashiers and tellers need the bonus because they're only on about £15k a year, here's a radical suggestion. Why don't the banks actually do something to really help them, and give them big pay rises instead? It's not as if they can't afford to do it. Barclays announced today it had made a profit last year of just over £6billion, (not an amount of money I'd scoff at in any circumstances) whilst RBS is due to throw out £1billion in bonuses shortly.
Oh yes, and has anyone heard Macavity's line today that people who are legally entitled to bonuses should think hard about whether they should actually take them? I wonder if Jacqui Smith, his Home Economics Secretary - she who has taken over £116k from taxpayers and who would be jailed if she tried to pull a fiddle like that in any other job - would feel the same way. And coming from Mad McBroon, a man who claims back the cost of lightbulbs for fuck's sake, I think the bankers would do best to ignore this increasingly deluded Prime Mentalist.