Sunday, Oct 19, 2008
Let them eat bread
Observer: High earners need to be brought down to Earth
"As Martin Wolf wrote in that well-known socialist organ the Financial Times, 'either banking should be treated as a utility, with regulated returns, or it should be viewed as a profit-seeking industry that operates in accordance with the laws of the market, including, if necessary, mass redundancies'. Since the latter is unacceptable, he concluded, we have to move towards the former - and regulation must include pay above all."
Posted by letthemfall @ 10:34 AM (382 views) Add Comment
5 Comments
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1. planning4acrash said...
Lets not confuse "middle" earners following the herd who are taking a ride and not responsible for the debacle. Its easy to say that the man down the street with a boat. No, and watch out for smokes and mirrors, patsies held up. Like, look at the "Rogue Trader" propaganda model in France, where all failures are sold as a random event.
2. stillthinking said...
In 2006 the bonus payments in the London financial sector were 7 billion in total. Or, to put it another way, 7 billion moved from bank capital to employee deposit accounts. Or to put it another way, the ability to support 70 billion of loans disappeared. That is just one year.
If you were to add the bonus payments from 2002 to 2007 I think you would find the missing reserves causing all the banks problems today. The financial crisis is seen as a matter of organisation, failure of trust, la la la, but really the banks got swindled by their own employees who have taken the cash.
3. braindeed said...
This is all getting so scarey. The bankers demand saving, with money that the taxpayers must provide and promise to continue to provide for decades, and in return they tell us that they will pay themselves huge bonuses, because without their knowledge(presumably, to have the 'skill' to demand a bail-out) there would be no banking system to save.
We, the people, now own these banks - let's flex our muscles - tell them there's no bonuses,period. You will leave - where to?
Call the bastards bluff - wages or nothing!!!
4. letthemfall said...
I think the banks swindled themselves - and us. There has been a fallacy perpetuated that bank employees are somehow worth the huge sums they are paid because of the huge sums they apparently earn. But they do not earn them. When big cash flows run through a business, it is simple enough to divert a proportion into its coffers, which is where all the big bonuses come from - not from generated wealth (how can one person really generate £millions in one year?) but from transferred wealth. The notion that highly paid individuals, and private equity firms who are grossly undertaxed, will go elsewhere and thus impoverish the country is another fallacy, which our govt and presumably the voters have believed. Even the voters who did not swallow this have been unable to do anything about it because both main parties think this way.
5. Eab98 said...
New Royal Bank of Scotland boss hired to end culture of excess lives on plush 350-acre country estate | Mail Online
It's just musical chairs! What a sacrifice! he has given up the jet! Let's wait and see what happens to the Suite at the Savoy.
What possible understanding can this man have of the average family in the process of repossession? Or people facing redundancy without a huge fiancial cushion to protect them? None I would imagine.
eight gardeners...... I suppose he is supporting the local economy.
Also completely off topic but his wife is The Master of the Foxhounds........urgh!