interestrateripoff Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2010/oct/28/uk-boardroo-pay-soars Britain's bosses have been accused of ignoring economic reality after boardroom pay leapt by 55% over the last year.FTSE 100 directors saw their total earnings soar in the 12 months to June, thanks to sharp rises in bonuses and performance-related pay. The average FTSE 100 chief executive now earns £4.9m a year, or almost 200 times the average wage. Unions reacted angrily to the report today. "Don't they know that this is meant to be austerity Britain?" said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber. "These mega-pay rises blow away any claim that we are all in this together. While the poor and those on middle incomes lose out from cuts and pay squeezes, top directors continue to take home telephone number salaries without being overly troubled by tax," Barber added. He called on shareholders and the government to get a tighter grip on executive pay, at a time when ordinary workers have seen their pay kept in check by the economic downturn. Incomes Data Services said bonuses paid to directors of FTSE 100 companies increased by 34%, while basic pay rose by 3.6%. The amount of money waiting to be disgorged from long-term incentive schemes soared by 73%, to a total of £259m, and share option gains leapt by 90%. The FTSE 100 rose by less than a fifth over the same period. Huge loss / huge profit makes no difference for the bosses the big pay checks just keep coming. To get the best you have to pay it as no one else could possible do what these executives do. Workers just don't seem to understand this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Democorruptcy Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Shareholders should sell all their shares. They don't have enough voting power to block the high remuneration. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
blackgoose Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Shareholders should sell all their shares. They don't have enough voting power to block the high remuneration. Pension funds and other poor shareholders have seen very little returns in the stock market over the last 10 years and yet senior managers and directors have awarded themselves huge paydays. It really is time for some shareholder activism. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Democorruptcy Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 (edited) Pension funds and other poor shareholders have seen very little returns in the stock market over the last 10 years and yet senior managers and directors have awarded themselves huge paydays. It really is time for some shareholder activism. If we had a proper government they would pass some sort of law about individual shareholders having more voting power than boards and institutions when it comes to remuneration. I think Vince Cable spoke about something like that before the Liberals sold their souls. Edited October 28, 2010 by Redhat Sly Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
porca misèria Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 So what happened last year? Let's see now. Lots of big companies struggling, executive pay slashed. You want truly obscene pay, look at meeja celebrities. Some footballer recently in the news making Goldman Sachs pay look parsimonious. Let alone captains of industry doing the biggest serious wealth-creating jobs. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leicestersq Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Shareholders should sell all their shares. They don't have enough voting power to block the high remuneration. What I think is needed, is to amend the way shareholder votes are carried out. At the moment, most votes are stolen by organisations, and the votes misused. No way would an average shareholder vote for this sort of remuneration. However, Fidelity vote for it, because they have taken ownership of the shares on behalf of unit trust investors, and decide that their mate can have a big pay rise. As a result, shareholders are ripped off, after having their votes transferred to those who do not act in the interest of the beneficial owners. The law should be changed, so that only individuals, who are the direct beneficial owners of the shares, can vote. Institutions can own the shares, but they cannot vote on behalf of anyone else, because all evidence suggests they never vote in the interests of those that they are supposed to represent. That way we would see some real changes to this rip off. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
General Melchett Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 In todays climate, it will become increasingly important that ordinary, working people pay for and supply their own KY Jelly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
alexw Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 (edited) So what happened last year? Let's see now. Lots of big companies struggling, executive wage-slaves pay slashed. You want truly obscene pay, look at meeja celebrities. Some footballer recently in the news making Goldman Sachs pay look parsimonious. Let alone captains of industry doing the biggest serious wealth-creating jobs. Except in 2009 total renumeration fell by only 5% (and increased the year prior to that). Yet to make up for that steadfast self-denial total renumeration has to increase by 55% this year??? Edited October 28, 2010 by alexw Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
non frog Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Pension funds and other poor shareholders have seen very little returns in the stock market over the last 10 years and yet senior managers and directors have awarded themselves huge paydays. It really is time for some shareholder activism. Pension funds don't care; they are playing with your money. They're run by the same people as run the banks Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
longtomsilver Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Pension funds don't care; they are playing with your money. They're run by the same people as run the banks Correct and they are all stock lending it out to their mates in the banks for a fat fee so the traders can make a mint short selling. Looking after their own. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OnlyMe Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Corporate thiefdoms, a horrible precedent has been set by the banksters, now they all want a slice of the action. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Bloo Loo Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Corporate thiefdoms, a horrible precedent has been set by the banksters, now they all want a slice of the action. Teldar Paper, Mr. Cromwell, Teldar Paper has 33 different vice presidents each earning over 200 thousand dollars a year. Now, I have spent the last two months analyzing what all these guys do, and I still can't figure it out. One thing I do know is that our paper company lost 110 million dollars last year, and I'll bet that half of that was spent in all the paperwork going back and forth between all these vice presidents. The new law of evolution in corporate America seems to be survival of the unfittest. Well, in my book you either do it right or you get eliminated. In the last seven deals that I've been involved with, there were 2.5 million stockholders who have made a pretax profit of 12 billion dollars. Thank you. I am not a destroyer of companies. I am a liberator of them! The point is, ladies and gentleman, that greed, for lack of a better word, is good. Greed is right, greed works. Greed clarifies, cuts through, and captures the essence of the evolutionary spirit. Greed, in all of its forms; greed for life, for money, for love, knowledge has marked the upward surge of mankind. And greed, you mark my words, will not only save Teldar Paper, but that other malfunctioning corporation called the USA. Thank you very much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Hyperduck Quack Quack Posted October 28, 2010 Share Posted October 28, 2010 Even under Labour the divide between rich and poor got bigger so it's only going to get worse now we have a Tory government. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nickolarge Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 Even under Labour the divide between rich and poor got bigger so it's only going to get worse now we have a Tory government. You got that right. The problem, put simply, is that these guys are out of control and any feeble attempt at any form of control is subject to veto by the very same people it's aimed at. Under the last government we had a situation where our leaders were bending over backwards to be 'mates' with the city boys and banksters. Now we have a government made up of city boys and banksters. And some folk think that this is going to make things better. Pigs might fly. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
@contradevian Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 "We are all in this together" on the good ship Titanic Great Britain Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mikhail Liebenstein Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 Shareholders should sell all their shares. They don't have enough voting power to block the high remuneration. Shareholders need direct voting that cuts through the insulating effect of pension funds. If the people who actually owned the shares could vote rather than corrupt financial club, then these salaries would be greatly reduced. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dorkins Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 So what happened last year? Let's see now. Lots of big companies struggling, executive pay slashed. You want truly obscene pay, look at meeja celebrities. Some footballer recently in the news making Goldman Sachs pay look parsimonious. Let alone captains of industry doing the biggest serious wealth-creating jobs. Even if executives took an 80% paycut when things were going going badly, that's still £1m pa. That's a lottery win for being a smooth-talking failure. Executive pay is too high, in absolute terms, to be acting as a proper motivator. Somebody who needs to hang onto an executive job (or jobs of a similar nature) for 20 years to get a decent pile will behave in a totally different way from somebody who only needs to hang on for a couple of years to be rich as Croesus. The guy who can be rich after a couple of years has every incentive to destroy the company's future in the name of short term profits. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ingermany Posted October 29, 2010 Share Posted October 29, 2010 (edited) It is surely a leading indicator of UK inflation. Tthese guys are reacting to the environment created by loose monetary policy, low interest rates, high inflation and money printing. They know what comes next and want to take their share before the SHTF. BoE will surely raise rates. They can't credibly say the recovery is fragile when boardroom pay is rising at 55% per annum??????? It can't be a hundred Fred Goodwins bleeding their companies dry before declaring insolvency and doing a runner. Edited October 29, 2010 by ingermany Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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