This week, as part of my ministry, I was called upon to give comfort to a man who had lost his home. Jon, as we shall call him, had been made bankrupt, and his home had to be sold to pay his creditors. There was nothing practical I could do to prevent this, and I had to confine my self to providing such spiritual comfort as I could.

Jon is a good man, in middle age, with a wife. He had made mistakes to be sure, but he was also another victim of the recession and credit crunch. I was very upset.

Which brings me back to bankers. And with my tin hat firmly on, a full on moral attack on the banks, those “Masters of Universe” who sit in command of them, and their pay and bonuses.

This week has seen in the latest chapter in the bonus saga, with Britain’s best paid banker, the aptly named Bob Diamond, Chairman of Barclays, giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee. “Diamond Bob”, by the way, must make do with a pittance of a basic salary of £1.25 million per year, but fortunately is probably able to stave off his own bankruptcy with the aid of a bonus rumoured to be in region of £8 million.

The Committee indulged in a spot of banker baiting about bonuses. Diamond Bob adopted a hurt demeanour, like a puppy that had been kicked for pooing on the carpet, or an overpaid premier league footballer unable to understand why administering a good roasting to a 16 year old girl should not be a natural and proper perk for him and his mates. He seemed baffled by the whole issue. What was wrong with earning over £9million a year? Like some annoying woman in a shampoo advert, his view was it was ok “because I’m worth it”.

Let me say at once that I have always been of a laissez faire point of view – within reason. If a man has talent let him use it and work hard, and reap whatever rewards may come to him.

And when it comes to taxing the banks, and the payment of bonuses, the logical arguments for the Government treading softly are quite clear:

• The banking industry makes a colossal contribution to “UK PLC” in terms of employment, profits and hence the taxation.
• In order to maintain its position – some say pre-eminent position – the City needs to attract and keep the best. That means big payouts.
• If there is over taxation and control of bonuses then the banks will simply decamp. Indeed, on the radio this morning I heard someone mention that HBOS had already started to move key staff to Hong Kong, and make preparations to move its entire administration. That would be the same HBOS I presume, which together with RBS Lloyds TSB  received a bailout from the UK government – no, taxpayer – of at least £37 billion.

It is clear therefore, that my moral qualms as to the level of payment to senior figures in the banking and indeed hedge fund business are foolish and impractical. New Labour once famously promised to deliver an “ethical” foreign policy. It was a farce; the realpolitik of foreign policy, with its dirty little wars and dodgy trade contracts saw to that.

The gross salaries and bonuses of the Masters of the Universe are a necessary, if unpalatable means to the greater good, the tax harvest that flows from the City.

Are they?

First, I ask the question: are bonuses in the sum in issue “moral”? Are they, in other words, “just” when the great mass of the population groans beneath the burden of debt and taxation, spawned to a significant degree by the follies of these  institutions? Is there no such thing as a moral dimension in this issue?

I have always taken the view that there is no need define the words “moral” and “just” with intellectual precision. Indeed, quite the opposite is the case. Like an elephant, you know it when you see or feel it. Mankind (and especially the stoic, patient British, for some strange unfathomable reason) possesses an internal compass for these purposes.

I have examines my internal compass: it says they are immoral and unjust.

No, they are not just where so many of the banks have done their best to push the world into crisis and owe money to the very public upon whom they gorge themselves like slick corporate leaches. No bailout for Jon, of course.

No, they are not just, because the banks with their Ponsey Scheme economics have wrecked lives.

No, they are not just because the men and women who claim them have not built business and contributed creatively to their communities; what they have done is shown skill in climbing the greasy internal pole of power in corporations which, fundamentally, organise manipulate and control the monies of others.

The threat by banks to remove their operations bears some consideration. It strikes me that it is rather like a dealer and pimp who threatens his junkie streetwalker. Behave, comply, and let me continue my abusive behaviour; he says. In return, you may have your fix of white powder, but you must whore yourself in return.

That is what the government – all governments – have become: an addicted  whore. Spending money is its addiction, and it needs cash to service it just as a junkie steals to feed his habit. To do this it whores itself to the vested interests of the banks.

The correct moral and practical response to such a situation I have described above are clear and coincide, although they are painful in the short term. To hell with the dealer, and go cold turkey.

The insidious threat of those with their hands on the controlling levers of financial power that they will take their bat and ball home (or elsewhere) should be seen for what it is: bullying.

It should be met by a robust and practical response from the State. There I have said it! The State! A word which is perhaps anathema to many who read this blog. It is not anathema to me.

I define it thus: the legitimate expression of the collective will of the people organised for the good of the Commonwealth. And I have no qualms about it using its sovereign power to take on and deal with any evil which affects the good of that Commonwealth. And I include bankers within that category, without qualm.

Perhaps I am now Gildas the Marxist! Well, there’s something I would never have expected to say!

I also believe the threats and blandishments about the need for employing the best talent are themselves a form of blackmail. These are not in fact the “Masters of the Universe.” Look at their works and the results of their works! All powerful intellects, serenely guiding us and their institutions? No, to slightly misquote Eddie Murphy in “Trading Places”, what you guys are is a bunch of bookies.

Is it to be said that it would be impossible for this nation to organise rivals to such corporations, with the wealth and talent available? Would it be impossible to attract new talent every bit as good as Diamond Bob, and pay them very well, but not in obscene amounts? Would it be impossible to form mutual, conservative, not for profits institutions like so many of the Building Societies used to be, until under the influence of yuppie wunderkind, they joined the lemmings of the financial community in a headlong charge to debt and ruin?

To those banks controlled and propped up and owned by the State – us – I say; reign in your pay or we bust you, and seize your assets. To those free of State control, I say, well done, and pay what you like; but never at the expense of the people, and your directors shall pay tax on every penny. At a proper rate.

Or literally, go to Hell!

Gildas the Monk

Engineer January 16, 2011 at 23:51

Not all the banks were ‘too big to fail’. Bradford and Bingley, for one,
was allowed to fail (it took unjustifiable risks with it’s shareholders’
money, and it paid the proper price). I think there were others. The larger
banks should have been treated similarly.

As to bankers’ bonuses, it has always been true that life isn’t fair. Are
the obscene sums paid to ‘top’ bankers moral? Probably not, but are
premiership footballers worth £100,000 a week? Is Jeremy Paxman worth a
(alleged) £1,000,000 a year? Since time out of mind, some people have managed
to con more than they’re worth out of their hapless payers, and I doubt that
it’ll change any time soon. Even some monks did very nicely thankyou before
the Reformation ( though in fairness to Gildas, not since, to my knowledge,
and not all monks then!). Just take the tax off ‘em, and let ‘em wallow in
their own pits of greed. Money does not, and will never, buy contentment or a
quiet soul.

Caratacus January 16, 2011 at 20:12

With you all the way Gildas.

If someone threatens me, my stock response is, “Go ahead, old Horse”. (Well
actually it’s a bit more pungent than that, but I’m making an effort
here).

Someone said to me recently that we shouldn’t kill the goose that is laying
golden eggs. In a rare moment of spontaneous repartee I was able to remark
that having a golden goose is all very well but if everything is covered in
goose shit all the time there comes a point where the goose has to go.

And anyway, where are the bankers making all this money which somehow
justifies their obscene bonuses? From transactions involving the simple
handling of money either extracted from hard-working taxpayers or funny money
run off the printing presses by obedient governments. If I could borrow from a
naive government at 0.5% then lend it out at 15-30% I think even I could turn
in a profit.

Matthew 21:12. The carpenter’s son had a thing or six to say about these
people. If he’d had a baseball bat about his person I suspect that it may have
been engaged with much vim…

Fabian the
Fabulous January 16, 2011 at 19:57

How do I get to be a banker?

will January 16, 2011 at 19:00

apologies for fulfilling the inevitable state hating comment that was
predicted by Gildas from the outset…

Withers’ comment identifying and criticising the state protected cartel of
banking was a welcome ray of hope amongst some concerning reactionary pro
state and, dare i say it, envious/puritanical attitudes.

libertarian/freemarket economist blogs are full to bursting of well
researched logical evidence pointing to state involvement as contributory to
issue. market entry criteria and further protections arising from regulatory
capture have whittled the uk/global financial industry down to a tight cartel.
profits therefore soar and there is so much cash washing around that bonuses
could include a ticket to the moon. as Withers says an open market would
probably have a greater number of actors thus leading to greater
competition.

blaming bankers is irrational and ignores human nature (a subjective
opinion obviously). if you consider it natural that a human individual will
pursue their self interest then of course bankers will lie cheat and steal but
so would any profession whose industry enjoyed such legal privilege. this is
the nub of it. state involvement has created the conditions where such
injustice thrives. the answer is not to invite further state involvement. the
problem is not that the rules weren’t quite perfect or that they were
insufficient. the problem is the existence of the rules. the only force
powerful enough to check human nature is human nature itself. competition pits
inherent human self-interest against itself. the only way to make money from
banking in an entirely free market (and i mean full on anarcho capitalism –
private legal systems etc) is to serve the wishes of the customer or lose the
business and go bust. a customer who prefers the risk of a gambling bank to
the security of a responsible competitor is rightly exercising their personal
responsibility and deserves whichever of the two results he gets. once the
coercive power of the state comes into being then it can be captured and put
to work protecting self interest. the current banking cartel has virtually no
motive to behave responsibly.
the state is the root of almost every problem
within this issue. fiat money (id highly recommend this book http://www.cobdencentre.org/2010/11/jorg-guido-hulsmann-the-ethics-of-money-production-2/),
fractional reserve banking, banking cartels, ‘homeownerism’ (as Withers
touched on with reference to planning laws inflating house prices and
protecting the age old ruling class source of wealth – land. see Mark
Wadsworth on this tool of enslavement http://markwadsworth.blogspot.com/search/label/Home-Owner-Ism)

i simply cannot believe that the politics of envy or industrial
nationalisation would ever get a look in round here

Mark
Wadsworth January 17, 2011 at
15:34

Will, thanks for linking. As to enslavement, that’s another experiment –
where the old slave owners went wrong was not allowing slaves to retire at a
certain age (say 40 or 50) and giving them a free slave as a ‘pension’.

So all slaves over a certain age would then be tricked into voting FOR
the continuation of slavery because they would perceive the future benefit
from having a slave for ten or twenty years in retriement to exceed the cost
of being a slave for the next few years.

This tactic works a treat with Home-Owner-Ism.

will January 17, 2011 at 18:14

apologies if i am twisting your concept but it was a revelation when i
first read your blog.

just to expand on why i consider home-owner-ism a tool of enslavement.
i find the view of the state as a tax farm of bonded slaves quite
convincing. i dont see this as a conspiracy or a conscious design merely
the result of hundreds of years of rulers taking incremental and
unconnected steps to preserve and protect their power. that home-owner-ism
is an almost perfect catalyst ensuring lifelong labour and thus taxable
income for the state is almost certainly no more than a gigantically
unfortunate coincidence. however taken together is does rather give the
impression that we are all tax slaves, our lives bonded to ‘productive’
struggle for the benefit of the state.

for anyone now pointing at my tin foil hat consider that most people
work ‘to keep a roof over their heads and food on the table’. food as an
expense is almost inconsequential when taken as a proportion of lifetime
earnings. that roof over your head on the other hand accounts for a huge
slice. and in order to pay for that slice you have to earn quite alot. and
all of that is taxed. so that big slice of your life dedicated to paying
the home-owner-ism inflated mortgage is further enlarged by the state
taxing you until retirement.

yours the anti-home-owner-ism libertarian anarchist.

Jiks January 16, 2011 at 13:33

his is an interesting one, isn’t it?

On one level I have no opinion what Barclays decide to pay themselves as
they are a private company. As I don’t pay for it, this is not really any of
my business. Instead, it is the business of the shareholders and customers, if
they are not happy about it they can vote out the board/take their custom
elsewhere.

The bonuses paid to the banks I have been forced to help “rescue” are
another matter of course. There’s something serious wrong when senior
management of a failed company can get any performance related pay at all as
they clearly have not been doing a very good job or their companies would not
be in this situation, now would they?

As to the perhaps more important questions of why we were forced to rescue
the banks, or more accurately their bondholders, in the first place and what
we could do to prevent more such nonsense in future … The banks, rather than
the governments, run the world these days, so saving themselves is clearly
going to be top priority, even if it causes utter havoc to their host
nation.

Take the recent situation in Ireland, where Anglo Irish bank was bailed out
at the cost of much of the nations sovereignty and a crippling increase in the
national debt. Who benefited? The bondholders, the largest of which are
certain US banks, unsurprisingly. What to do about it? A good step would be
getting rid of the private fractional reserve banking system that allows banks
to create money and debt out of thin air … a better one would be to scrap the
monetary system entirely and replace it with, well just about anything TBH as
it simply is not working.

SadButMadLad
January 16, 2011 at 20:28

What would you say if all the money that went into the bailed out banks
became worthless because they couldn’t keep their staff due to them going
elsewhere for their bonuses?

However, goverments need not have bailed out any banks at all. Most
customers would have their saving protected by government guarantees. Any
debts that the banks have would be bought by other banks. The organisations
that would have lost out would be the investers in the banks. Instead what
we have is the goverment spending money which keeps the investors happy and
no one else.

Its the same as if all car salesrooms in the country suddenly found that
no one was buying cars. So the governement buys all the cars off the
salesrooms using taxpayers money and then scraps them. The salesrooms are
happy but the taxpayer isn’t.

The thing to bear in mind is that there are two types of banks.
Commercial and retail. The retail banks tick over and hardly make any money
on our saving accounts. They aren’t the exciting banks. The commercial banks
are the ones that take risks and play the market. They are the ones that pay
huge bonuses to their top market players. They are the ones should have been
allowed to fail.

Obligato
January 16, 2011 at 21:32

And the issue is that G Brown’s liberalisation of bank regulation
allowed the same banks to do both activities; and what screwed up the
majority of the UK banks thet had problems in 2008 2009 was losses from
ill advised and poorly executed cassio operations in their investment arms
. The problem then became one of liquidity for the retail arms of the same
banks – Hence Northern Rock, HBOS etc. The failed gamblers could not be
allowed to go the wall ( as they should have ) because it would have
dragged down the retail banking arms with them.

Better informed pundits have been saying for years that what needs to
be done is to enforce the separation of the boring but necessary retail
banking (taking deposits and lending to businesses and individuals) from
antics of the spivs in the casinos – with jail for those who continue to
conflate the two

As one whose telecoms startup suffered in 2000 from financial advisors
(investment bankers) pissing the whole $25m start-up capital put up by
investors away in fees, I’d be the first to cheer at the sight of some
bankers up on lampposts – but I’m still balanced enough to want it to be
the right ones.

Jiks January 16, 2011 at 21:42

Well, I wouldn’t have bailed them out in the first place, for many of
the reasons you yourself mention SBML.

Given that we are in that position, I don’t doubt there are a number of
other people prepared to work for a mere £1.25M a year should that lot
leave.

The investment/retail split between the banks used to be more clearly
defined than it is now and this is one of the changes that contributed to
our current mess. However, all banking is inherently risky when banks
create their profit by lending out multiple times their deposits.

It can be a great way to make huge profits but same goes for losses. I
have no objection to ones who get it right keeping their winning, don’t
see why the ones that lost should get more, or indeed any, money from us
tax payers thats all.

Gildas theMonk
January 16, 2011 at 13:16

Thanks for the corrections! I do confess to something of a rushed effort,
so I take them on the chin. Also, I accept it is a more subtle topic than this
post may suggest, but at the same time to my mind there is something to
unpalatable and immoral in the level of “bonuses” awarded to people who are to
my eye less than palatable or indeed useful!
G the M

Andrew P
Withers January 16, 2011 at 14:45

There is no morality where money is concerned period.

lenko
January 16, 2011 at 19:37

“There is no morality where money is concerned, period.”

WTF does that mean? No morality? So to earn money through criminal
enterprises is not immoral? To steal money from people who earned it
legally is not immoral? Greed is not immoral?

Please explain.

Andrew P Withers
January 16, 2011 at 12:33

It is Ponzi Brother Gildas, as a cleric you may not have come across this
term.

A Ponzi scheme is a pyramid selling fraud as promoted by Governments in
their social security schemes, they collapse in the end.

I do not give a stuff about bonuses if the banks shareholders tolerate it
so be it, as a compulsory share holder in Lloyds TSB and RBS Group the issue
of bonuses should have been dealt with BEFORE Gordon panicked and bailed the
Banks out, something that has left us with a debt of £1.5 Trillion.

My beef is that Banking is a cartel and or a monopoly, new ethical entrants
are kept out by Government Regulation. Building Societies and Mutuals are
still being swallowed up. J Flowers is about to do for the Kent Reliance.

If you take out a mortgage for 25 years, your life will change, death,
divorce, unemployment etc, my humble opinion that taking out a mortgage with
an organisation whose long term view extends no further than the next quarters
results is suicidal for your financial security.

Abolish the Planning Acts that create high house prices and form local
banks based on mutual principles for mortgages. Local Commercial banks for
businesses are the only way business lending will resume.

Monopolies are the death of enterprise, Monopolies linked to Government
credit are worse than death, that is why they are called zombie banks.

Zaphod January 16, 2011 at 11:55

A powerful metaphor, Gildas.

I don’t know where I stand on this, I keep getting blown about.

Capitalism is not pretty, but it works. It needs to be controlled by the
state, or everything would end up belonging to one man, and then competition
would fail. Maybe that is the real purpose of the state?

I resist the urge to envy and begrudge the rewards to high-flyers like
bankers, industrialists, entrepreneurs, footballers, rockstars. Increasing
rewards need to be logarithmic, not linear. An extra 1k per year means
something to me, it wouldn’t to them. I need them to have an incentive. But I
also need them to fear failure. The bankers have failed, and they are
laughing. (All the way from the bank?)

There is a new generation of bankers currently climbing the hierarchy. Some
will reach the top. What lessons will they learn from this episode? How will
they approach risk? “If I win, I win big. But if I lose, I’ve got a good
pay-off anyway.” I wish their personal investments and pensions were tied to
their own bank’s fortunes.

Dennis January 16, 2011 at 11:51

I was going to write about government trusteeship and the Lockean proviso –
after all, the reality is that there’s plenty left after the bankers have
taken their bonuses.

I am, however, more interested in Gildas the Marxist: For some time now I
have suspected that you and that Sister Eva might be anti-Libertarian moles.
You may as well ‘fess up, and disclose how much of Tudway’s budget is coming
your way.

Pericles January 16, 2011 at 11:02

The bonus is not the problem.

Clarissa touches on it :  the problem is that the politicians
rushed in with tax-payers’ money to protect the banks that fund their
re-election campaigns.

I might be the Irishman at the road-side giving directions — “If I were
you, I wouldn’t start from here.” — but the fact is that we are where we are,
with bankers drawing what to some seem like obscene salaries &c. 
remuneration, solely because of the baling out of the banks &c. financial
institutions :  had they been allowed to fail — regardless of size —
the risk in their business would still exist and operate to control their
activities (or, at least, those of the survivors) ;  as it is, the
politicians have clearly signalled that, although profits are to be retained
by the private organizations that make them, losses will be socialized.

The bankers are doing what might reasonably be expected of them, what, by
and large, we all do :  looking after themselves.  The true
fault lies with the politicians.  If they were going to offer public
funds to any-one — and I think they ought not to have done — it were better
that they offer them to the mortgagors, so as to prevent their being thrown
out of their homes ;  only ignorantly, after all, had they entered
in to their untenable contracts, not viciously.

(I wish the media would learn the difference between bailing some-one out
of gaol and — as in the case of the banks — baling out a sinking boat.)

ΠΞ

John Levett
January 16, 2011 at 11:23

I think I’ve yet to read of a bank ‘baleout’. A ‘bailout’ suggests some
later settlement whereas a ‘baleout’ – if successful – results in a
seaworthy boat without liability doesn’t it?

Pericles
January 16, 2011 at 12:31

Tebbit uses the correct ‘bale-out’ (but, then, he’s an aviator and
understands the difference) ;  the rest ‘bail-out’.

An interesting reference to the ‘liability’ but I’m not sure baling out
results in a vessel’s seaworthiness :  depends on the cause of
inundation ;  usually one would expect to have to repair
something — the hull or a gland perhaps — to make her seaworthy again.

ΠΞ

John Levett
January 16, 2011 at 15:15

Hmm.. Tebbit as an authority on useage? Having now checked, I believe
that most dictionaries accept both spellings for leaving an aircraft or
for removing water from a boat although I’ve always understood ‘bale’ to
be correct in both cases. There seems to be less confusion with ‘bail’
as applied to banks as it is used in the financial sense of providing
monetary assistance to overcome a short-term (!) crisis.

Of course, it could be that you and Norman Tebbit already know what
most of us suspect – that the taxpayer is never going to get the money
back – in which case, re-floating the boat without any attendant
liability renders the use of ‘bale’ wholly appropriate…

gladiolys
January 16, 2011 at 17:37

Or is that bail – “the temporary release of an accused person
awaiting trial, sometimes on condition that a sum of money be lodged
to guarantee their appearance in court” – i.e. the banks will be in
the dock on serious charges… one day?

Pericles
January 16, 2011 at 22:37

I was conferring authority upon Ld. Tebbit rather than deriving it
from him !

And, to gladiolys :  I refer you to what I wrote
earlier :  the politicians, not the bankers, are the
problem.

ΠΞ

John Levett January 16, 2011 at 10:45

I’m entirely with you Gildas.

The justification for bailing out the banks was that the country could not
afford to let them go. My view is that anything on which the country’s
infrastructure is so dependent should not be in private hands.

The state should nationalise and rationalise any bank in which the taxpayer
has a majority holding thereby ensuring that any profit benefits the national
interest.

And don’t be afraid of being labelled a Marxist – it’s just another label
like ‘racist’ or ‘denier’ designed to shut down rational debate. The rich 1%
have always maintained their position by dividing the rest of us: feminism,
racism, gay rights, smoking bans, climate, immigration, Europe; all have been
seized upon as a means of pitting working people against each other and
distracting us while they rob us blind.

Divide and rule, dear boy, divide and rule. No wonder we get the
governments we do.

gladiolys January 16, 2011 at 10:10

Does anybody really need £1.25 million a year? Obviously yes if you want to
maintain a sun-king lifestyle, but it’s gross (in all meanings of that word),
when compared to the salary of the woman who will need to clean his company’s
loos – maybe I’d have less of a problem with bankers if they cleaned up their
own shit (literally and metaphorically) instead of expecting others to do it
for them (and also expect them to be grateful for the opportunity to do
it).

Good post, Gildas

gladiolys January 16, 2011 at 10:11

Yes, I realise not all cleaners are women, but it’s usually the women of
the world who have clear up the shit of others.

Engineer
January 16, 2011 at 23:26

Not always. A fair proportion of my professional life was spent
cleaning up other people’s ‘shit’, and at great technical difficulty, at
that. I am far from being alone in that.

Clarissa January
16, 2011 at 09:55

A factual error in there Gildas: it was HBOS that was taken over by Lloyds
TSB, not RBS.

I see the problem as not so much about the size of the bonuses at the top
of the tree but that the likes of RBS and HBOS were not allowed to go to the
wall in the same way that Lehman’s was.

Letting them do so would have produced a very sharp shock but we wouldn’t
have wrecked Lloyds TSB in the process by forcing it to assume HBOS and its
debts.

The size of the bonuses paid out are the decisions for the Remuneration
Committees of the banks and they will pay what they feel is right. People
might bitch about Bob Diamond’s bonus but it should be noted that he has
turned it down in the last few years and is also not running a state owned
bank. Not to mention that of anything he is paid, 62% goes straight to the
state anyway.

Ivor the
Boneless January 16, 2011 at 13:04

Clarissa,
I find myself inclined to agree with you. The fundamental
mistake is to interfere with free market capitalism. If the banks had been
left to fail they would have gone into administration with the viable bits
being bought out and the rubbish lapsing int0 bankruptcy. No taxpayer
bailout! Bankers are bashed but what about regulators and the ratings
agencies who were culpable too. I think the long-term fix would be a
modified Glass Steagall arrangement to separate retail and casino
operations. So not only did the government piss our money up the wall it
then went on to debase the currency thus setting the scene for inflation
which will drive many more people into repossession and bankruptcy in the
coming period.

Gildas theMonk
January 16, 2011 at 09:35

OK it’s a bit of a rant – but let’s hope it excites some debate as per
above. many bank employees at low level get a modest bonus, and I see no
problem. My real point is that at the top end there is something wrong in
paying massive sums when the banks are still in trouble, and either being
supported by Joe Public, or screwing Joe Public, or both.
Over to you
everyone – tin hat in place!
Happy Sunday!
G

Joe Public
January 16, 2011 at 15:58

I might be thought of as a ‘flying buttress’, supporting them from the
outside, but my sex life is 100% hetero.

St Paul January 16, 2011 at 09:08

I don’t get outraged by bankers’ bonus payments. These blokes are paid vast
sums to keep them honest and accept a prohibition against insider-trading. The
value of the bonus is some compensation for foregoing what they could make by
double dealing.
In the same way judges are insulated from the temptations
of bribery and corruption by being very comfortably remunerated.
The whole
furore was sparked by Gordon Brown, in seeking to divert attention from his
mistake of appointing the spivs in the FSA as UK regulators, rather than the
BoE.
Using the political dog-whistle of Spite, Envy and Greed he largely
persuaded his followers that the greedy bankers were ogres and had caused the
crisis. Or did it start in America?

JuliaM January 16,
2011 at 08:46

A chap on the ‘Good Morning Sunday’ show on Radio 2 was suggesting this as an antidote to
‘banker’s greed’.

Not sure, myself. The Hippocratic Oath hasn’t stopped doctors killing,
raping and stealing, has it?

Anna
Raccoon January 16, 2011 at 08:58

I do wish the BBC would stop referring to the bonus’s as
‘Hand-outs’!
It is commission, part of their agreed pay scale – whether
pay scales should be agreed at that level is another matter, but it is most
defintiely not a ‘hand-out’.
They woulnd’t refer to the commission
element of a double glazing salesman’s wages as being a ‘hand-out’ would
they?