Osborne’s Command and Control Economics
George Osborne is off to Canary Wharf this morning to make anti-Banker noises at the Reuters HQ. His speech will call for the successful to be penalised as an act of collective punishment for the mistakes of senior management. No word as to what punishment the Bank of England Governor and Chairman of the FSA will face, Guido suspects none.
The argument is that now the government is the owner of banks it should set the pay and conditions of staff to satisfy the democratic will. Shareholders are of course entitled to exercise control. However if Guido was a proprietary trader at RBS contractually promised 10% of the profits he wins for the firm, only to be told that the Chancellor wants to breach the contract and unilaterally cut the bonus, Guido would first call his lawyer. Secondly, Guido would start looking at renting office space in Dubai or another financial centre with a zero rate of income tax.
Bonuses are taxed, so next year half the £6 billion bonus pool could be lost to the exchequer. The successful traders who make profits for their firms help the banks re-build their balance sheets, why drive them overseas? Punishing successful City folk after the event is a displacement activity when they should be punishing those responsible for the crisis – central bankers, regulators and those few bankers who actually had direct responsibility for the crisis.
Bonuses are a form of deferred performance related pay, no profit, no bonus. The easiest way to clamp down on bonuses is to have a moribund economy…
UPDATE : Labour’s Lord Myners, who really ought to know better, is now (Thick of It style) pushing a rival plan this morning. Forcing investment banks to reduce their fees for capital raising. He seems to want to further erode bank profits. How are the banks expected to rebuild their balance sheets?
“The easiest way to clamp down on bonuses is to have a moribund economy…”
Resuld
Vote for the Socialist Party Mark II Conservative Branch
Fuck off to Dubai, Spivs
Financial misconduct = Conservatives
Putting growth ahead of deficit.
The German government will not cut the deficit and will not cut public spending until the country as safely emerged from the downturn.
The new coalition’s central message is that boosting growth, not fixing the burgeoning budget deficit, would be its top priority.
“It would make no sense to start talking about savings measures in a phase when we want to concentrate on growth stimuli. It would have the opposite effect.”
Conservitudes, wrong on the recession, wrong on the recovery.
Hahahaha
Government debt is merely deferred taxation, Government spending is only hiding the real problems in the economy, and making the recovery slower.
The Germans however didn’t go for stimulation.
Merkel probably managed to get the whole of the Eurozone to avoid printing money.
“The Germans however didn’t go for stimulation.”
Whereas Mastur Bator always goes for self-stimulation!
Figures!
It’s like the recession didn’t happen around here.
In what mad city cock-sucking world do the Bankers and twats who fucked the economy get defended and lauded as if they were economic geniuses and not the dribbling morons and thieves we all know they are ????
This blog get’s nuttier and more far-right every day.
We’ll get reposted Fox News articles next and Sarah Palin speeches
No forgiveness for Brown and No forgiveness for the Bankers!
take your City-Spiv blinkers off for god’s sake
Government for the last 12 years = Liebore.
But Dave and George are Liberal Socialists, unlike Gordon who is an authoritarian socialist.
Bring back Blair, he was a proper Tory and carried the baton from Mrs T. Alas there is no one to pick up that Tory Baton now, this is why Norman Tebbit advises Tories to vote UKIP.
We don’t know how liberal they are until they get in.
I remember old-tory distaste for muscular dogs and parties in fields.
As you say Tim, parties in fields, and this is where the agenda really started to manifest itself.
The Police State Britain, the United Condom, started under John ‘Family Values’ Major with the 1995 anti hippy laws.
I left!
I will never return!
You dumb arsed twats have all got exactly what you invited!
You think crowing about how do you fucked off when things weren’t exactly to your taste is laudable in any way?
Blair 2.0 actually.
Guido would start looking at renting office space in Dubai
Wot no Booze?
Booze – but you can’t afford it !
US government imposes Chrysler executives’ pay limit.
Hahaha
There’s plenty of booze in the hotels of Dubai – not cheap though, but a load cheaper if 40% of your income isn’t with Gordoom and Darling…
Heaven help us if team Cameron ever comes to power. We need change.
Hang Osborne!!!
(Not to mention the interest rate-setters at the BoE who casued the crisis by holding down interest rates too far for too low)
The BofE is a Private Company, do your own research into this, these Bankers we are all slagging off for their million pound bonuses are sacrificial lambs so that we the Proles will demand change.
The real villains in all this are much higher up in the food chain, you know the sort of people whose wealth is estimated to be around the 100 to 500 Trillion mark.
You know, the Bosses of Brown, Cameron and Clegg,
you know, these sort of people.
A short lesson in Usury
I bet Guido gets a Telephone call in the middle of the night over this one, it’ll be gone tomorrow.
It’s a little more funny and it shows what a plonker he is.
Pay it in shares so that more money is available for lending.
OK, so 500 million for bonuses. Pay it in shares. OK. Go in the market, buy 500 million of shares, pay them in bonuses. Woops no money for bonuses.
Nick
George hasn’t got a clue. At least paying them cash taxed 50% at source is a nice instant earner for the Taxman.
Guido is talking about traders.
Osborne is talking about High Street banks.
And Nick 85 is talking bollox!
the consequence being we become camp pantomime dames ?
Horrific indeed!
Nah, Guido.
You got out of the wrong side of the bed this morning.
Thse guys are part of the problem, not part of the solution.
If the government doesn’t create the boom-and-bust, then these guys always do.
They invent their own money, their own stock (for crissakes), their own terms, and their own insurances. If the markets aren’t moving enough, they engineer volatility themselves.
They messed around last year wuth the oil price, they are going to do the same with rice, water, metals, currencies, everything.
I don’t trust any of them one inch.
Can’t you see it, we is kaput.
A complete rip-up-and start again is what is needed.
Most of us aren’t afraid of that (some of us are too lazy meantime)
What he said.
The only “invented” money is government (BoE) money. Banks (eg Barclays, RBS etc) can lend more than their capital and to the dim that might look like creating money, but since it all must be paid back in real money it isn’t.
Only the government can print money with no backing and never need pay it back. The recent credit crunch is an exact example of ordinary banks lending and not being paid back – they go bust. Governments like the UK and Zimbabwe just print more.
Err, no it aint.
Read up on naked short-selling and how these smart-alecs are (in effect) forging shares in companies and trading them;
Read how they are inventing packaged loan deals and payment terms, writing & re-writing deals to make extra fees, interest margins & charges -sometimes even on non-existent debts;
Read how they are trading at super-high speed just ahead of their customers and creaming off bucket-loads of pennies every second in rip-off trading.
This useless government isn’t the only bunch printing money, some of the smart pinstripe crooks are doing it too.
The Govt Doesn’t Print money, it Borrows it, if it only printed it, we would be in a much better position.
Let me explain.
The BofE isn’t the BofE
It should be more Properly known as the Bank of Rothschilds.
If Cameron, Clegg and Brown knew about this he’s be outraged I’m sure, they will be fuming when they find out.
You see if you Call your Private Bank, the Bank of England and Print bits of worthless paper with British Pound written on them and get their Lackeys in Westminster to Borrow them at interest, the stupid fucking Proles will never suspect a thing.
You have do laugh don’t you, we are no better off than the Egyption slaves, paying half our wealth in taxes for totally unnesecary Govt Borrowing and our political Masters are carrying out a Eugenics programme on us now that they have stolen the entire wealth of the Nation because those who are replaciung us will have even less idea about British Constitutional Freedom than we have NOT been taught About in our schools.
But if you think this is bad, you aint seen nothing, more later, cos I reckon you will all have to sleep on this one first.
3rd in a third rate country
Thanks to ZaNuLab we are a third rate third world county……….
Vote for us, vote for no change.
No! no! no!
Successful workers should be paid well, but this must be fixed to long term performance of the institutions they are working for.
Payment in medium to long term options of the stock of the company they work for isn’t just one way to solve this it is the only way to solve it.
Pay them as much as you like but reduce the risk by making them wait until the all the risks are out of the system.
Yep, as Warren Buffet says, leverage based economic systems are bad news because they fuck up. He also believes in taxation systems where people who earn lots of wecge and big bonuses should pay big wedge to the exchequer; fair play!
Evan Davis talks to Warren Buffett
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8322957.stm
Did he show Buffett his Prince Albert?
Well long term pay in options and stock worked well for Lehman’s didn’t it?
Is that why they failed?
I always thought it was the ridiculous gearing and readiness to take on risks they didn’t understand!!
Not rewarding the behaviours which benefit the company are at the bottom of their collapse as well if you take the time to look into it.
The single lesson of the current crash is this, don’t let the Government create too much credit!
The Government MUST set a M4 target and alter reserve requirements to match it.
The single lesson of the current crash is this, don’t let the City fuck the economy and their own companies up the arse because you were bending over backwards so much to praise and grovel at their feet they couldn’t help their thieving piggy greedy selves
And taking their cock out of your mouth would help immensely too
Isn’t there a further lesson – namely to separate the casino stuff from the boring old payment-processing and loans side (as advocated by Mervyn King)?
That way, if the casinos went bust, our High St banks would continue serenely on and the only ones to suffer would be those who invested in the casinos. Which is as it should be.
The blighters MUST be up to their old tricks – the sort of profits they are reporting never came about honestly. (If they did, it would represent a spectacular failure of the market to lower prices, ie a once-in-a-blue-moon event.)
Angry NeoCon Mong …
The City doesn’t make the rules – it obeys them or goes to prison. The politicians MAKE the rules and never go to prison.
I can’t help thinking this story is of little interest.
You should be talking about New Labours planned ethnocide of Great Britain.
Everyone in the media should be talking about the most traitorous act in British history. But they are not.
Traitors to the left of me. Traitors to the right of me.
Too damned right. I’ve noticed that there’s been no mention of Andrew Neather here.
Hitler diaries.
Guido is half Indian/Irish. He is in favour of unlimited immigration. You must be new here.
he’s a pukka paddy.
I don’t wish to appear daft but isn’t there a simple, sensible solution to this immigrant for labour votes business?
Don’t let any first generation immigrants vote. No matter where they are from.
Sorted.
Even better, take a leaf out of the Middle East and don’t confer citizenship on people just because they work here for a couple of years.
Same as Germany…
It’s a if no one cares,what’s going on? they have been caught bang to rights.
Don’t tell me there was a conspiracy all along.
Thanks to the internet, many so-called conspiracies have turned out to be true. Just calling someone a “Conspiracy Nutter” doesn’t work anymore.
The idea that Calling people Conspiracy theorists just to discredit their views is just a Conspiracy theory.
Anyone who believes otherwise should be wearing a tin foil hat.
Jesus even I’m confused now, whose side am I on again ?
What has happened to Cameron’s decisive statement on Labour’s secret eugenics programme. Was that just Tory spin?
Can’t help but think that this is what was going on in the 20′s and 30′s, Hitler tried to stop it and so the One Worlders ganged up on him.
This is not going on just in the UK though, this is happening throughout the Western world so there is a bit of Disinformation here, this wasn’t a Labour Idea, this is an EU NWO Eugenics plot.
Aren’t our Armed forces part of the checks and balances to protect Queen, Country and the British people.
The Neather story is the dynamite that refuses to go off. Melanie Philips in the Mail has got Nu Labor bang to rights, whatever her previous mistakes her piece today is definitive:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1222977/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-The-outrageous-truth-slips-Labour-cynically-plotted-transform-entire-make-Britain-telling-us.html
The only yawning gap here is the use of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’.
Was going to email this link to anyone I could think of who hasn’t ‘got it’ yet, but then realised that, by now, you’ve either got it or you never will.
We Are The English. This Is Our Land.
http://www.darklake-synectics.co.uk/ithilien-web/index.html
Not Jack Straw’s.
A Minister said his vision of Hell
Was three folk singers in a pub near Wells.
Well I’ve got a vision of urban sprawl
It’s pubs where no one ever sings at all
And everyone stares at a great big screen
Overpaid soccer stars, prancing teens
Australian soap, American rap
Estuary English, baseball caps
And we learn to be ashamed before we walk
Of the way we look and the way we talk
Without our stories or our songs
How will we know where we’ve come from?
I’ve lost St George in he Union Jack
It’s my flat too AND I WANT IT BACK.
From ‘Roots’ by Show of Hands.
The ‘Minister’ was Kim Howells – may the fleas of a thousand badgers infest his armpits.
‘Flag’ not ‘flat’. Doh…
One Folk!
One Party
One Leader!
Hail!
May the thousand fleas each bit a thousand times.
meant to say, the only yawning gap is the ABSENCE of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’.
Many thanks for this link, FF #66.
I read it and am outraged.
There’s a link to the side of Guido’s site which reveals the original confession that led to Phillips’s piece:-
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-23760073-dont-listen-to-the-whingers—london-needs-immigrants.do
It’s the biggest pile of preening, self-satisfied, deluded carp (anag) I’ve ever read. And it is HAIR-RAISING!
Damn right – why the omerta on what Andrew Neather revealed in the London Evening Standard last Thursday? Why the conspiracy of silence?
Labour = Traitors!
There’s no point debating it or trying to stop it, Hitler tried to stop the One race one Worlders in the 30′s but they just keep coming right back.
I’ve never been rude enough to mention any suspicions that some city activities are just glorified gambling.
But you just used the expression “profits he wins “
City folk I have met are not in the slightest bit backward in calling the City the “Big Casino”.
Wake up Guido..the clocks went back on Saturday night.
I haven’t put my clocks back for years, don’t know why people bother, just another bit of state control, fuck ‘em, I say.
There’s certainly a load of bankers relocating to Dubai (and other places I’m sure – Zurich?) – why would they not, given the politicians want to start changing contracts of employment retrospectively?
These guys (of all parties) need ot realise that we are competing in a global economy. The most likely result of trying to penalise the rich (cf. the 50% tax rate) will be an increase in emigration of those higher-rate taxpayers who are necessary to maintain any leval of government spending currently planned for.
Trust Labour to fuck up the city just like they’ve fucked up everything else. The one jewel in the crown left and now they want to tamper with that, too. The results are always fatal with this shower of cυnts. Everything they touch turns to shit.
That is a statement of pure truth.
O/T
Is it still British Summer Time in Guido-land?
I agree with you Guido, the “high flyers” need to be rewarded, but then tax them. It’s always worked that way, why re-invent the wheel. It is all hot air from Osborne, playing headmaster,”now boys behave or else”, never worked at school and won’t work in finance either.
It’s just spin so the Tories can claim they are against the bankers too. Mind you I think some bankers should be in prison, and so should some MPs.
No,
JUST Don’t Punish the Successful.
Stop measuring how useful you are by how much tax is extorted from them.
Taxation is generally bad. Taxation or Income is morally wrong (as well as economically disastrous).
And completely unnecesary, if we coined our own money and issued that into the economy there would be no borrowing, no debt and hence no need for income tax.
Great idea!! I’ll print a 1000 Budgie’s Bungles – my new currency. I say my 1000 Bungles are worth your house – give me your house and I will give you a 1000 Bungles. By your logic you must be satisfied. Doh.
You really are the thickest, most pretentious, fuckwittted imbecile that posts on this right-wing window licker’s blog. You are a boring piece of bog-roll; no wonder your missus fucked off with the Big Issue seller.
The bankers need duouble-tapping, just like you…
Fucking delicious!
Can’t see the difference between the bankers and the MPs myself. All troughers off the public.
The banks will only write down loads of their investments with our money, then pay themselves big rewars when the write downs eg on commercial property turn out to have been overdone.
Banker can take the hit like the rest of us and if they want to go to Dubai let them.
You must be kidding. Finance is about the only industry we have left in Britain now. What else is there? The music business and a third rate film industry that just churns out tat in the gangster/hooligan genre, or some other load of old shite rom-coms starring that upper-class twat with the daft haircut that used to fuck Liz Hurley (can’t recall his name).
This country’s fucked, mate.
how about a supetax on mps ?
Who runs the Country? We had the miners in the 70s, now we have the fucking bankers!!
A Quote.
“The bankster’s that caused the Economic Pearl Harbour have been completely and utterly let off the hook by inept, incompetent mainstream politicians that are still more interested in seeking to maximise the amount they can defraud tax payers of in expenses, the price for which is being paid in Britain by the rise of the far-right which has risen in support from 3% of the electorate to about 8% today. During the week the far-right were given airtime on the BBC flagship political debate programme Question Time. Britains Great Double Dip Depression ensures the next few years are going to be tough both economically and socially as governments fight to prevent the OTC Derivatives Pyramid from Imploding into Financial Armageddon”
Sums it up, don’t you think.
The EU runs this country.
I thought they had restored their capital with our money & NOT lending Sorry Guido, hence their intention to pay themselves huge bonuses. You seem to forget it’s the bankers(helped by government & the so called regulators) who got us into this mess in the first place
No. It was the politicians who got us in this mess by changing the regulations. Clinton got rid of Glass-Steagall and Brown got rid of BoE sole responsibility.
The Community Reinvestment Act (1977, but beefed up again by Clinton) made it obligatory for US banks to lend to those unable to repay. Those loans as bank debt were parceled up and sold on causing the credit crunch part of the recession.
Remove the upper earnings limit for NI contributions so instead of 1% all these large amounts are at 10 – 11% as for everyone else
Have to agree with you Guido, although the idea of bonuses being delayed to demonstrate their economic effect might also iron out some of the extreme short termism in the markets
The politicians are coming at the wrong end of the problem, with much double speak
Meanwhile al jebeeba’s main mouthpiece Peston is away on personal grounds
Unless you are accurate about what the problem is, how can you hope to fix them (until someone decides to relax the rules once again because they’ve abolished boom and bust)
Problems with short- termism isn’t new. It’s been happening to UK manufacturing industry for at least 25 years
Right on, if they have generated massive profits for their bank and not taken a penny from the taxpayer, they are absolutely deserving of bonuses that are performance related. Nothing to do with the State
If however they work for institutions that now only exist because of the poverty the rest of the economy has been forced into for the next sixty years by massive State bailouts, are ‘automatic’ bonus they don’t deserve a penny, as their bank etc should have been allowed to fail and broken up. As a reluctant shareholder they can get screwed. I had no choice in investing in ‘Megabank’
Too Right. The ball game has changed. It’s an whole new one.
Can’t see how banks paying out hard cash in Bonuses is rebuiding balance sheets. Since we are told this is a national emergency it seems the wrong thing to do.
At least if the bonuses were paid in equity it would have the effect of adding £ 6 billion to the banks’ capital base.
Or is it just that the bankers can’t live with the downside they have created ?
OT
Melanie Phillips blasts Labour’s secret betrayal of the British people over mass immigration, while leading Tories demand an inquiry:
“Labour ‘deliberately let migrants in to make Britain more multicultural and so Tories could be accused of racism’By James Chapman
26th October 2009
Comments (55)
Ministers face calls for an inquiry into claims that their open-door immigration policy was designed to make Britain more multicultural and allow Labour to portray the Tories as racists……
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1222998/Labour-open-borders-storm-Demands-inquiry-claims-migrants-let-Tories-accused-racism.html#ixzz0V25ApMUV
and here’s Mel:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1222977/MELANIE-PHILLIPS-The-outrageous-truth-slips-Labour-cynically-plotted-transform-entire-make-Britain-telling-us.html
It is not “off topic” it is the biggest political story of the year, yet most of the mainstream media (and Guido’s Blog) are studiously ignoring it for some reason.
I simply cannot fathom out why???
Labour Traitor, the only answers you need will be Labour’s deafening silence in failing credibly to refute the allegation; and Cameron’s predictably soppy comments, assuming any real Tories can ever haul his head out of the sand.
The mainstream media’s and Guido’s and Uncle Tom Cobley’s and all’s failure to make the treason front page headlines will legitimise it.
It’s what they do.
If the Lisbon Treaty to which we are all but bound without a choice says COMMON RULES regrding IMMIGRATION AND ASYLUM then we need to PUSH urgently for only having the SAME status as FRANCE
Just listened to Osbourne on t.v.
He’s saying that bonuses can be paid but not in cash but shares.Seems to me like a sensible suggestion bearing in mind that the cash is then put back into the economy and not in a troughers pocket.
Prez. Antonio Bliar, (emoting + wiv quivering labia) and added
“Without that hopeless hapless shower I’d never have got elected –
But hey – Trust me! . . . I’m a straight kinda guy
EUSSR ‘Dave’ Camerhoon added
Oh I do so admire Antonio, friend of BellyCosy.
Vote Noo_Lie_Bore ‘n get lots more . . . multi-culty-PC Bollocks, thieving, lying, cheating, troughing,
‘n that
innit
It seems to me that the longer this goes on, the less anybody knows what to do. Scheme after spurious scheme is being ‘invented’ as a means of not securing the nations wealth but of limiting the damage to banks, bankers and their friends. Like the rest of us can just go fuck off!!
The country is lead by a government that has no credibility and everything again appears to be continuing as if nothing has happened over the last couple of years. The ones paying are of course ordinary people, the unemployed and disabled. This travesty is becoming a parody of all the worst kind of soap operas or big brother lookalikes. Isn’t it time we got real here – we are in deep shit and we need secure measures not political in-fighting and dodgy schemes – to get us out of it – it’s already going to take at least one generation – how much fucking more of this is it going to take????
It seems to me that the longer this goes on, the less anybody knows what to do.
CUT SPENDING, LOTS AND QUICKLY. Start with the middle managers and quangos. Could lose 15% of the public workforce without a single front line job going, such is the waste and bureaucracy in the public sector.
Immediate austerity program desperately needed, Steve. Won’t happen this side of an election, though!
Spot on Steve, but the snag is I think public spending counts towards GDP, which is a ridiculously perverse incentive for the Government to try and plough on without reducing it, or indeed increase it if they can.
If he did cut net spending, presumably the next quarterly ONS results would show another drop at the end of the year, which is something McDoom has promised won’t happen. So he’s as stuck as a bug in a rug.
EVERYTHING this shower of shit tamper with they FUCK UP – big time.
It would be better to just pay these worthless cυnts to do nothing at all until the Election.
That’s just what we are doing!
In the good old days, pretty much everyone was on £100k salary and the lion’s share of your remuneration was paid as a bonus. Now salaries have to become more realistic to reflect the real basic pay of the star performers. We must remember that banks never knowingly give away money to their clients or their staff. Unless you are in the ruling cabal, you will receive the absolute minimum they can give you without leaving in disgust.
That said, the FSA require banks to rebuild their liquid assets (in case of emergency). The banks are using cheap government money to buy bonds and stocks to rebuild their balance sheets. This explains why the stock market is rising while the real economy still looks anaemic. Goldman Sachs just earned $899 million dollars profit from core businesses such as debt and equity underwriting, financial advising and M&A, while trading and principal investments yielded $10 Billion!!! Investment banks are now almost entirely government sponsored hedge funds as proprietary trading desks use cheap public money to make money.
It is government policy to transfer horrendous corporate debt to public debt by printing money and giving it to banks and companies at a virtually zero interest rate, while consumers and small businesses are left to their own devices.
George Osbourne is right to limit the bonuses of bankers who are using our money to rebuild bank balance sheets on the orders of the FSA. If banks were not carrying out government policy using our money to help themselves, they would not be making these profits.
This is one of the most coherent posts I’ve seen on here.
Are you drunk?
I AGREE with the poster – why the moderation queue?
You used the word beginning with ‘d’ and ending with ‘k’ in your earlier post. That’s what got you modded. Strange but true.
Isn’t the problem here that only two of the UK banks have taken state aid, leaving hosts of banks which are foreign-owned and a couple of UK ones which have not taken the public teat? Penalising RBS and LloydsHBOS would simply see a migration of profit-producing personnel to banks which are surviving on their own (or have been supported by foreign governments rather than the UK). The effect of this would be to undermine the supported bank’s ability to repay the government support by generating profit.
Too much of the current crisis is as a result of unintended consequences caused by knee-jerk reactions to stories of huge bonuses. Care about what you wish for is needed, I believe.
More words of wisdom!
On Guido’s blog!
Wonders will never cease!
Don’t confuse the rescued banks directly taking money from the Treasury (Lloyds and RBS) with the others.
All banks operating a branch in the UK have been instructed by the FSA in the Turner Review Conference discussion paper published last Thursday to hold additional capital and more low risk assets than they did before the crisis. All banks including foreigners have access to cheap government funds. This encourages a “carry trade” where banks borrow sterling from the BoE and then buy another currency and invest it abroad. If you borrow GBP @ 0.5% and invest it in Australian three month notes @ 4.46% you have a nice yield pick As the UK treasury keeps printing money, the Australian Dollar is unlikely to decline against sterling.
Have a look at any investment banking sector research and the elephant in the room that no one mentions is levels of debt and capital adequacy. They all focus on profits and that is coming from proprietary trading, not their core business of lending. This is sustainable as long as the government keeps funding the banks.
This government pursues a wholesale collusion of using public money to bail out banks and big business (by getting banks to buy their rescue bonds and equity rights issues). Until the government actually helps consumers and Small and Medium size Enterprises (SME’s), the economy cannot recover.
The government is going to continue printing money, so why don’t they give it to consumers at home who will eventually give it to companies and rescue the economy. Giving virtually free money to big companies means they will take it to their best opportunity which are largely abroad, where the best grwoth prospects are. Just look at the scrappage scheme, the biggest beneficiary is Korea via Hyundai and Kia.
“Guido would start looking at renting office space in Dubai ”
But 99% of traders would chicken out and stay with the job. Why does anyone who thinks they are worth millions in bonus stay in a fulltime job? Surely if traders are so smart they should trade their own money and be their own boss answerable to no one
Also you don’t want to get caught having an affair in Dubai
Also you don’t want to get caught having an affair in Dubai
Don’t want to get caught with drugs either (4 years), nor shagging on the beach. (18 months)
When in Rome….
Too damned right. Any twat who tried to stage illegal raves with loads of young people taking drugs over there would be properly dealt with.
Funny how this ‘when in Rome’ rule we (generally) observe when abroad isn’t observed by foreigners who come to Britain and try to impose their own inferior cultures on us, with the blessing of the scum in Westminster.
“…99% of traders would chicken out and stay with the job…”.
BG, I think you’re right – watching the collapse of the global economy over the last couple of years has convinced me that bankers, like politicians, are a bunch of yellow snivelling cowards who probably need water injected into their spines just to get up in the morning. Sorry, Guido (not that you care anyway I expect), but at some point there has to be some form of justice against the various agents of the demise, if only to assuage the anger of the world’s people; well, the ones that are angry at least. I expect there are quite a few on earth who couldn’t give a toss.
Such a load of bullshit to prove you know fuck all about banking or trading!
Why bother?
Why? Because you are right, PG, I know f-all about banking or trading which perhaps puts me in the middle of the vox populi. However, I bow to your obviously superior knowledge on the subject. ’nuff said.
And bankers know about banking do they?
You’re another fuck-witted fud; if you twats don’t want to lose your ‘bonuses’, then fuck off and find another ponzi scheme – sorry ‘bank’ – who will pay all you underpaid ‘Bastards of the Universe’ exactly that which you believe they are worth.
Tip: you’re worth absolutely fuck all; either to me or society as a whole…
Fucking delicious!
ps. BG, traders ARE smart – they use someone else’s money to gamble, trouser a big wad and bonus, and then fuck off when they screw up, keeping their lolly intact.
All us lard-arsed Noo_Lie_Bore Min and Wimmin are rolling in blubber and bullion.
All the fat comes courtesy of you YOU Y O U! you pathetic gutter rats.
And we gonna be Lords ‘n Ladees one day – if we’re not already.
Now f uck off comrade!
New Labour summed up to a tee, Fat Fuhrer.
A state-subsidised theatre is going to put on thinnly veiled leftie, anti-Cameron propaganda during the election campaign.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/theatre/theatre-news/6424735/New-play-ensures-Bullingdon-Club-will-still-haunt-David-Cameron.html?
The Royal Court theatre should either pull the play from the dates of the election campaign or better still return their state subsidy for next year.
fawkes enjoyed the guidogram and i dont mind being sold into slavery
Off topic, I admit, but interesting – Guardian loses half a million CVs.
Puts a whole new slant on “getting your CV out there”….
“The easiest way to clamp down on bonuses is to have a moribund economy…”
Gordon’s way ahead of you Guido.
‘Bonuses are a form of deferred performance related pay, no profit, no bonus.’
What a load of fucking bollocks that is!! There has been no profit, Guido. it’s all paper bollocks. Let the banks go to the wall, that’s my solution.
Or, let the fuckers go to Dubai with no tax and take their form of economic destruction to the Middle East. After all, they could do with it.
As Thatcher said
” The trouble with Modern Banking is eventually you run out of other people’s money ”
or was that Socialism ?
How are the banks expected to rebuild their balance sheets?
By paying bonuses in shares which are cashable at year 3 plus 1 day, and not cash bonuses based upon short term punts.
You are wrong about bonuses:
1. A bonus rewards inconsistent profits, and under the theory of, getting what you measure, you create a work force that performs inconsistently.
2. There is NO DOWN side. Owning shares, or the company, means you are hurt when you mess up.
3. Anyone consistently making money over say 3 years should be paid in salary, and if it is a huge salary, it should be voted in by the shareholders.
4. Betting on companies like traditional investing and IPOs etc is good. Betting on materials like oil and aluminium is criminal. The key is that the money invested will grow a pre-IPO company, and there will be an overall increase in wealth. Betting on oil, during its transport to the end user, in storage that you do not even own, makes no difference to the oil. It will still burn at the same rate. Looking at the overall system why should money be milked out of a transport system that only results in higher prices for everyone.
This is due to a limited supply and nearly unlimited storage and a cyclic consumption model. It is not betting, it is a certainty that money will taken out of the system.
5.Why are the “betting people” hiding behind our high street banks containing our money. Simply because they are cowards. It is clear that any government will protect the peoples saving. So why not hide behind the skirts of the families and make them fund your risks. It is truly the most hideous lack of regulation ever seen by a government. It is like terrorist using schools as bomb factories.
6. Why should a single worker be paid a bonus before the shareholders. These bonuses are removing share dividends and the money that used to pay pension funds. By diverting it early, you disable the whole investment model and investment goes elsewhere. Where it is not siphoned off. Maybe to countries that actually have any idea what they are doing in government and still invest in technology.
Under point 5 they can not leave to overseas countries as there are no secure skirts to hide behind over there. Just stop all bonuses tomorrow, and go back to promotion and salary wars. This means the person would be head hunted and would continue to perform under a different company structure without their hidden “profit” frauds.
It seems to me that he is not targetting the huge bonuses from guys and gals in the capital markets but those who work from high street branches – ie ‘Relationship managers’,'business managers’ etc- they are the ones whom are paid to sell products to companies that they don’t want, such as asset finance and factoring whilst not being able offer them short term finance.
I do not understand why those people who complain about bankers don’t do as I do. Use covered warrants to short the bastards last year and then this year hop on quantitative easing and go long (just buy the index). I have done quite well out of this. And I do not “work in the City”. Don’t get mad – get even.
Guido – I usuall agree with most of what you have to say, but I think you are missing some key points here.
1) Are you in favour of government / taxpayer subsidised banks using the subsidy to feather their own nests or would you not rather they used this generous handout to re-build their balance sheets?
2) What level of bonus would a prop trader at RBS be getting this year had the Government not stepped in to save the bank from going under? Not much I wouldn’t have thought.
3) Banking is looking increasing like an oligopoly or even a cartel situation i.e. a few firms dominate, customers have little choice of supplier, fees are far too high and so banks are making super-normal profits based on this and not on any great strokes of genius or intelligence. Would you not prefer to see a little more competition and / or the regulator stepping in to regulate more tightly so customers get a better deal?
away to fuck with your bankers’ fairytales, ya gobshite half-breed.
Still not changed my mind about Osbourn since the support he showed for Spelman over Nannygate .
Another rich kid playing games with no experience of real world issues, or how to fix them.
Playing for to those “on side” rather than those in need or trying to earn a crust.
If I had a rich daddy I would shut the fuck up and hope daddy did not fetch me one around the earhole for being a pussy.
Osborne is useless, he just blows with the wind.
As with Conservative politics so with the Anglican Church – it also blew with the wind and is now being blown away.
We all know Brown’s fucking useless because of the state of this country but I do not understand your piss poor reasoning that an untried shadow chancellor who is probably going to face the worst set of books ever handed over to a new government,isn’t up to a job he has never been given the chance to do.
Fuck off
Yes brilliant, thats it vote him into a job, just what we need another career politician who will cut his experience on your future.
We have had quite enough silly little boys in Nulab experiments with out making the same mistakes with the Tories.
Why not make him an airline pilot too while you are at it (its ok give him a chance i’m sure he is a great pilot) and then he can fly you off to la la land, happy landings….
“Bonuses are taxed” – ROFLMAO
Especially when Osborne wants them paid as shares. At least when they are cash there is a chance of clawing some tax back.
Another ignorant response!
Do your homework!
Peter dear, all I see of your responses is being rude and dismissive of other people’s views. Perhaps it would be more enlightening to the rest of us if you put forward your reasons as to why the other person, in your humble opinion, is incorrect.
kiss kiss
To have all bonuses taxed at source would help a little. Assume all bonuses are going to people on the highest tax rate. Anyone can then claim back the tax. Since it is a bonus they obviously do not need it immediately.
Correct. Tax 50% at source and then let them try and claim the tax back if they is agrieved.
“Guido would start looking at renting office space in Dubai or another financial centre with a zero rate of income tax.” – why don’t they do that anyway? Surely astute financial wizards would quickley move if there was a distinct financial advantage elswere
The fact is the UK financial sector is so heavily subsidised by the state, being a Banker takes little more skill than looking after the bin wagons for the council
Is that why so many councils have got grossly overpaid officials on the basis of paying up for the best talent?
TALENT DOES NOT EXIST IN LOCAL GOVT
COMPETENCE DOES !!
BY DEFINITION – TALENT DOES NOT EXIST IN LOCAL GOVT
OT but Nell should read this:
http://www.annaraccoon.com/annas-personal-stuff/the-court-of-protection/
GO was very good on GMTV this morning.
Hell’s bells!
What an eye-opener that article is. And I thought the MPs and their Lordships were the only ones living high at others’ expense. How naif of me.
Thanks for the link, Anon #70.
I’m crap at finances. Anyone got any gossip?
We haven’t had POST for some time now – living in the hills etc
The POSTIE has just delivered
My dog JACK has attacked him and is now busily burying him somewhere
Just thought you might like to know !!
Is that more than 140 chars ??
What a discerning dog! Thank you!
us Head Hunters are laughing. In the clamour to bring bonuses under control, basic salaries are going though the roof.
Good.
Then people are not being rewarded well for bad behaviour.
I don’t mind if you pay someone a £billion if they bring long term success. But to pay them big money for short term gains which do nobody any good and potentially with long term risks that is bad thinking and bad management.
Hope you make a load of cash, mate.
“Look hear!”
Some time ago the EU agreed that the UK can have ‘finance’ – Germany France etc will have manufacturing, agriculture etc
It’s also said that bankers got us into this situation – whether USA-, UK- worldwide!
Then it’s ‘bankers’ that must lead us out of this sad morass!
Having saved the banks – having bought the banks – ‘we’ have control
So – having saved the banks – we followed that with a large bit of QE (quantitative easing) – and the banks got back to ‘dealing’
We want the banks balance sheets to improve – we want the banks to lend more to business – all of this is in our control
What do we see – banks getting better, FTSE ‘rocketing’ – Goldman Sachs performing brilliantly – less business finance than we would like – rumours that large ‘bonuses’ will be paid out
So – the UK ‘bankers’ that must lead us out of this sad morass!
We must not kill the Goose that lays the golden egg!
Allow – (our) banks to ‘deal’ – allow earned big bonuses to be made and paid and taxed
The UK doesn’t have manufacturing, agriculture etc – it has FINANCE (ONLY?)
FIFO first one in – last one out – so what?
Allow profit to be made – allow it to be (corporately) taxed
Allow the individuals to be likewise taxed
Allow banks to make large profits – before we re-privatise them and get the nation’s cash back (more quickly than any other way)
GET IT RIGHT
BUT BoE / FSA must regulate risk-wise
JOB DONE – SOONEST MENDED,/b>
If you don’t do what I’ve outlined above – moribund it will be!
This is the real world – Boris is right – Prince Andrew is right
Agreed !
Why isn’t Brown Darling & Osborne & Cable brave / intelligent enough to think like this?
I agree – the faster we do as described by Peter B the faster we recover
Things can only get betterer ………they ain’t / can’t get worse
I too agree
and thinking along the same lines -
WHY NOT GET MPs TO BE PAID BY THE LOCAL PEOPLE AFTER NEGOTIATION
Agree.
As long as the bonuses are based on long term profitability of the banks and the companies they support and not on short term, highly geared positions.
If not we are going right back to where we were just before this ‘crash’. Not only may it happen again it is a certainty.
We can’t have the world economy in the hands of a few chaps playing the casino with complex financial instruments. If we don’t allow a reward for them then they will stop playing the game.
Mynahs DOESN’T want the banks to improve their capital ratios other than by being forced to buy the Gilts that soon no one else will want.
Mynahs and ZaNuLieBor WANT to control the banks as they have increasingly controlled (I use the word loosely) most other activities in the last 12 years.
It’s what they do!
That and financial incompetence, employing chum(p)s, feathering their nests and lying!
That’s the real worry!
Banks reserves should be safe, but UK gilts are not a safe haven.
I don’t care what bonuses the bankers pay themselves as long as they first pay back all the money they owe us plus interest at, say, base +10. Goldman Sachs have already paid us back so they can do what they like.
Just tell the directors – if you screw up again like you did last time, to the point of causing very serious harm, you will go to prison. If you are successful, you can pay yourself £20 million a year each and good luck to you. Fear and greed are the two great motivators.
But Goldman HASN’T paid back bailout. It received £13bn via the AIG bailout that will NEVER be repaid. Add a nought to that figure, multiply by a half and you get the scale of bank bailouts made via AIG alone.
Didn’t GS payback $10B so that it could payout its ‘boni’ ?
there is nothing wrong with traders making money……..but……..
if the govt had NOT bailed out the RBS etc then they would be out of a job.they wouldnt be able to just simply move on because there is nowhere to go……..
the banking cartel is contracting.even merrill lynch went tits and Bof A are suffering big time……..the amount of traders today is far less than 10-15 years ago…….
in the meantime the banks should/must be made to pay back any monies borrowed and also to buy back the billions of mortgage backed /junk bonds that the old lady has had to carry for them…………..
until then i suggest a maximum bonus of say £100,000……….
if this is not acceptable then i am sure that £65 per week on income support would be a better trade?
you are right that the controls have failed dismally and banks have been guilty of not marking to market.if they had got rid of most of their junk at the first sign of trouble then much of the crisis could have been avoided……..
how many times did we hear that xyz bank had no exposure to this that or the other? b+b wouldnt even let prospective buyers look at the books!!!!!ffs!!!!
all of the management responsible for these acts of fraud should be prosecuted and any money they have should be seized……….yet what has happened?
our dipshit politicos like brown,darling etc have been out manouvered at every turn…now they are laughing and all the people of the uk working for sod all are paying for it…………..
but this is the problem when we have a bunch of schoolboys with marxist books in charge(or so they think)
The thing that should be addressed are unearned bonus payments, made if the company is making a profit or not. Usually only paid to (but not earned) directors or the chosen special friends of the MD.
Incidentally, a Senator seeks political asylum in the UK and the thought police have been at it again…
Senator seeks political asylum in the UK, Tipping tipped, “It’s not MY fault” says Crozier, Thought policed target granny, Beheading plot terrorists to be freed soon, Brown’s aircraft carrier can’t carry aircraft, Should the B^P have been allowed on the BBC?
yes i agree .no bonuses just for turning up!
the u.s problems were in the news for months before the shit finally hit the fan but the banks thought they could ride the storm…….
rbs were warned they were paying too much for amro.but ego got in the way…..
yet many of the people responsible for these cretinous moves seem to stll be employed..and still being rewarded………
It’s represented very well in the Dilbert cartoons
http://www.dilbert.com
I agree.
Get rid of bad banks and get rid of the management too.
While Guido can usually be relied upon to question the status quo, on the subject of massive unearned bonuses he is talking out of the top of his pointy hat.
Consider the new Legatum Prosperity Index 2009.
(http://www.prosperity.com/rankings.aspx). Not exactly a socialist institute…
104 countries are rated for:
Economic fundamentals
Entrepreneurship and Innovation
Democratic institutions
Education
Health
Safety and security
Governance
Personal freedom
Social capital
In the 2009 Index, Finland comes first, followed by Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Australia, Canada and the Netherlands. The USA is 8th, the UK 12th, France 17th, Italy 21st.
The salary + benefits differential (top 10% v bottom 10%) in the Nordics is around 1:40. In the USA, it is around 1:470. In the UK (I think), it is about 1:350 – but you can correct me.
So please explain why you think the egalitarian Nordics are top of the charts.
There is also ample psychological evidence that monetary reward is useful only in encouraging people to bear personal inconvenience. In encouraging problem solving, monetary reward actually diminishes peoples’ abilities.
Sounds like Mr Richard Chandler himself!
Sorry, I meant his brother Mr Christopher Chandler!
Suprise! Leftist list picks leftists to top.
“social capital” is that the normal use of the word social, whereby you reverse the meaning of the second word?
It’s seems to me that the best countries are those that are relatively homogeneous and strongly filter immigration for quality.
I’m not sure how you can classify Legatum, owned by one of the NZ billionaire Chandler brothers, as ‘Leftist’.
Philanthropic, yes certainly!
GUIDO’s JUST REMEMBERED TO PUT HIS CLOCK BACK 1 HOUR
have you seen the blog entry times?
TUT TUT !
The problem is this:
Neither Call me Dave or Boy George have any real world work experience. They therefore do not understand how the system works
If they wish to allow Central Govt to change private contract Law then they will drive everyone who makes any decent money out of the country.
We are living in a madhouse.
Bankers penalised for losing money, bankers penalised for making money. That Lord Brian Griffiths of Ffathoon in St Pauls last week saying “we should get used to inequality” whilst being Vice Chairman of GS is a classic example of giving the socialists a stick to beat us capitalists with.
The truth is that when the banks were salvaged by the taxpayer the current imbeciles running our Treasury overlooked all this.
Our opposition is supposed to oppose the current morons ruining our country, not oppose those that contribute a massive income for the non and unproductive elements of our society.
I still don’t know what the Tories stand for or what their Policies are, and I’m a Tory.
“No word as to what punishment the Bank of England Governor and Chairman of the FSA will face, Guido suspects none.”
To be fair on the Governor, his powers in this regard were given to the FSA. To be fair to the Tories, they’re going to abolish the FSA and give the powers back to the Bank.
My money says most of the senior FS staff will end up in whatever new regulatory system is implemented by the B of E
example : one current MP’s wife currently works for the FSA. How much she will end up in the new organisation?
I don’t give a shit if they are unearned bonues – if they do not come out of my pocket. Where the taxpayer shamefully bailed out the banks, there is clearly an argument for shareholders – eg the govt, on our behalf – doing what they like to those banks. Make ‘em all stand on one leg three times a day – doesn’t matter – the shareholders have rights to suggest/demand changes.
However, where the banks remain independent it is fuck all to do with government. Or George.
Command economies were tried. Millions died.
I am sick to death of Cameron’s so-called Tories. Fucking eton socialists. The worst kind. No to short lists no to welfarism, no to command economies.
Jesus fucking christ, you would *think* this was basic conservatism? What is the point fo jumping from Brown’s frying pan into Cameron’s fire?
I am starting to believe all the conspiracy theories. There is no democracy. There is no choice. We’re destined for the EUSSR and *that’s* what every mainstream party has signed up to. Well screw that. If I have to vote UKIP to stop that I will. I will *not* vote for a conservative party that refuses to be a conservative party. No to socialism. Always.
the conservatives have not been an oppsition for years……..
nu lab lite is all that is on offer………..
dc is just another lap dog………..
none of the old parties will do anything for the man in the street……..
all caught up in being ‘someone’ and ‘players’ in the new eussr……..
hoons.
Who gives a toss what happens to speculators? They can fuck off to Dubai if they want. Plenty of cheap property there as well.
Why does Guido pretend that the various chimps who shovel casino chips around for the banks somehow constitute productive workers?
Ergo, who gives a toss to the public no income producing sector?
Who will pay/fund for these second rate, useless, hopeless parasites who plague our nation and it’s people with their draconian interferences?
Sir, you conveniently forget who pays the bills.
You mean the ones who educate our children and care for the sick and the elderly?
My family pay twice to educate our children
My family pay twice for our healthcare (altho not a&e obviously as that it is illegal under the 1946 Health Act)
Yes – in answer to your question
I assume that your carefully worded contribution means you don’t pay any thing for any body. Daddy does?
Their not “Our” children, they are the children of parents of British citizens you collectivist shit.
Anyway, State education has two roles, as a crèche and for indoctrination. Next to Zero education happens there.
Most of what I was taught in history for instance is the very opposite of the truth, however it was very convenient for a big spending socialist government.
New World Order! SOCIALISTS!!! New World Order! SOCIALISTS!!! New World Order! SOCIALISTS!!! New World Order! SOCIALISTS!!! New World Order! SOCIALISTS!!! New World Order! SOCIALISTS!!! New World Order! SOCIALISTS!!!
LIZARD-PEOPLE!!!!
SQWWWAAAAAAAKKK! (peck) KRaaawwwwkkk (ruffle)
Its not full moon yet, is it?
Guido, what magical skills do you (and/or your ilk) possess, that apparently nobody else does, that enables you to conjure such extraordinary profits? Isn’t it just a case of a tightly knit group of money motivated men holding the country to ransom (H.Wilson!) through their knowledge and manipulation of money markets and obscure financial devices. On the whole best for you (and us) if you did scoot off to Dubai. You wont be missed and your 5 minutes of fame is soon to go very draper like!!
Cold Dick, The skills are revealed by the P+L. You think you could be a trader? You’d burn out in less than an hour.
You conspiracy theory nonsense is just that.
The problem is TOO MUCH CREDIT was regulated into existence. It suited governments as they taxed the consumption this created. It kills the economy though.
Balckmail is Blackmail
Bail us out or the Economy is destroyed
We all heard it
and we all know that the Billions in Bonuses made in crooked half-baked CDS’s and CLO’s weren’t imaginary
Well wear thermal underpants then. Anyway just answer the fucking question.
What are the skills that your ilk possess that the rest of the citizenry doesn’t.
Companies unilaterally rewrite contracts all the time – made so much easier after Thatcher smashed (most) unions. As the Americans say, if you don’t love it, leave…
No one forced the bankers to lend (they aren’t now despite pressure to do so). It is about time they accepted responsibility for their actions and stopped trying to blackmail people all the time. In most companies if one part is successful but another makes a bigger loss, the company still fails. Banks should be no different. Performance related pay always encourages people to game the system and I don’t know why us taxpayers should bail out rich greedy incompetents – the sooner they leave, the better.
> No one forced the bankers to lend
Are you delusional? Lending is what banks do, and the volume of lending is decided by the regulator.
The role of Banks is to allocate a volume of credit decided by the regulator.
The problem was simply TOO MUCH CREDIT. It’s not difficult.
The regulator sets guidelines it doesn’t force the Banks to do anything.
Did the regulator force the Banks into leveraging rates of up to 40 to 1 ?
Did the regulator force the Bankers and City to make Billions in Bonuses from CDS’s and CLO’s ?
wake up for fuck’s sake and take some responsibility for once
The Bankers City Regulators and Brown all did this together
We don’t let greedy thieves off the hook because we are blind idealogs
unless that’s RBS’s Sir Fred Goodwin speaking ?
And I guess that you just cannot understand that if all that cheap credit which fuelled all of those mortgages and house price rises had not been available, then the banks which lent too much on over-valued houses or on AAA-rated property-backed bonds would not have made such large losses and the credit crunch may not have happened.
Blame instead the idiot Brown who aboloshed ‘boom and bust’ but who taxed the boom and the banks to death and pissed it all up the wall.
If your tiny brain can stretch to it, just imagine how much easier the current depression would have been if McDoom hadn’t doubled the national debt between 2002/7 because he thought he had discovered how to turn scrap iron into gold.
the didn’t simply lend too much and you are woefully ignorant of the facts if you persist in such a delusion.
They went on a gambling binge worthy of a Casino in trading the worthless paper bets of Credit Default Swaps and all the other toxic derivatives.
read about the fate of A.I.G. before fumbling witlessly about in the dark trying to find any rubbish to excuse the bankers and city of their greed and incompetence.
Hooray for the Bankers – have you ever stopped to consider what the ‘c’ is in all of those acronyms for derivatives which you bandy about as though you were other than totally ignorant about them?
(And it isn’t the c.nut that you make yourself either!)
Right, so all those shoplifters wouldn’t have been doing so much shoplifting if only they hadn’t been given the opportunity to shoplift by having so many shops. Down with the grocers.
Guido, I agree with you.
The political classes have obfuscated the true cause of the global recession, which was a failure to control money supply, worldwide.
If money supply is controlled, the bankers don’t have stake money to gamble with. Banks failed because they borrowed cheap money through the ‘carry trade ‘ and found they had invested it unwisely.
If there is no punchbowl people have to sober up.
The prime responsibility lies with Greenspan and the politicians like Brown who saw the massive earnings of the Financial sector as a source of taxation revenue.
It is vital that the banks are profitable, but quantitative easing is financing speculation in commodities, shares and property, and will have to be controlled.
Ever more wisdom!
If your posters keep this up and you can rid your blog of wankers like Mastur Bator you might well have a success on your hands here, Guido!
Unlike Mastur Bator who has only got a little prick in his hands!
A VERT POSTAL STRIKE
After Guido had called his lawyer and found an office to rent in Dubai, what then? He’d have to find someone rich enough and stupid enough to give him some money to gamble with. Good luck with that. Unlike RBS which operates with explicit government guaranteed funding, private investors in the real world must operate in a proper free market and tend to be a lot more discerning over who they give their money too. I suspect that neither Guido, nor any RBS prop trader, would cut it.
Osborne ought to be bashing Brown not the banks, which are too easy a target. It is populist nonsense, nothing more, nothing less.
‘… Guido would start looking at renting office space in Dubai or another financial centre with a zero rate of income tax.’
Meanwhile, the squaddies in Afghanistan would continue keeping things going through their PAYE.
I don’t have a problem with rewarding success but reward which is not tempered by accountability is simply theft under the guise of reward.
The crisis we are currently undergoing in this country was engineered by the collective of bank boards of directors, the FSA and goverment who quite simply did not do their jobs properly..The individuals from that collective are laughing all the way to the taxpayer-funded bank – Fred the Shred is the most obvious example, but he is just one of many.
For the next brood of ‘best people’ the message is clear – make your pile any which way and hang the consequences because once you’ve made it you can keep it regardless.Goverment has assigned the taxpayer as guarantor.
Mr Brown has come up with the sound bite ‘global problem’. That’s global bollocks, Gordon, in reality it’s global government failure.
‘It all started in America’. Well. perhaps so but good government could have prevented it – the various banks’ boards of directors sanctioned investments they did not understand,- and awarded bonuses based on those investments – effectively buying pigs in pokes; the FSA absolved themselves of responsibility for products they did not understand for fear of rocking the boat and government were too busy filling in expense claims to be bothered with the country’s finances.
I note that in America some fraud investigations are in progress, some prosecutions have been instigated and dealing with excessive executive payments is ongoing. In the UK? nada. This Labour government while happy to join with America invading Iraq and again when screwing up the financial system are again too busy filling in their expense forms when it comes to accountability.
What a load of self serving bollocks.
These banks only exist because of taxpayers money propping them and the whole financial system up.
These bonuses are a grotesque insult. Self serving bastards are lucky they are not hanging from every available lamp-post in the city of london, which is where they would be if i had my way.
In any case mr fawkes Osborne is not suggesting an end to bonuses but that they be paid in shares – and the cash available then used to lend to honest decent businesses.
You never miss a snivelling opportunity to get a plug in for your roulette style red braces stripy jacket bastardised barrow boy style of what you laughably call capitalism do you.
Bastard leech on society.
Excellent stuff Trev.
I wouldn’t have put it quite like that, Trev, but yes.
It makes me angry to see people struggle, lose jobs and have homes repossessed and see that none of the banking shysters who initiated these problems in the first place going to jail. In fact most of them walked away with huge sums of money at preferential tax rates. There is just not enough vengeance taking place.
Still people don’t see the wood for the trees. The huge rewards enjoyed by those in the financial industry should be taxed more progressively. The current system will have to change. Already there is a forecast of bumper bonuses for bankers only a year after the industry had to be bailed out the taxpayer. What is this nonsense?
As for the banks threatening to relocate abroad should the government crack down on bonus culture: hurry up and piss off I say. You’ve caused enough damage as it is.
Think about it: if you ended up shipwrecked with no hope of rescue, who would you want to share the island with? Someone who knows how to grow rice, or some shit-headed banker with whom you could speculate on rice futures?
depends on which one has the biggest dick…
Baron Taylor of Warwick odds on favorite for inclusion in new Conservative Government next May.
Seems to me the entire economic arguments are bull! The contracts mentioned, Guido, should never have been allowed to do so. Those that earn too much money need to consider their contribution for so many losing their homes, jobs and prospects… whilst whining about whether they get their bloated bonuses.
[...] is brilliant as a spiky muckraker and purveyor of parliamentary plots. Less endearing are his efforts to defend the obscene and wholly undeserved bonuses being awarded to bankers. Guido doesn’t seem to get it at [...]
Unfortunately people don’t often leave to work in other countries just for the money. I know I was tempted to vote Labour when Jim Davidson, etc. promised they would leave but they bloody well stayed.
Banking crowds out other sectors in this country in the same way the public sector expansion has. Reducing our reliance on banking would be no bad thing in the long term, however, in the short term we should allow the sector to grow taxable profits to pay off our debts and this time remember to turn off the porridge pot before we get flooded again by the next financial crisis.
What other industry steals investors funds and call it a “Bonus”
Depositors earn no interest so why don’t Banks pay them a “bonus” of say 5% on deposits.