Author Topic: £2m could you really call this a bonus?  (Read 4242 times)

  • Offline Serious

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Re: £2m could you really call this a bonus?
Reply #15 on: January 15, 2011, 20:05:03 PM
Offering bank people big bonuses caused the issue, and people understand better than some on here think.

Re: £2m could you really call this a bonus?
Reply #16 on: January 15, 2011, 20:11:43 PM
... but giving a bank's boss £2m wasn't the cause of the economy's downfall last time, was it?  It was reckless mis-management of loans.  Whinging about a banker's salary isn't going to chnage anything - people need to question and target the banks' policies and actions - not their pay. :)

exactly.. its not as if the people rubber stamping the loans get a multi-million bonus.

  • Offline Dave

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Re: £2m could you really call this a bonus?
Reply #17 on: January 20, 2011, 00:24:33 AM
It's usually only the poor that whine about it; because they don't understand how capitalism works.

i think its more that they don't like how capitalism works, not that they dont understand it.

for instance, why isn't there a cap on what corporations can earn? profits of 1bn+? fine, feed the excess back into the economy. pay for some street cleaners or some armour for our boys in iraq, or something.

What good would a cap do other that make the UK uncompetitive and send companies overseas. Secondly where do you think these profits go - they're not untaxed payments made to a select group of fat cats... the largest shareholders of large companies are funds - the profits made by these companies are basically going towards pensioners - this is then taxed as income by the govt and does indeed pay for street cleaners, nurses etc...

When the US decided to shake down BP for 20 billion after the gulf oil spill it wasn't BP execs coughing up out of their salaries etc.. rather the dividend was suspending meaning that a bunch of British pension funds took a hit.

Anyway that is all a bit off topic - on the subject of the OP I don't think anyone in a senior management position at a large British commercial bank should be taking a bonus like that this year or next year - they wouldn't be here if it wasn't for the govt propping them up. They were in a strategic/big picture type position and do have to share the blame. They're also quite old, have family ties and generally aren't in a position to move jobs/relocate anyway.

 On the other hand I don't see why some trader who makes the bank £XX million shouldn't still get his cut. Tis like a record company getting into trouble and then saying to one of their biggest acts actually we don't want to give you your agreed royalties for the 2 million albums you sold as we've screwed up managing the business and some other people aren't getting bonuses. Reality is there are people in banking who will make money regardless of whether they're working in London or Geneva etc.. what is the point in not paying the £X million bonus to the star trader who made you £XX million - you save yourself £X million then next year he makes your rival £XX million, few other people follow him over and the next year the desk he used to work on reports a loss.

  • Offline Dave

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Re: £2m could you really call this a bonus?
Reply #18 on: January 20, 2011, 00:37:27 AM
Offering bank people big bonuses caused the issue, and people understand better than some on here think.

A few quants working in credit and naive senior managers were the people responsible on the banking side. So not really an argument against bonuses in general IMO but rather senior management/people making long term strategic decisions should have their bonus spread (not paid based on short term gains) and should have clauses to reduce or claw it back should the bank not perform well.

Plenty of other people caused the crisis too - US govt pressure to lend more to ethnic minorities etc.. senior management at US banks then lending to people too easily. Other banks buying the securitised debt without appreciating the risks, credit agencies rating the debt without understanding the risks. Lots and lots of individuals across the US purchasing homes with loans they couldn't afford.

You could also argue that David Bowie caused the credit crunch - he was the trend setter after all - he securitised and sold off the rights to his back catalogue as 'bowie bonds' well before any of the banks started playing around with securitising all this toxic debt.

Re: £2m could you really call this a bonus?
Reply #19 on: January 22, 2011, 04:55:56 AM
it helped but just think how many got 2m , it makes you wonder why they get a bonus after making a loss

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