LinkBack URL
About LinkBacksI've never met ANOYNE who actually likes this woman.
I've never met ANOYNE who actually likes this woman.
I'm sure that's next on the list. Labour seem to have no qualms about reliquishing us of all civil liberties.Originally Posted by Mblaster
A possible end is in sight!
I highly doubt she will go, but hey I can wish, hope and pray!
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...main-home.html
She'll no doubt slither out from under. The only way this kind of thing will stop is if MPs are subjected to the same degree of independent audit and scrutiny as everyone else, and from a watchdog with real teeth, too. Until they stop hiding behind Parliamentary privilege and claiming they're doing nothing wrong because they're following the very comfortable rules they themselves made, nothing will change.
I can't help but feel that this type of thing is exactly why the government were so loath to see all their expenses made public for us all to see. While what she, and no doubt many others and probably on all party sides, are doing is probably within the rules, it's not going to cut much ice with the public that it was within those rules.
Anyone remember the way Labour lambasted the Tories for sleaze, proclaiming they'd be "whiter than white". What a farce. What rampant hypocrisy.
altogether now - 'Things, can only get better....!'
Saracen (09-02-2009)
Altogether now - 'burn the witch..'
She is just another pig with her snout firmly in the trough.
Whether it be a labour, tory or Lib Dem politician, they are all selfish gits and need to get into the real world where we all live (some of the time
What amuses me is today Brown is moaning about bonuses.
If i wanted to have that much (her housing scam money) left after my tax, i'd have to get a 230k bonus. Also remeber that every little perk they get you just don't get in business, the bank i used to work for disaplined a floor head for drinking a bottle of cola from the minibar and expensing it..... (This is someone who would earn 7 figures).
All of these politicians are getting benefits that you just don't get near in industry, which as a total compensation far outweigh what's available to us in financial services industry, then moan at us.
Look at people like barcap, they've generated a profit, yet the senior management haven't met their targets, no bonuses for them.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
I take the your point, but I think they're two very different issues.
Re: banking bonuses - for companies that have performed so badly that they've had to be bailed out to the tune of tens of billions of pounds of taxpayer's money, bonuses are utterly indefensible. Bonuses are supposed to be for exceptional performance, above and beyond what's expected from you. It's not supposed to be for doing a job you're (I don't mean you, Animus, I mean the banking sector in general) being paid a salary to do. So for bank executives, they're closer to deserving the sack or a free holiday at one of Her Majesty's overcrowded holiday camps. For bank staff in banks that have been bailed out, the bonus is that they still have a job.
If a bank that hasn't needed a bailout has performed exceptionally well, then perhaps a bonus is justified, but that needs to be long-term performance, not excessive risk-taking that just hasn't blown up in their faces yet.
I also hear, among others, saying that there might be nothing they can do about some bonuses because they're written into contracts and are legally enforceable. Well, Mr Darling, there might be nothing you can do about the bonus being paid, but you're the Chancellor aren't you? You control the tax system. There's enough exemptions and allowances written into the tax system for special interest groups. Introduce an emergency tax charge, something like this :-
- any employee of a banking or financial institution that has received taxpayer funding (or even list specific institutions) receiving any bonus while that institution is in possession of public funding, or in relation to a period for which it was receiving such funding, will have said bonus taxed at 100%.
So then, banks can pay these bonuses if they wish, but it'll then be taxed and the effect will be to pay it straight to the Treasury.
Or better yet, make that tax rate 200%. That'd pretty soon see the "contractual" payments dumped by mutual assent, and it'd see the end of such bonus schemes.
Oh, and if you get ANY form of payment or benefit in lieu of a cash payment, the rate is 300% in cash. That'd put an end to fancy schemes paying in gold, or rare wines, of shares, options etc.
And that's me being lenient. Given that the bulk of this crisis originated, in one form or another, with greedy bankers, my preferred solution for those responsible would be a rapid show trial and then a firing squad.
As for the hypocritical Ms Smith (and others, no doubt) it's the rank deceit in her stance that annoys me. She's done "nothing wrong" because it's "within the rules". Of course it's within the rules, when you're a member of an elitist club that awards itself all sorts of "Parliamentary" privileges and then makes the rules to which it then pompously and self-righteously claims it abides.
Small wonder they didn't want expenses published.
Any politician, and I mean any politician, whatever party, whether local, national or European, and whether Commons or Lords, that takes this type of self-serving approach to taxpayers money (such as paying for fancy flatscreen TVs or pergolas in their gardens) does not deserve to be in power. It's about time we had REAL accountability over these people. Catch them at this type of stunt and they should get booted out of office, fined double the amount they've scammed (because in my view, it IS a scam, albeit one within their self-made rules), and banned from any form of public office for life. Or, better yet, there's always that firing squad once it's finished with the bankers.
Whilst its true there where some people who where criminal in the way they delt with debt, there where some who where incompitent and simply going with the heard. There where also plenty others that have done VERY well, only to see their 10% up eaten away compared to losses elsewhere.
Should they loose their bonus because the company they worked for needed a bailout?
This isn't to say bonuses are only paid to the deserving, but a LOT of them are, you do however get people like RBS. I would liken their award they gave themself to someone thinking "how much copper can i get out of this place with!". But this is really the minority. Its a truely ruthless profession, you can be the son of a famous poletition and that won't save you. Its really the fraction of a % that slip through the net and get money they don't deserve.
The other thing is lets not forget government intervention such as the greenspan puts exchaserbated this, people wanted a better return, to which they where acustomed, the only way they could do this was of course with an increase in risk, this was often overlooked.
My point is really rather simple, even working in the alternative investment industry, rather than the banks, few people i know are getting bonuses or decent ones (i was about 30% short of what i expected, despite hitting all my targets, in a "up" fund). Those who are on the whole have been stella and really do deserve them. Incredibly few get them un-justly.
(also lets not forget how much tax gets generated by all the bonuses for people who don't earn enough to be non dom)
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
I'm not saying "no bonuses for any bankers". I'm saying "no bonuses for any bankers that have been bailed out by the taxpayer.
As far as I'm concerned, if the institution as a whole has performed so badly, or been run so badly, that it needs taxpayer's billions to keep it solvent, and it's racked up a whopping great loss, then the ideally of bonuses for having done that is, as John Prescott put it, "morally outrageous". And it isn't often you'll hear me agree with him but on this, we are of like minds.
Even where individuals have performed well, and above target, I can see no justification whatever in paying bonuses if the organisation as a whole has performed so badly it needed taxpayer funds just to stay afloat.
So for me, issue number one is that banks that had to be saved by the taxpayer don't get to use taxpayer funds to pay bonuses to staff, period.
If a bank hasn't been sucking at the public tit, then it certainly has more scope for structuring it's remuneration packages according to its resources, but I still think we need, and will get, those packages revised to reflect long-term performance, not the short-term status of products that can go badly wrong further down the line. That may well mean that for the big risk-takers like traders that they end up with a salary more in line with the professionals they're supposed to be, and a far less bonus-oriented culture.
But outside banks that are taxpayer funded, what they pay in bonuses is between bank and staff, and shareholders, subject only to the criteria that we're likely to see regulators taking a MUCH more active interest in the banks approach and attitude to risk, because it's been that attitude, and a fair bit of active complicity from governments, that's led banks to indulge in the practices that's got most of the planet into the mess we're in. That can't be allowed to continue. Subject only to those regulatory constraints, profitable banks with no taxpayer support can pay what salaries, and bonuses, they like, as far as I'm concerned. But not those that got to within a handful of hours of actually being insolvent, by virtue of their own management's decisions.
Taxpayer funding is there to prevent the banking system collapsing completely, not to reward staff with bonuses. Staff have already had their bonuses from the taxpayer, they got to keep their job.
The problem is the way the bailout has been done by the tax payer, the tax payer needs these banks to get profitable again.
If you made 10% on your book, this means you worked very hard, managed your risk well, or just got very lucky. If the bank you work for also had some dip****s trading CD, who lost far more than all the good people put together earnt, they needed bailing out. The majority of the people traiding CD get fired. If you didn't get renumerated inline with market, for your performance of 10%, what happens? You leave, you probably sue as well.
In this respect its almost as if people who've been trading FX/Equities or even carbon credits, are totaly removed from the people who forced the bailout, it might as well be a different bank. If these people don't get paid well, they will leave.
If that happens you get left with a bank of underperformers. Think about it, how stupid it would be to say no bonuses for banks that had a bailout. Damn right the people trading the toxic crap should be lined up and shot, but that was about 1% tops of most of these banks. Then the 0.001% that is management which allowed such trading without 'correlated risk' control or understanding. There will then be about 80% who where caught in the tidle wave, these people might of lost a little bit of money etc. They won't be getting bonuses because, wait for it, they lost money.
Then you get the rest who made money for the bank. Just because the bank required a bailout because OTHER PEOPLE dosen't mean they should suffer does it? If you think all property is theft and renumerating people via market rates is a bad idea then yes it might seam un-fair they get money. But its not as if its the tax payers, it was money earnt by them, if it wasn't for them they would of needed MORE of the tax payers money.
If this moronic plan comes into effect places like RBS will be incredibly screwed because anyone of any talent will simply jump ship. Leaving them with a pile of debt, toxic crap, and idoits.
throw new ArgumentException (String, String, Exception)
sarah palin?
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Posting Permissions
Reply With Quote
