Saturday 7 July 2012

George Osborne 'to fight FOR bankers' bonuses' in Europe

You may well be saying to yourself, "Tris, this is not the first of April", as I did when I read the self same headline in the Daily Telegraph.


No: It is the 7th July and it's not me that's lost the plot. It is George Osborne.


He says that fixing bonuses at a ratio of 1:1 with salaries is not the way to curb excesses, and that if that formula is adopted throughout Europe (as is currently being proposed), all that will happen is that the bankers will increase their salaries to ensure that they do not lose out. George, it seems, has learned that nothing will stop bankers taking what they want, regardless of whether they deserve it or not, and of the ruin that they leave in their wake.


Bank chief executives have been lobbying the government to ensure that this does not happen. The Telegraph reports in a somewhat garbled fashion, that they argue that "a cap on bonuses will simply result in salaries being given much larger basic salaries instead – increasing fixed costs for businesses". 
But it seems to me that that is the banks' problem. It has not occurred, I suppose, to banks' managements that they could act like most other employers when faced with demands for pay increases and simply say a categoric 'NO'! 


One of the issues over bonuses, beside their cost to the bank, and to the public, is that the potential for unimaginably large performance-related payments is what drove people to invent ever-more complex and fraudulent schemes which broke the country, put hundreds of thousands, if not millions out of work, lost people their homes and closed businesses. 


Without a "performance" payment of 10 times their salary, most will probably be too lazy to bother trying to work out new ways to bankrupt the country so that they can have a that new Lamborghini. 


Of course, as ever in a situation like this, the old chestnut is trotted out: that the government must oppose these European measures lest they drive business to other financial centres". 


So, go already, I say. See if these other financial centres want you to break their countries. I suspect they don't, and that, in any case, the bankers are far too fond of London to be prepared to live in the steaming heat of Hong Kong, with the potential for risk that being a part of China might involve, or to New Delhi or Dubai.


I wish Osborne luck (although I have to admit that it is with tongue in cheek that I do this) as he heads off to Brussels for these talks. I'll give him this... he is brave. The way that the public feels about the bankers at the moment, his support for them to take bonuses worth more money than most people earn in half a lifetime, is indeed politically very courageous, and that's not a word I would normally associate with Osborne.


But then, funders are funders... and the Remembrancer is the Remembrancer.


****

Small point from the same story. 


The Bill has been introduced into the European parliament by a Belgian Green MEP, Philippe Lamberts. Monsieur Lamberts has suggested that Osborne will “shoot himself in the foot” in the light of public opinion about bankers, if he supports them. The Telegraph goes on to quote M Lamberts thus: 


“If [he] wants to make that bet be my guest – we will see who will win.”


Now this could just be a mistake in the Telegraph, and given the earlier muddle over 'salaries being given larger salaries', that is a strong possibility. But I can't help getting the impression that Philippe Lamberts' triple whammy of being Belgian, a Green and against a beloved Tory right winger Englishman, is simply too much for the Telegraph to take, and so they indelicately point out a small error in his English. I wonder how many of the Telegraph staff speak faultless French or Dutch!! 


Actually, I wonder how many speak faultless English!

8 comments:

  1. I don’t wish the ar****le well I hope they string him up! Only an English Tory half wit would have the temerity to do that and think that he knows better than everyone else...as per usual with these cretins it’s the rest of the army that is marching out of step!

    I see that the rest of his moribund government are trying to polish a turd by flying a saltire over Downing Street this weekend in the vainglorious hope that some of Scotsman Andy Murray’s Wimbledon glitter will rub off on them. What an honour for Andy his Cameronness will be there in person on Sunday, let’s just hope that the daft idiots sods law luck does not ruin it for Scotland’s hero.

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  2. tris

    Just sack the bastards like any where else ..dont like f'ck off we will get some else to do your job wank'r

    easy enough to us Plebs but when its the thieving classes all of a sudden they are irreplaceable and must have enormous amounts of cash to stay(undermines the big society crap somewhat)

    just wonder how any of them can ever be let go to retire....which many do with a golden goodbye oh but thats different oh yeah!


    just remember you dont bite the hand that feeds you and Cameron/Osborne are not going to either .....once they ponce of from the mess they make its a job in the city and no mistake.

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  3. My mum has always said that the first banker they string from a lamp post will be a sound warning to the rest of them. In a way I suppose the Finance Secretary is a banker of sorts, him being the treasurer of the UK.

    I'll lend them the rope.

    He's flying the Saltire....in England...?

    WHAT?

    How cheesy is he? No, don't answer; it doesn't really matter. The word Gorgonzola comes to mind.

    That's as naff as Gordon Brown phoning the hospital to find out how that talent show contestant Susan Boyle was after the greedy tv company and the press had driven her to a nervous breakdown.

    Does he seriously think that that's going to convince anyone that he respects Scotland? Bloody idiot.

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  4. Couldn't agree more Niko.

    But as you say... the Tory party is funded from the City and Cameron and Osborne will be looking for bank directorships once they have "lord" before their names.

    And it should be remembered that they run the country for them and their like... not us.

    A pox on them.

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  5. Brilliant CH.

    A million kids in the UK are showing signs of malnutrition, while bankers insist that they will go abroad if we dare to tamper with their bonuses.

    Who wants to live in a country like that? It sounds like some ghastly right wing dictatorship... oh wait... that's because it is.

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  6. I've just had a thought about a new Olympic sport.

    Banker Hanging!

    The winner is the team that hangs the banker with the biggest bonus! :lol:

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  7. I've borrowed a wee ditty and changed a couple of words. Perhaps this song should become the new Bankers Anthem!

    If there's something strange in your neighborhood
    Who you gonna call?
    Bankbusters!
    If there's something weird and it don't look good
    Who you gonna call?
    Bankbusters!

    I ain't afraid of no bank
    I ain't afraid of no bank

    If you're seeing things running through your head
    Who can you call?
    Bankbusters!
    An invisible man sleeping in your bed
    Oh, who you gonna call?
    Bankbusters!

    I ain't afraid of no bank
    I ain't afraid of no bank

    Who you gonna call?
    Bankbusters!
    If you're all alone, pick up the phone
    And call
    Bankbusters!

    I ain't afraid of no bank
    I hear it likes the girls
    I ain't afraid of no bank
    Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah

    Who you gonna call?
    Bankbusters!
    If you've had a dose of a freaky bank
    You'd better call
    Bankbusters!

    Let me tell you something
    Bustin' makes me feel good

    I ain't afraid of no bank
    I ain't afraid of no bank

    Don't get caught alone, oh no
    Bankbusters!
    When it comes through your door
    Unless you just want some more
    I think you better call
    Bankbusters!
    Ow!

    Who you gonna call
    Bankbusters!

    Yes I WAS watching Ghostbusters when I had this wee thought! :lol:

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