Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ

I had to switch the programme off.. I was so infuriated with the arrogance of the bankers. At a time when we are all facing job losses and a bleak Christmas to see their level of extravangance. They appear to be untouchable

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Just watching this with interest. How can the impartial Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ interview "bankers" at a black tie function and end up interviewing a young chap called Scott who is the general catering manager of the function venue? I know him from previous events where he has been manager of various restaurants at the Chelsea, Hampton Court and Tatton Park Flower shows as an employee of the Sodexo catering company. He is not a banker of any kind!

I understand that bankers don't want to talk in front of the camera, however, to try and pass off a hospitality employee as a banker is just pure fiction and misleading! Any comments from the Panorama producers or Mark Daly? I doubt any real bankers interviewed would have disclosed their bonus or what they spent it on......shame on you Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ.....

Despite the enormity of this story, Panorama seemed to sleepwalk through it. Mark Daly used to be a fantastic journalist. What happened? Where were the hard questions??

I thought the programme lacked balance. Sure some of the bonuses seem extreme, but there was no mention of the 14 hour days and extreme pressure some people are under. Only a tiny percentage of bankers achieve these bonuses. Bankers dont get overtime, they tend to work until they border on collapse from any kind of sickness.

Perhaps instead, the nation should look to itself. It was the people of the country that borrowed money they couldnt repay. It now seems they handing off the blame to those who allowed them to borrow.

The top paid employees eg the ceo in the company , bank or whatever should not be allowed to earn more than say 25 times the average basic salary in the company.

Let's face it, the real problem is the level of interest rates, everyone borrowed (individuals and businesses) more than they could afford to pay back.

banks, central bankers, regulation and governments failed across the board.

Again the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ fails to present all the facts and instead manipulates minds against a largely honest and dedicated sector of our community. So the bankers are overpaid? The UK stopped being a leading manufacturer a long time ago and focused on becoming a service provider industry, the Banks leading in this role. The government chose to deregulate, probably not a good idea. The banks drew in huge income for the UK and through deregulation handed over huge sums of money to the public. The public in turn spent the money (not the bankers on their own) and in the fulness of time we are where we are. How much do these bad bankers earn for the UK? Let's see the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ expose that. How much do top bankers in the UK earn compared to Geneva, Hong Kong, New York etc (vs their cost of living - this needs to be a level playing field)? What about Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ reporters? You earn obscene sums of money also ... and even fail to be objective in your reporting.
You have a moral obligation to present all sides of the argument and if Government is deffensive on scree when being interviewed, culpability is partly yours.

Panorama on the banking crisis was shallow, naive, populist, unbalanced, lazy, ignorant reporting.

I could go on to set out the numerous ways in which the programme fell short of even average standards and then could go on to present some alternative ways of tackling the many real issues that surround this important subject but that would be to raise the level of debate way beyond anything that you would be comfortable with.

RIP Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ reporting. It used to be something to look up to now its just something you look down on.

Let me know when you want a decent bit of investigative work done on this.

I was also infuriated as I sat through tonighht's programme. For me however it was actually the unfair, one-sided view Panorama has once again shown.
I am a 'banker' (although I'm yet to hear a good explanation of what that actually means), and whilst some of your comments, particularly with regards to attitudes to risk-taking, were broadly accurate, the vast majority of the programme clearly had an agenda and was either incorrect, biased, or out of date. In 6 years of working for a investment bank I can honestly say I have not met anyone who talked of bonuses in the way the Maserati guy did. I agreed with the comments from Geraint Anderson, but they are outdated (I believe he left the industry a number of years ago).
Rather than just bashing the bankers, perhaps the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ would consider a more engaging programme, following around a CEO for a week, or showing the long and stressful hours that more junior employees work. Or what about highlighting the amount of tax the industry, and individuals, pay? Maybe that would show some viewers that it's not all liquid lunches, golf courses and Maseratis...
Anyway, time for bed. I need to be in work at 630am tomorrow.

Oh dear - the once great Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ has allowed itself to be hijacked by reportage not even worthy of the worst kind of tabloid pap.

There are so many targets for truly significant investigative journalism from the crisis. Such a pity that the reporter decided not to employ the once great trust that the Panorama name used to denote to explain where mistakes were really made. Instead, the facile and frankly lazy approach seems too easy to resist, to appeal to the usual populist jealousy which now seems to characterise Britain. Oh yes, Messrs. Hester and Daniels "could" make Β£8mio each (well, so could we all if we had a winning lottery ticket).

I recommend that one looks at the Wikileaks cable where the US diplomat elicits from the FSA head Lord Turner that bonuses weren't the cause of the banking crisis, but were a convenient political target to divert attention from the political shortcomings that were the true root of the problems. Where did banks lose money ion the UK. Was it trading derivatives? No - it was from "bread & butter" lending for property "investment (read: speculation), both commercial and residential. Northern Rock imploded because it was badly run, not because it was staffed by twenty-somethings in red braces barking down phones in front of lots of screens. RBS and Lloyds/HBOS are on life-support because they lent imprudently. But obviously it was too great a step for the reporter to dig in and explain that the 25 year residential mortgage is in fact one of the riskiest financial instruments: a bank turns a deposit that can be withdrawn at any time, into a loan that wont have its principal repaid for 25 years.

Undoubtedly there are a number of people who are paid more than they are worth. But that exists not just in the financial sector. Footballers? Their agents? Film actors? Local Council executives? Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ Management? To prevent a repeat of the failure of banks, highlight the failure of regulation and the greed of a spendthrift government. This country can't afford another banking crisis, and it deserves better illustration of this from its national broadcaster.

The problem with this type of populist stuff is that it displays extreme prejudice. If I said "all immigrants were criminals" or "most crime was caused by black people", I would rightly be castigated as being ignorant, prejudiced and making wild generalisations.

If however, you say "the bankers caused the financial crisis", that is now OK. All bankers? "Caused" the crisis?
You could equally say that politicians, by failing to put appropriate legislation in place to prevent the criss asl caused it...should we punish them as well? (Yes!...some would say).

Saying all bankers should be taxed regardless of whether they were in companies that "caused" the crisis is like saying tax all immigrants because of the cost of policing illegal immigrants.

I always thought Panorama was a programme that engaged in intelligent debate and challenged prejudice,...rather than encouraged it!

I worked as an investment banker outside of the United Kingdom for about 15 years. Being a UK national I regularly watch Panorama. This year alone I have felt sufficiently amazed by the "reporting" that I had to write at least three times to ask (not tell) Panorama to revert back to what I understood were the core principles of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ (i.e. balanced, unbiased, well researched debate presented in the commensurate fashion).

Sadly, based on last night's episode, any previous requests seem to have been totally ignored.

So, for a third time I would strongly request (prior to airing any more banker bashing populist rubbish) to spend a considerable period of time trying to understand how investment banks work. Politicians don't know how investment banks work. Lots of central bankers don't know how investment banks work. Reporters certainly don't know how investment banks work.

Why doesn't Panorama air an episode on the evolution of the "blame game" culture that is now the day-to-day pre-occupation of the British? Now that I'd love to watch although I'd have to fight my willingness to switch over to Sky Sports where at least the standard of commentary bears some semblance to reality.

Oh, and by the way, my storm drain has frozen over because of the cold weather in Europe. Can I blame it on an investment banker please?

Oh dear, the bankers seem to be rather miffed by this programme. Poor things.

My sympathy is with the now unemployed Scottish couple who quite rightly noted that these obscenely overpaid people clearly live in a different world. They also seem to think that they are the only ones who have to be in work very early in the morning! Aren't they lucky to have the weekends off?!

I think the Panorama programme last night was biased, lazy and populist. Clearly there was no intention to produce a balanced piece of investigative journalism and the end result was crass, shallow and lacking in any depth whatsoever. To portray either the drunken fool stating that he got "one maserati" as a bonus or the author of City Boy as typical City workers does a very important part of the economy a disservice. What no-one seems to have mentioned is for every Β£1 paid out as a bonus, 50p heads straight back to the Government in tax.

Unashamedly I am a banker myself and the programme did no in-depth analysis as to the different sectors of banking (many of which have no direct connection to the finanical crisis) or why bonuses are paid and the sacrifices those in the industry make. Whilst the premise was of reckless risk taking and (I hate to use the phrase) "casino banking", what anyone who works in the City knows is that all decisions are backed up by a huge amount of detailed and rigorous analysis. Sometimes, this proves to be inaccurate or to have used the wrong assumptions but to presume people gamble with money is blatently incorrect.

Panarama used to be a quality piece of television but if this latest programme is anything to go by, dumbing down is rife within the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ.

Swift Advances are now under pressure mainly thanks to a small group of customers or victims more like it, however the lack of help from the so called authorities and even the media have resulted in what will become international news in the near future, so watch this space, look up their late entered company reports yourselves and see what I mean

FoDafydd, while I would like to think that people who watch such infantile journalism would recognise it as such, you merely serve to remind us of the fact that for many people, these programmes actually create a 'version of the truth' that permeates across our society. Just as you accept and fail to challenge the mindless, tenuous, unrelated and prejudiced soundbites put forward in the programme, so you have clearly failed to properly read the comments of the people on this page.

I am certain that, without exception, anyone who has written here has absolute sympathy for those who have lost their jobs as a result of the financial crisis. However, that does not in anyway support the view insinuated throughout by Panorama that there is a causal link between the vast majority of people who work in financial services and the recession, let alone with what they term the 'bonus culture'. Indeed, despite extensive research and analysis, no such link has even been identified, let alone proved. For Panorama to put forward an entire programme implying such a link was at the very least unprofessional, and brings fundamentally into question the role of the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ as an objective media commentator.

Nobody who works in the City believes that they do not work in a different environment, or 'world', from many others in the country, but that does not make the hours that they work, or the taxes that they pay any less of a contribution to society than thos of our Scottish couple. And, as much as people may not like it, while there are a tiny minority of people who earn an enormous (aka 'obscene') amount of money, that is not money that taxpayers have borne the cost of.

This is not in anyway to say that certain banks and individuals were not at fault for failings that contributed to the financial crisis and recession, but those failings were very specific, and subject to a much wider degree of corporate, regulatory and political failings. Until the public, politicians, and primarily the media, are prepared to grow up, move away from simplistic pay envy, and engage in a proper understanding of the causes, we will never be able to effectively prevent a similar crisis from happening again - and that should be the most important lesson and focus to take away from this experience.

Ultimately, whatever your view on the rights and wrongs of City pay, I think anyone with an ounce of intellectual integrity should have been able to recognise the patronising and insulting attempt by Panorama to appeal to a 'mass audience'. I guess I can only hope that they were misguided in doing so, but given that over 10% of the comments here, so far, seem to have been persuaded, I am not optimistic...

I also had to turn this programme off - it was infuriating, because it was just so dull and one sided!
'Bankers earn too much - aren't they greedy!' Every Dec/ Jan the same line is trotted out by lazy journos.
People should realise that we need high earners to pay high taxes (50%!) to keep the economy moving. If all the guys who work in corporate finace suddenly got paid Β£20k a year this country would be in a far far worse state than it is now. (Incidentally, I'm not a banker and was in face made redundant last year, but can still see things objectively!)

Not great journalism I'm afraid.
No fresh insight or originality.
Only one or two interviews.
Even the music search was lazy: both tracks used are from Roots Manuva's "Badmeaningood" compilation (tracks 18 and 19).

I agree with the majority of the comments here that the style of journalism in this episode of panorama was deeply disappointing - sloppy and embarrassingly partisan. I think to tar all bankers with the same brush of that idiot at the party is plain stupid.

If it had been approached in a more balanced way though, I think there was an important discussion to be had about where the burden caused by the fallout of the financial crisis should fall most heavily. I can understand the frustration of the people closer to the subsistence level who have been laid off through no fault of their own, are barely struggling to make ends meet, and now are facing cuts to the public services they use most.

The frustration is compounded by the fact that the government has not made sufficient effort to raise more revenue from the financial sector, such as by closing the numerous tax holes that exist for higher level earners, because it is, to an extent, held to ransom by the threat that bankers will leave the country.

I have family members who work in the financial sector so I truly understand quite how hard such people work. However, I think the implication that they receive the most money in the country because they work the hardest, and that nobody else works quite that hard, is also a little sloppy.

Absolutely disgraceful and biased journalism in this program and the worst thing about it is that because people trust the Βι¶ΉΤΌΕΔ they will see the program as objective and it will give the banking sector a worse name than it already has. Firstly the program kept on using public polls, when the vast majority of the public know very little about how the banking system works and have only had their opinion shaped by lazy journalism such as the panorama which paints all people working in the banking sector as money grabbing thieves (I'm not going to say bankers as that job title still has never even been properly explained).

Also although I sympathise with the two people who were made redundant in the program, it is just bad journalism to infer that there were no repercussions for those working in the banking sector after the financial crisis. I was speaking to a person who was working in a major investment bank who said that he came into work one morning and found that half of the people in his department had been laid off and I wouldn't be surprised if this is true throughout the sector.

The banking sector is integral to UK tax revenues and like it or not our economy relies on this sector as we have turned from a manufacturing economy to a services economy. If we were to lose competitiveness in this sector it would mean we would lose a lot of tax revenue which would adversely affect the UK economy.

That is not to say that the banking sector did not have a major impact in the financial crisis, but the problem is not those who sell and trade these derivatives or work in the IBD of a bank and who get the massive bonuses who are the problem as it is their very role to take calculated risks for the chance of great returns.

The real problem is the banks ability to absorb the potential losses if conditions in markets deteriorates, which is the Risk Management departments job (incidentally people in Risk Management make much much less money than the ludicrous amounts quoted in the program). Ultimately however the amount of risk a bank takes on is often dictated by government rules and regulations. However without a global consensus it makes it very difficult to make more stringent rules even though there have been some improvements. Therefore making banks behave more responsibly doesn't really depend on bonuses at all but government regulation on how risk should be dealt with. The fact is that we are conned by are politicians who have jumped on the media bandwagon to hide their own failings.

Also saying that bankers shouldn't earn more than the PM has no logic behind it as name me any top politician who relies on their public sector earnings to live by.

The programme was soft on bankers - talking only of their recent failures in taking excessive risks. It omitted to say that in general "investment" banking takes money for its operators while contributing nothing to the economy. There is no useable or enjoyable product that justifies accepting money. The benefit it has for the UK economy is only what it has scrounged from other parts of the world - just as in the past UK wealth was created in Manchester and Birmingham but the corresponding money accrued in London. To call speculation "investment" is a seriously misleading lie. The UK banking sector makes scroungers of our nation, which is heading to become an unprincipled haven for a shameful trade.
They pay tax! But you cannot contribute money to the economy any more than you can breed pigs and pay them into the bank; you just move money from one regional economy to another - mostly to your own personal one. There is no nett benefit; no work done. These incompetent unprincipled people were given a very easy ride by Panorama.

johnweaver, I initially thought that you might have been trying to raise a potentially interesting question about the social worth of investment banking, but having read your comments a few times now, it seems in fact that you have just succeeded in making a few naive, confused and rather silly little generalisations...
- don't start with being "soft on bankers", and then move to talking about investment banking; they are fundamentally very different, and need to considered very separately... or are you trying to imply that banks per se have no social or economic use??
- you imply that investment banking has no social/economic value (ignoring the not-insubstantial question as to whether or not something needs to be 'useable' or 'enjoyable' (!) to have social/economic value), but then directly talk about the "benefit it has for the UK"... so, is there is a value, or isn't there?!
- you need to explain a little better in what way investment banking is similar to the increase in national wealth (including, unsurprisingly the nation's capital, London) as a result of historic growth in the UK's manufacturing base... which I assume is what you're alluding to by reference to Manchester and Birmingham? And, if it is similar, why that is a bad thing..??
- why does investment banking make us a "nation of scroungers"? Who is scrounging from whom? And why is it "shameful"? Who is being wronged here?
- how do you come to the conclusion that there is no net benfit to the economy? Again you use some ridiculous and incomprehensible metaphor about pigs, and I guess in so doing, imply that pig farming itself also has no net benefit to the economy... and you surely can't mean that?!? In what way is "no work done"??

In the end, sadly I think you give yourself away - whatever your moral/social convictions may be in respect of investment bankers, to describe them as "incompetent" reveals your rather bigoted and prejudiced side, which is evident throughout your comments. Again, all very unhelpful, and missing the point completely.

To Lusimus I would say that what is called investment banking is - usually not (I carefully apply the term "lie"). I said nothing that implies that banks have no economic use. Investment, carried out by banks or others is vital and beneficial. Nothing I said denies that. There is limited space here.
What does have economic value that is not useable or enjoyable? Explain! "Making money" has no economic or social value at all - that is
the main and very simple point I made. Making money on an international market can of course benefit a local market - at the expense of others. I called that scrounging; others may call it good business. I perceive no work being done; it is for Lusimus (challenging this) to describe what benefit there is for the economy in the activity that speculating "bankers" pursue (not for one local economy at the expense of another - nett gain zero - of course). Where is the result of their work, that justifies the money that these "bankers" accept? Or any? Their activity closely resembles that of currency counterfeiters; we are all their victims but no one senses it. Taxing them changes and justifies nothing; you cannot put money into the economy! ("Paying pigs into a bank" was meant to be a helpful simplifying corollary, but it seems was not. Pigs are wealth, money is not. Obviously).
When so many people - earning far less than these bankers - publicly predicted the result of their irresponsible behaviour, it seems clear that their continuation on that path indicates monumental incompetence or irresponsibility. If they did not see it coming they are incompetent, probably stupid, if they did they are criminal.

... it only took 25 posts for the folly of Panorama to be played out before our very eyes. Some bloggers ( ... and I won't name names but I think we can work out who they are ... ) clearly have less understanding about economics 1.01 and investment banking than even the producers and researchers of the episode in question.

We all know how easy it is to blame some amorphous group for something nasty that affects us all ... that's what poor journalism thrives on ... what's much less easy is to go away and understand how a country's finances work and how an investment bank works and then make a rational assessment based on FACTS.

In general, calling a group of individuals "incompetent" and "stupid" that have graduated from some of the leading educational institutions on the planet and that are trained by individuals from similarly well regarded institutions is astonishingly arrogant.

I would very strongly urge Main Street to strive to understand precisely how Wall Street operates before casting such ridiculous aspertions on the intelligence and competence of the individuals that operate therein.

... my storm drain is still blocked. And now my garage in untidy too ... it must be an investment banker's fault ...

I agree with some of the comments here about the one-sided nature of the programme and its lack of depth.

However, the programme justified itself, imho, on one point alone and that was the smug, self-satisified and wholly incorrect arguments put forward by Truett Tate, Group Executive Director of Lloyds TSB.

Tate feels that we should be impressed by the return made by the investment by the government in Lloyds-TSB which he argues will have outperformed any alternative investment the government may have made with similar funds in, for example, an infrastructure project.

This is such a bizarre and distorted view of the facts that I can only assume that Mr Tate lives in state of self-denial about the reality of the government bail out.

It was not an investment for gain, it was investment to save an industry. The opportunity cost of this investment is that there will have to be savage cuts in public services, where the consequential social impact will massively outweigh any gain measured on a purely financial basis.

Does Mr Tate honestly believe Britain is better for having invested in Lloyds-TSB because it has made (arguably) made a capital gain - at the expense of the cost to public services and the lives of millions of ordinary citizens?

We are told that individuals of Mr Tate's skill must be compensated at levels set by the market or they will go elsewhere in the world. Mr Tate, please go elsewhere.

�If all bank loans were paid...there would not be a dollar of coin or currency in circulation. Someone has to borrow every dollar we have in circulation. We are absolutely without a permanent money system.� Robert Hemphill, Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, in foreword to �100% Money� by Irving Fisher

to echo the point above by chewiep, I opened a new account with a very large international bank and was given a Β£1500 overdraft. being prudent with my money I wanted to remove the overdraft as I have never used an overdraft in my life and did not wish to start with one now. To make matters worst the balance of the current account showed your actual balance plus the overdraft so a balance of Β£1000 would show as Β£2500. This is very misleading and actively encouraging you to go into debt without even realising. I requested that the overdraft be withdrawn only to be told it could only be reduced to Β£50, to withdraw it completely I would have to speak to a person in branch. I went and spoke to a branch manager who made all possible efforts to persuade me to keep my overdraft. It just goes to show that the culture is still to try and force you to take credit regardless of the customers means or needs.