ΒιΆΉΤΌΕΔ

> Hester and the bank's board have no doubt that It would be
> damaging for the interests of taxpayers - as shareholders in
> the bank - if Royal Bank's investment bank was seriously impaired
> by an inability to retain or recruit talent.

They're crazy if they think there's talent amongst the banking
fraternity - those are the same chumps who destroyed the economy.

No amount of money can buy talent that doesn't exist.

RBS will continue to be a political football while it continues to pay bonuses of Β£1.3bn or whatever to investment bankers who lost the UK economy. If there was any decency in the bank, the whole lot of them would waive any entitlement to a bonus until the taxpayers had been repaid in entirety. And that includes Fred's pennsion, that he clearly did not 'earn'. Until that position is re-established, they will not have any respect from anyone.

Let's try and live without this great talent for a change.
Let's try and live without these banksters for a change.
I promise the world will be a better place without them.
I can write stories and books about how these people are robbing the ordinary man on the street, so please stop banging on about how talented these people are. This talent is good for themselves but not for us and the future British generations.

In my world of business, if you don't earn a profit, you don't get a bonus! So why should we applaud Hester's magnanimous offer of not taking his Β£1.6m bonus? A Β£5bn loss for RBS in 2009 and he is the CEO and he is even being considered for a bonus? It's utterly laughable. No wonder this world's economy is in a mess. Pathetic.
These bankers should move into the real world of business (i.e. non-subsidised) and then we'll maybe start to have some respect for them and their achievements.

The fact is that 'senior' bankers in the developed world are all grossly overpaid. Their pay structure is systemically flawed. It's broke. It's an insult to Joe Public. In this respect, capitalism and market forces have given birth to a grotesque monster.
The entire system of 'senior' bankers' pay needs scrapping. The big banks collectively, with input from financial regulators collectively, need to agree on a new system to put in its place, that Joe Public accepts as fair.

This comment was removed because the moderators found it broke the house rules. Explain.

Lord Mandelson has a hell of a nerve. Stephen Hester has proven his ability by taking on the hardest job i banking. What has Mandy ever done that merits his title and his salary. He is a typical politician - ego and no talent. Let him go out into the real world and earn a living 0 as if he could!

Banksters should all be roped in and sent to Afganistan to show off their talent and hardwork. I am sure they will wet their pants in about 5 minutes.

Gawd bless him, he's the saviour of the working man he is, an I'll tell ya that, I'll prune this mans hedges for nuffink i would.

The bankers in the west have had a good lifestlye from UK consumers for along time. Basically selling us any product they like eg endowment mortgages, pensions, unemployment protection insurance, etc all of which performed badly but gave them the huge bonus!
The objective was clear to claw back as much of our wages so that the income could be redirected into Asian companies. In effect we have financed our own demise, multinational companies have been part of this scam too using there western workers pension funds to build new factories in the far east.
They have been doing this for the last 20yrs and then turning round to the UK employees and saying there business has gone in to administration & hence no pension fund.Slowly but surely they are all pulling out of the wests mature markets and going to much greener pastures of Asia.
Just shows you how corrupt the system is when you use the average Joes wages against him or her.
I think the stimulus money will go the same way, its certainly not being used to fund UK businesses so were is it going, overseas investments!
We are being duped big time.

Every Western economy is now running huge negative balance sheets, while the far east companies are booming with GDP figures 7-10%. Only when you sit down and think it through do you really see whats going on.
Corporations are systematically with drawing from the west and moving to greener pastures in Asia, lets face it the west is a mature market now sluggish sales will be the norm here.

Imagine you leave a very well rewarded job (lets just say CEO of a highly regarded commercial real estate business as a random example!) at the behest of your government who have found themselves in a very challenging situation with a bank that made an ill advised acquisition in its pursuit of growing profits to feed the frenzy of a nation addicted to the idea that their pension funds and other financial investments should keep growing (never forget that we have always 'owned' the banks via the companies that manage our pension funds, ISA's, etc) and that after you have given up the security and relative anonymity of your previous life to be exposed to intimate public scrutiny and pillory, that your erstwhile employer decides to start scoring cheap political points by challenging your previously agreed employment terms and conditions!

Please don't tell me I'm the only person who can see right through the motives of Mr Mandelson. Anyone would think there was an election coming up...

Give Hester a chance. This situation is not of his making (not that it was of any individuals making, much as we would like to transfer responsibility for our own greed and avarice to a handful of others) and thank goodness there are talented and responsible corporate leaders like him around willing to take on this kind of Herculean challenge.

Bonus decline is more a response to public outrage than a rethink on bank bonuses as such.
RBS (84% owned by the taxpayer), Lloyds (43%) and Barclays have all backed away from bonus payments for the boys at the top.
Meanwhile a recent poll measures public outrage
(Neal Lawson, Chairman of Compass commissioned the poll):
- 76% of people want a cap on bonuses,
- 59% want windfall taxes on bankers’ bonuses,
- 60% want the tax to be extended to those working in hedge funds and private equity houses,
- 70% want retail and investment bank functions separated,
- 75% said banks were still not being properly regulated.
But most importantly, most everyone wanted a Tobin tax i.e. tax every financial transaction:
a) for the tax revenue (which would help reduce deficit + help pay for social programs)and
b) for an audit trail, scrutiny and AT LAST - transparency.
Nicely timed, there was a call to bombard Alistair Darling with emails pledging support for regulations. I say nicely timed because the emails were scheduled to pour out, coinciding with the bonus announcements from RBS and Lloyds. The polling results are only the tip of the iceberg re public wrath against financial shaningans, its desire for wholesale reform.
This is an auspicious time to introduce the Tobin Tax – get the legisltation rolling, get the computer programs written and give the world financial transparency PLEASE. This will provide the ability to trace who is doing what, establish the legality thereof, and nail the bubble boys. Proof of the pudding will be when the United States of America throw’s a hissy fit & threatens not to engage financially with the UK.

MC10 is right we all own this bank any way indirectly again its our pension fund money, life insurance policies etc which fund this collapsed business.
So we are purchasing again something we already own?, hmm logic seems flawed to me printing money to bail out an institution and saddling us all with debt.I would love to see were every penny of this cash has gone, may be an investigation of the banks investments might turn up the location of the cash.
Saying that I admire the guy for taking on the challenge its going to be tough. And he is not arrogant enough to think he deserves a bonus,but he knows there would be a public outcry if he did pay himself one.
But again its our cash they are risking not shareholders cash so it makes a complete mockery of the system.

Hester and the bank's board have no doubt that It would be damaging for the interests of taxpayers - as shareholders in the bank - if Royal Bank's investment bank was seriously impaired by an inability to retain or recruit talent.



When will these people realise ... that they have no talent ... none !!!

They are gamblers, and with other peoples money nothing more nothing less.....

We need a system of accountancy that shows what the true position of a bank is, up until then , they will continue shuffling around none existent assets and claim they are making a profit....

#12 Are you his mum?

"our own greed and avarice "

Speak for you self, I never over borrowed but am being punished myself by deposit rates and increased taxes for years too come for doing nothing other than trying to be responsible. As for a handful of others , the only true statement you made, yes it was a handful but the rest of us are paying for all that awfully clever risk taking they made, according to you on our behalf.

Well I think Stephen Hester has made the right decision for the right reasons but, from looking at a number of other posts, I don't suppose he'll get the appreciation he deserves for this.

It seems that few people are recognising that of all the leading "bankers" he is the least responsible for the current situation given that he wasn't even a banker prior to Autumn 2008 i.e. Abbey National (a building society at the time) then British Land.

Thta's the problem with a witch-hunt - the innocent get slaughtered along with the guilty.

Hester and the bank's board have no doubt that It would be damaging for the interests of taxpayers - as shareholders in the bank - if Royal Bank's investment bank was seriously impaired by an inability to retain or recruit talent.

Whe don't applaud bank robbers for only emptying the pound coins out of the place, but leaving the twenty pound notes because we'll be upset do we?

In my book, anything they do is either damaging or likely to be.
Break the banks up, the whole lot of current bankers/traders/regulators, the whole lot of them, step down and promise to never take a job doing anything more than selling newspapers and sweeties in a little village shop on an island inhabited by no one except ex-city pals and I'll perhaps take another look to and decide.

At the end of the day it will make little difference if Hestor does not take his bonus or if Fred Goodwin gives back his pension.

These issues are a mere side show and not worthy of the column inches given to them in the business press.

Me thinks the business press actually don't know very much about business.

#10 & #11 KeithRodgers wrote:

Yep, I agree with your conclusions - as a captive consumer market sales into the western economies is now attritional in that we are now mostly replacing stuff as it wears out or becomes upgraded.

Consequently, the global corporations have to go and find new markets whilst, at the same time, find ways to reduce the cost of production to improve the profit margins in the mature markets.

It's something we need to learn but when it comes to multi-national corporations there is no such thing as American or British or any other nationality any longer - they are really supra-national and hold no allegiance to any nation.

The major flaw in the logic for outsourcing or moving production to Asia is this - every company hires employees who on the flip side are also consumers of product.
If you displace workers you also displace consumers, so when a company off shores manufacturing or services it effectively shoots itself in the foot.So again we have a situation were managers in businesses are being driven by bonuses to cut costs and off shoring gets them there bonus, very similar situation to the banks. And thats why sales in the west are in decline in the west and booming in the east.
Western consumer prices are set very high,take a holiday in Asia and see for yourself what they pay for products.The pricing of commodites in the west is rigged to encourage all to borrow more to aquire the products.

I think it would be very interesting to see RBS pay no boni to bankers and let them all leave, if they're really as good as they keep telling everyone and there are enough places for them to go to.

Clearly those positions wouldn't stay empty for long, even without those boni they're very well paid jobs, they could still attract smart people.

I have a feeling that the performance of the bank wouldn't be much different to what it would have been if boni had been paid.

The guys and girls running global corporations are smart they are milking every government they can by threatening to pull operations out of a particular country. In Canada and USA GM, Chrysler, have all received cash bail outs to fund new designs of fuel effiecent vehicles to get every US consumer off the big truck mentality.
But the very same companies are laying off workers(consumers)in America and Canada and then hiring new workers in China and building new car plants! So how much of the bank bail out money is really being used for new car designs? I think it was Merkel and the French prime minister that stipulated the money must be used in Germany & France respectively.

My word, he can't do right for doing wrong can he?
You complain when he has a bonus, and when he says he isn't going to have a bonus, you still complain.

Give the bloke a break.

#24

You are wasting your breath with some - they could all turn a 24bn loss to 5bn in their sleep ;)

I don't know what Hester's targets are (although they are probably public knowledge given the public own RBS). I think going from Β£29bn loss to profit in one year would be a huge task, but going to a Β£5bn is certainly an improvement.
The problem for all the bankers is the public perception. The perception is that we have had to bail out an industry that can at best have levelled at it a failure to perform due dilligence on the debt it was buying in the secondary / tertiary markets and at worst in some areas committed outright fraud.
As such, whether receiving a bailout, or now doing business in a culture where banks are considered too important to let fail (which is probably true - look at the rumours that started about other banks when NR got in trouble - those rumours could easily have wiped out all our wealth), banks are now beholding to the taxpayer.
Hester's political problem is that he works in an industry with a symbiotic relationship with it's customers. We need banks - without which we would not be able to enjoy our modern lives - banks need us not just as consumers, but as underwriters.
The question we have to ask _OURSELVES_ is are we prepared "next time" to let a bank fail? To let depositors lose money? And remember that might be you and me not some nebulus "them"
Note : I couldn't care less about private shareholders - that is an investment and the return reflects the risks.
As for the idea of paying to retain top talent. I couldn't agree more that this should be tested, that the top talent should be allowed to try its hand elsewhere - it's not clear where they would go, everyone wants to cap bankers bonuses.

Well said Firey Shandy, AgeTheGod and tomb123!

dudeHangingon - love your post but no, not his Mum - would need a sex change for a start. I haven't borrowed any money either but I like my ISA's and pension funds to grow and my insurance policies to pay out in the event I need them to. Got any of these? If so I'm sorry to say that you've joined the club...

As for all this bile about the 'bankers' does anyone actually realise what an incredibly small number of people are actually involved in investment banking within our large banks and that the overwhelming majority are ordinary people working in branches, call centres and processing departments doing an honest days work for normal levels of pay. Sadly they are the ones that are suffering most from all the negativity. A friend of mine who earns less than Β£20k and works for one of the major banks forgot to take off her identity pass and was abused by two separate people on the same train. She has travelled on this train for over 5 years and before that no one talked to each other at all!

Blimey have we got our wires crossed...

14. At 7:16pm on 21 Feb 2010, KeithRodgers

It is perfectly logical.
First you give them your hard-earned cash in the form of deposits, insurance, pension etc.
Second, you bail them out by indbting yourself and paying it off in tax for who knows how many years.
Then, you give them more money in exchange for a share, and we'll rope in the poor to hand over their dosh in the latest ponzi by offering a discounted (rip-off) price.

Now, who do you think, Osborne is best pals with. You or Mr Man in The City?

So Lord Mandelson says Stephen Hester is "a rather strong and rather able man but whose performance and delivery has not yet been tested".

How patronising. Could Lord Mandelson run RBS? Could Lord Mandelson run a bath? Whatever has Lord Mandelson done other than be a puffed-up bureaucrat whose salary, expenses and pension have been paid for by the taxpayer?

At least Stephen Hester has always worked in the private sector and earnt his money. Good luck to him.

Our country needs more people like Stephen Hester! It doesnt need Peter Mandlesons!

Never mind the halo he thinks he should have for rejecting that bonus, how can the Bank (any bank or any financial company, heck, any company for that matter) justify such an obscene amount of money for a bonus? I hate to think what his wage is if thats a bonus...
No man or woman on this planet can surely justify that sort of income, or be worth it... no wonder this country is in such a mess and now we know why... the banks have been fleecing us for years and frankly after this news I am in no mind to keep any of my bank or savings accounts open for any thing at all.
Disgusted, really really....

29. At 9:58pm on 21 Feb 2010, John wrote:

And this message board needs more John's!

Now there is an interesting concept twistywillow lets all pull our money out of these banks and set up a Peoples Bank (not for profit or mutual society).
Hmm we used to have those they were all called building socities and belonged to the members until the members got greedy and accepted the cash bribes to demutulise them all.At least you know the money is being used for ordinary savers and not being used in some dodgy deal called swaps.

In a show on solidarity Gordo is waiving his right to a Kit Kat with his tea next week. Cameron is also considering not staying on an oligarch's yacht in the Med this summer.

We are all in this together.

I can remember in the 1990`s when state aid or handouts were being supplied to British Leyland, British Aerospace, Farmers were on the Euro subsidy gravy train etc and the city cried out that no industry should be subsidised.
Now the boots on the other foot it would be interesting to see if they change there tune and the fear of unemployment might be a good thing for them all to experience.

The sad thing is how many peoples retirement plans in the form of insurance policies, share investments and pension contributions of your average person have been gambled a way and they have no hope of retiring now.
Or was that the plan all along?, take the cash of your average Joe so he could not retire? Keep us all in work until we drop then they don`t have to pay out on the huge pension plan black hole?

9. At 5:58pm on 21 Feb 2010, dudeHangingon wrote:
Gawd bless him, he's the saviour of the working man he is, an I'll tell ya that, I'll prune this mans hedges for nuffink i would.

==========
I bet he'd get a bonus for you doing that, and Darling would claim it on expenses.

17. At 7:29pm on 21 Feb 2010, AgeTheGod wrote:
Thta's the problem with a witch-hunt - the innocent get slaughtered along with the guilty.

Umm on what planet can you get paid Β£1.2 million make a loss of Β£5 billion and inspire pity for declaring you will not take a Β£1.3 million bonus? Tell me. I think I'd like to live there

37. At 06:29am on 22 Feb 2010, Alesha Soba wrote:
”Umm on what planet can you get paid Β£1.2 million make a loss of Β£5 billion and inspire pity for declaring you will not take a Β£1.3 million bonus? Tell me. I think I'd like to live there”

Given that I’ve yet to receive proof that there is life on other planets then I’d have to say β€œon THIS planet” and the only reason most of us don’t earn Β£1.2M per annum is because we don’t deserve to – to be blunt we don’t bring enough value to our employers to warrant them paying us that sort of salary (though we might delude ourselves into thinking that we do).

There are two ways you can look at this. You can either focus on the negative side (which the British are so apt to do) and just focus on the Β£5B loss or you can look on the positive side and see that the RBS finances improved by Β£19B (from -Β£24B to -Β£5B).

If the loss is all his fault (some people seem to think it is) then the improvement must be all his fault as well in which case Β£1.2M represents 0.006% of the marginal profit which, as a taxpayer and hence shareholder in the company, I’d regard as a pretty decent rate of return.

Steven Hester is a jolly good egg, all round stout fellow and a good hunting man to boot - in short, an ideal chap to head up a bank.

I applaud his generosity and I think he should consider defering all his bonuses until further notice - I'm sure he'll manage to scrape by on his salary in the short term.

In the long term, if he turns the bank around and manages to make a profit for the tax payer, he deserves every penny he is due and more.
However, this is a big ask and it should be based on a no-result , no-fee (bonus) basis.

Take note Daniels.

The financial system is in "intensive care", provided by the public.
The financial industry is on "life support" of zero %, provided by the government.
For anyone in the industry to return to massive bonuses would be "morally fraudulent", and will be for many years, or even decades.

"The bankers in the west have had a good lifestlye from UK consumers for along time. Basically selling us any product they like eg endowment mortgages, pensions, unemployment protection insurance, etc all of which performed badly but gave them the huge bonus!"

And consumers are blameless for throwing their hard earned money at financial products without understanding them?! Are consumers blameless for piling up credit card debt and piling into mortgages they can't afford?! Get some perspective. The system broke down due to the collective and connected actions of politicans, regulators, financiers and the populace. In a nuthsell, the underaged were given pocket money by the parents, allowed to binge by the pubmaster, not policed by the policeman and encouraged by the doctors. If you don't get the analogy then you deserve to be broke. It is time everybody in the UK understood the big picture rather than look for the scapegoat.

# 17. At 7:29pm on 21 Feb 2010, AgeTheGod wrote:

> Well I think Stephen Hester has made the right decision for
> the right reasons but, from looking at a number of other posts,
> I don't suppose he'll get the appreciation he deserves for this.

In this world, he's choosen to become a pariah, so he'll have to wait to get his reward in heaven.

> That's the problem with a witch-hunt - the innocent get slaughtered along
> with the guilty.

The bankers hunted down taxpayers' and customers' money like wolves, so they
can't complain when they get destroyed themselves. That's life.

# 38. At 08:26am on 22 Feb 2010, AgeTheGod wrote:

> the only reason most of us don’t earn Β£1.2M per annum is because we
> don’t deserve to

Nonsense. I saved my employer 25 million dollars with three weeks work. I got paid about Β£3K, the normal amount for a senior engineer. Bankers feel they're entitled, and they're not. They've cost us the earth, and now it must cease.

Re 41 namancura...
You're obviously one of the "it's all the publics' fault" brigade.
Who invented the self-certification mortgage?.....bankers.
Who invented the 125% mortgage?....bankers.
Who bought trillions of pounds of clearly dodgy American mortgages?....bankers.
And who pocketed tens of billions in bonuses on non-existant profits?.....bankers.
You say we are all looking for a "scapegoat"....think again.

# 24. At 8:45pm on 21 Feb 2010, tomb123 wrote:

> My word, he can't do right for doing wrong can he? You complain when
> he has a bonus, and when he says he isn't going to have a bonus,
> you still complain. Give the bloke a break.

His wages alone would pay for a hospice for 10 children! He has to tighten his
belt and live in the real world, like we all have to do. Look, it's dead simple - there are far, far too many greedy pigs in the banks.

I just can't understand why it took so long to root them out.

Really, when all is said and done, it's no more than a gesture.

But even as a mere gesture, it's surely preferable to what Sir Fred would have probably done!

Perhaps - just perhaps - RBS are starting to move on from what might be described as their infamous past ways of doing things.

#29 John said "At least Stephen Hester has always worked in the private sector and earnt his money."

What on earth makes you think that bankers actually earn their money? They make a lot of money but they rarely if ever earn it. Earning suggests something involving being productive. Bankers are neither productive nor industrially useful.

MC10, leave it out! Where do you get off telling everyone that they're greedy and avaricious. We have no debt other than a manageable mortgage and generally don't use credit cards, we save and live a frugal, unshowy existence with occasional treats. It suits the bankers agenda to push the blame off on everyone. This isn't the case, most people we know, if not all, live in a similar way. They also like to blame regulation, but now every attempt to instill some common sense with rules for the system is blocked by their lobbying and threats of withdrawal of political funding.
Politicians, regulate now, you've done us no favours in the past, show your mettle and stand up in the face of this pampered cartel. And stop taking their money. End of boom and bust: absolute rubbish. No rewards for failure: more rubbish.

Jaques Cartier wrote....
"....THERE ARE FAR, FAR TOO MANY GREEDY PIGS IN THE BANKS".
and that simple fact is having devastating consequences for the people of the UK and the USA.

I think that most of this mock outrage is just Quixotic charging at windmills - bankers have always had bonuses and it is necessary to continue to have and develop talent. The top 10% of people in this country pay almost 50% of the tax so we want more highly paid people so that those of us who don't earn millions don't have to pay so much.
That said, this outrage against bank and politicians is also useful as it provides an impetus and a mandate for wholesale reform so that the banks are run to suit the country (the same could be said for parliament as well, of course).
We are living in interesting times, and they will surely become more interesting when we actually start paying for this mess.

Robert Robert Robert,Look no one cares about Hester, he has made a pot of gold as has his wife working in the banking industry, he is known for giving his staff big bonuses, he makes grand announcements when joining companies ie Abbey, ee profits are t'down, only makes him look better doesnt it 2 minutes into the job so when he did the banker chants he can show profits are up bonuses all round ,
of course it is said he doesnt speak Yorkshire ,
so one last time

Banks got bailed out because they treated the economy as their own casino, sucked all the profits out short term, repackaged everything with some dodgy ratings from moodys (see Greece and Goldman ala sell and buy back your own debt trick as recent evidence) yadda yadda yadda

So the sane amongst us pay down their debts as much as they can, tighten belts etc,

The bankers ie the "clever ones" not the normal bankers who works behind the scenes doing the normal boring bank stuff, carry on regardless

anyway it doesnt matter does it because the tidal wave of debt hanging over the US is going to capsize the good ship UK and they will all sink to the bottom, notice how things are picking up with policing here and abroad, like they are expecting civil unrest

# 49. At 10:26am on 22 Feb 2010, stevewo wrote:

> "....THERE ARE FAR, FAR TOO MANY GREEDY PIGS IN THE BANKS". and that simple
> fact is having devastating consequences for the people of the UK and the USA.

At least in the States, people come out and hate Wall Street. Here, everybody
just stifles thier digust at "The City". The Brits are too uptight. Come,
don't eat any more of it - get your fingers out and bash a banker!

43. At 09:45am on 22 Feb 2010, Jacques Cartier wrote:

"Nonsense. I saved my employer 25 million dollars with three weeks work. I got paid about Β£3K, the normal amount for a senior engineer. "

Do the maths:

Β£3k of Β£25 million is 0.012%
Β£1.2m of Β£19bn is 0.006%

So you actually faired better than Mr Hester and he has given his bonus up.

Hmmm, perhaps we should harangue money grabbing engineers ;)

44. At 09:46am on 22 Feb 2010, stevewo wrote:
"Re 41 namancura...
You're obviously one of the "it's all the publics' fault" brigade.
Who invented the self-certification mortgage?.....bankers.
Who invented the 125% mortgage?....bankers.
Who bought trillions of pounds of clearly dodgy American mortgages?....bankers.
And who pocketed tens of billions in bonuses on non-existant profits?.....bankers.
You say we are all looking for a "scapegoat"....think again."


Who bought the self-certification mortgage?.....the public.
Who bought the 125% mortgage?....the public.
Who forced the American Banks to lend to 'dodgy' customers?....Mr Clinton.
And who pocketed dividends on non-existant profits?.....shareholders, pension funds etc.
And who pocketed taxes on allegedly non-existent profits?.... Government
Who has called for taxes and dividends to be repaid as well as bonuses for these allegedly non-existent profits?.... the silence is deafening


So perhaps not everyone is as squeaky clean as they make out?

Re 54 yam yzf...
You make some fair points.
The public are generally not "financially astute".....that's why we have bankers...

What do Investment Bankers actually do....? RBS I understood had large business oin ForEx and Letter of Credit, highly respectable but are they like Goldman Sachs advising sovereign governments how to get debts off the national balance sheet, or similarly for multinationals, on how to effectively avoid taxation etc etc. What exactly do the taxpayers own and should we care about paying people very large remuneration for earnings from the more doubtful practices. Do tell us. (oh and by the way were RBS Investment Bank in involved in recent cross border M&A events?)

@32 Keith Rodgers quote " Now there is an interesting concept twistywillow lets all pull our money out of these banks and set up a Peoples Bank (not for profit or mutual society)"
Nationwide and the Co Operative Bank still exist outside the free for all banking chaos. not sure how ethical they are though. Must be better than these high rolling highway robbers though.

5. At 11:25am on 22 Feb 2010, stevewo wrote:
Re 54 yam yzf...
You make some fair points.
The public are generally not "financially astute".....that's why we have bankers...
-----------------------------------
Indeed.
In fact yam yzf's comment just goes to prove that it was all snake oil and mis-selling.

re posts 54 & 55...

yam ysf made some good comment...the public might not be "financially astute", but they can easily work out if they can afford the mortgage payments...and some of the self-cert's were submitted because they wanted the house of their dreams, not the house they could afford!

also...on the bonuses - fair enough imo opinion for some of the hundred or so in the City for RBS / Lloyds (out of a workforce of several thousand)...but what about those in the processing departments / branches? In many cases their basic pay is very low and their bonuses (Β£1-3k) makes a massive difference. If they were to all leave (re. earlier comments on letting the best leave and see if they can find jobs elsewhere), who would process the payroll from your company, clear the cheques you write, process your applications??

Not everyone who works in a bank is sipping champagne at lunch and betting millions on Libor / forex / stock market movements....

...and don't get me started on the Tory plans to give away / sell at a large discount the shares to the public....!!!

4. At 11:07am on 22 Feb 2010, yam yzf wrote:

> Who bought the self-certification mortgage?.....the public.

Wrong, I never bought a single one.

> Who bought the 125% mortgage?....the public.

Wrong, I never bought a single one.

> Who forced the American Banks to lend to 'dodgy' customers?....Mr Clinton.

I never voted for him.

> And who pocketed dividends on non-existant profits?.....shareholders,
> pension funds etc.

Nonsense – the pension funds are lower.

> And who pocketed taxes on allegedly non-existent profits?.... Government

Nonsense – the government is deep in the red.

So, all of your β€œbeneficiaries” of the bankers seem to be far worse off. And I'm doing the baling, despite having no 125% mortgage etc. No wonder your arithmetic is all over the place - β€œDo the maths”!

38. At 08:26am on 22 Feb 2010, AgeTheGod wrote:
There are two ways you can look at this. You can either focus on the negative side (which the British are so apt to do) and just focus on the Β£5B loss or you can look on the positive side and see that the RBS finances improved by Β£19B (from -Β£24B to -Β£5B).

Are you sure you meant to write this ?

I just wished the Prime Minister would use his ferocious temper on those bankers down in London. It might do _them_ a bit of good!

The bankers in the west have had a good lifestlye from UK consumers for a long time now. Basically selling us any product they like eg endowment mortgages, pensions, unemployment protection insurance, etc all of which performed miserably or mislead the general public. And all without any redress on the so called financial advisor(glorified salesperson).
The objective was clear to claw back as much of our wages so that the cash could be redirected into high risk deals, effectively gambling with the private indivuduals money.Or worse still using it to fund the development of the Pacific Rim tiger economies & companies. In effect UK workers have financed there own demise, multinational companies have been part of this scam too using there UK/Western workers pension funds to build these new factories in the far east.
They have been doing this for the last 20yrs and then turning round to the UK employees and saying there business has gone in to administration & hence no pension fund.Slowly but surely they are all pulling out of the Wests mature markets and going to much greener pastures of Asia.
Just shows you how corrupt the system is when you use the average Joes wages against him or her.
I think the stimulus money will go the same way, its certainly not being used to fund UK businesses so were is it going, overseas investments!
We are being duped big time.Can somebody tell me what skill or talent you need to invest in off shore activties without redress from the UK legal framework.Go on holiday to Asia and see the prices for yourselves, between being made in Asia and being put on sale in a UK store somebody is making an awful lot of money.

I certainly agree with the sentiment that banking bosses, particularly those that directly (the likes of Lloyds) or indirectly (a la Goldman Sachs) took any government support to get them through the current global crisis voluntarily turn down any bonuses until there has been some balance restored in the global markets. They are steering the ships and could have prevented the mess - these big bosses should certainly feel some pain now.

As an ex-banker however, I believe the public does need to be educated about how the pay structures in a banking environment work. The media constantly touting seemingly massive total bonus pool figures at each bank does not help the situation - consumers quite rightly associate bankers with the current mess the world finds itself in. When they get sticker shock after hearing the amount of the bonus pool figure, why is anybody surprised there is such an uproar? What they don't understand is without bonus incentives of any sort, many bankers are quite poorly rewarded - if ever there was a carrot and stick mentality in an industry, bankers would surely make the proudest donkeys. The public needs to appreciate that to recover from the mess the bankers have caused, they still need to be incentivised to do so. No bonus pools means no banker donkeys, no banker donkeys means nobody to fix the mess, which in turn means NO recovery.

Justin ()

When index driven trading is shown to match or better traders "skills" this evidences there is no skill in banking.

To reward such failures insults the many at the lower levels in the bank who cannot get these bonuses.It further shows the hollow skills of the managers who think such traders are worth the money.

In over 30years of business consulting I have yet to meet any man or woman, apart from the odd entreprenuer owning their company,who is worth paying more than Β£500k/yr.

Sadly, the "old boys club" of cross directors means no remuneration commitee will ever move to reduce directors pay. This is especially so when major shareholders are "bought off" by their own directors being on the boards of other plcs. Would the pensioner with e few bank shares support generous packages for these overpaid underperformers? No way.

It is time for all shareholders and customer to recognise that the wages of this elite effectively steals money from us all. However MPs will not legislate because of the extended tax take and the hope that they will themselves benefit from such largesse.

Will anybody ever trust a financial advisor again sorry salesman again?
the damage is huge and people will always be asking what commission or bonus is in it for the advisor?
Its a sad state of affairs when the advice being given to you is driven by bonus or commission but how many other industries are also run like this?
We need to get back to flat rate salaries so that customers can feel happy that the advice given is not driven to a particular company for purely financial gain.
TRUST HAS BEEN COMPLELTY DESTROYED.

Reuters had an article about all the other European countries that used the same exact instruments to keep debt off the books. Merkel blasted Greece and Goldman for this deal but Germany did a $50 billion deal just like it in 2007.

Namucura -
Aren’t people selling financial products supposed to fully explain the pitfalls of investing with a bunch of dishonest charlatans?
Shouldn’t banks exercise judgement before lending to people that can’t afford repayments?
In a different nutshell, greedy bankers dished out sub standard advice and irresponsibly lent money to those that could ill afford it but that’s just fine.
If you don’t get the analogy – imagine you were at the helm of a British company and that made the biggest loss in British history and to teach you a lesson you’d never forget they gave you a pension of 600k!!
Is it me or is namucura a space cadet (or a republican from somewhere in the isolated middle bit of the US)?