General Discussion
http://www.avaaz.org/en/stop_rbs_bonuses_a/
Not Dawlish per se, but I think most people on here would agree this is not a good use of tax payers money.
At least Rooney and Beckham score goals, which is their job.
These bankers should have the big bonuses they deserve, in otherwords big negative ones.
They obviously weren't capable of doing their jobs.
I would also be against Rooney and Beckham being paid out of tax payers' money. I don't think anyone is against people earning as much money as they can. In fact that is what most of us try and do. The key word here is "earning".
This goes for the benefit scrougers also. £26K is way too much. It is hardly an incentive to get a job is it? If a gross wage of £35K is needed to prevent people from being in poverty, then most of the UK must be in poverty.
I work 5 days a week, 8 hours a day and travel an hour each way to work, I earn less than £35K, also working costs money, e.g. train ticket is £215 a month.
Why should able people earn money for doing SOD ALL?
Well, the minimum wage is £6.08 which amounts to £12,646.40 a year for a 40 hour week and paid holidays. So I do not know where this £26K nett £35K gross figure comes from.
Someone pointed out on Question Time the other night that the majority of full-time workers in supermarkets in the UK also receive benefits since they are considered to be on a low income.
So here we are again in a situation where listed FTSE companies have business models that require support from the tax payer because the businesses pay as little as they can get away with to the majority of employees whilst a few CEOs get million £ salaries.
We should never be in a situation where full time employees require government subsidies because their employer refuses to pay them a living wage.
I don't know what the exact subsidy is but I'd just point out that to those who live in social housing that they are in receipt of benefits by the very fact that they don't pay a market rent.
Now, whilst I have no problem with that I do find it odd that this seems to be overlooked by some when discussing the benefit issue.
And I agree with SteveJ on the low pay issue and benefits as many on low pay, because they are on low pay, get tax credits one way or the other. The problem I have with that is, as SteveJ points out, that the tax payer is having to subsidise the low pay (by way of tax credits) when, if the employees were paid a decent wage from the profits made by their employers this would not have to happen. Instead it seems that low pay is subsidised by other taxpayers so that those at the very top of organisations and banks get paid mega dosh salaries.
Just been reading some other online discussions about this matter and came across this comment which I think expresses my posting above even better. "Here's one for I.D.S. You want to make welfare reforms? Try closing the loophole that allows companies to abuse the welfare system by contracting some employees to 16 hours a week, knowing the rest would be made up with tax credits. Every little helps, eh? As for the chief executives of publicly owned companies who award themselves huge sums of public money, cap their bonus."
Lynne I do know that if you are in Social Housing you do not get the Housing Benefit paid to you, it is paid direct to your social landlord. If you are in private let it gets paid to you depending on your needs a single person gets £95 per week towards their rent.
So coming back to Steve's original posting, everyone should go onto the AVaaz site and sign the petition - I did about 4-5 days ago and had an e-mail back today saying they're up to around 75000. They are aiming for 100,000 which I thin k is the magic number that officially represents public opinion in the eyes of the government.
@Lynne, if the news article is true then the bonus pool should be zero or negative as 007 puts it since the performance of the company has been abysmal.
Also, we have reached 100,000 signatures, so there is no excuse for the goverment.
Anyway, why doesn't the government buy up the remaining 17% of RBS and just use it as a peoples bank to lend to businesses and house buyers?
So much for petitioning...
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16751691
Just goes to show how weak polititians are. They always talk the talk, but when it comes to action they are just a bunch of cowardly c*ck suckers. And they wonder why it ends in riots.
Where are my shares anyway?
Bonus was to be £1,6 million, Cameron said 'he hoped' it would be less than £1m, and by magic it was reduced to £960,000. Another victory for the P.M!!!!.
Obviously this deal was pre-arranged, and am sure Hester will be buying the drinks next time he visits Westminster.
Labour can shout all they want, a clause in the contract of Fed the Shred meant they could have reduced his pension by 50% but delayed that decision until 30 days after it was too late to do so. They admitted that at the time but said 'they weren't aware of the clause'.
Nothing magical about the 100 000 figure for online petitions, all that means is with 100 000 signatures it 'might' be debated in the House of Commons, it will join the queue of the other 4 that also 'might' be debated, two already have been, and if it is?????
It's just a debate which 90% of MPs don't attend anyway.
I've been reading some of the arguments about why Hester should receive a large bonus. They are all based on the idea that he has turned the company around. There is nothing in his contract that obliges a bonus.
If this is the case, why is is the share price 28p? It doesn't look like the markets have any faith in RBS.
The true reality is, the bankers and their cartel are running the show and no politician (except Vince Clark perhaps) wants to admit this.
Although I am a novice at understanding politics, I seem to have heard that the politicians are very reluctant to do anything that might frighten bankers into moving elsewhere as they contribute vast sums in taxes to the Treasury. I don't know how true this is, maybe someone will enlighten me if this is not the case.
Didn't Vince Clark used to be in Erasure?
Cassandra, I think the tax argument has worn thin and is not used by bankers and politicians anymore since the economic damage and loss caused by banks far outways any tax revenue.
I read someone that for every 1 million a banker made over the last decade it costs the tax payer 5.
I meant Vince Cable, but you are right, I just googled it and Vince Clark was in Erasure. I was probably mixing up Vince Cable and Kenneth Clarke when I wrote it though.
Watched a very interesting debate last night on Channel 4 news about 'fairness'.
It was pointed out that in City circles it was thought very fair indeed that Hestor should get his £1m or so salary plus the near £1m in shares as a bonus. Fair because when compared to the likes of Bob Diamond the CEO of Barclays (I don't know his salary but it's bound to be megadosh) the bonus given to Hestor pales into total insignificance. It's thought that Bob Diamond's bonus this year will be in the region of £10m.
Now, I know I am talking about an 85% or so state owned bank and comparing it to one that isn't but the point is that in the rarified atmosphere that comprises the City of London and the banking industry I am sure there are some that think to themselves "poor (poor! ha!) old Stephen, he's taken on RBS, given it a good shaking, laid off employees, and all he gets as a reward is a measley salary and bonus plus a lot of public flack for taking even that".
Just goes to show that the world they live in is far from the one that the rest of us inhabit.
Oh and as a PS as it were, I'll just pose this. As well as the bankers and city types having absolutely no idea of the types of lives the rest of us have I will extend that lack of knowledge to many politicans, landed gentry, aristocrats and our dearly revered (by some) royal family.
Okay rant over. It's my birthday today. I'm indulging myself.
I watched Channel 4 news also. I think the main issue is that Bankers believe they should be the most highly paid people on the planet whereas the rest of us don't.
The problem is that the bankers have established a platform over the last few decades that allows them to self indulge. If any outsider tries to interfere then they threaten the world with economic mayhem. Alister Darling said that the he was told the cash machines would stop working during the last crash if the banks were not bailed out.
So we are at war with the bankers primarily so we can get back control over our own money and our own economies. A lot of people realise this now and it has taken a couple of years for it to sink in.
People need to study finance, economics banking and accounting at an early age. These are really important subjects yet nothing is taught in our schools. We are taught pointless stuff like Religious Studies, Music and Cookery. These are things people can learn from their parents and friends. School should be about preparing people for the real world.
I see that hoary old chestnut is being peddled again. People in social housing pay a FAIR rent which covers costs, a market rent is something entirely different.
People in social housing pay, as I understand it, a regulated rent. A Fair Rent was something that I paid back in the 1980s when I was a private sector tenant.
Now, whether or not that regulated rent is deemed to be fair (small 'f' please note) may be a matter for debate. Did I imagine it or did this government actually think for a while about raising all social rents up to local market level but then decided to discard the idea as it would have meant the Housing Benefit bill would have gone through the roof (if you pardon the pun). As it happens I believe that new social tenants from a date sometime in the near future will be expected to pay 80% of whatever is deemed to be the market rent for their property.
I imagine the government thought about raising all present social rents up to market rents because in their eyes it wasn't fair that some people pay more than others for exactly the same accomodation. eg a social tenant living next door to a private sector tenant in a house that had been RTB'd and then, ultimately, rented out in the private sector.
Which brings us back to the debate (as was the topic for a little while on Channel 4 news last night) as to what is fair and what is not. And what is and what is not deemed to be fair varies from individual to individual and how they view the world, their place in it, and goodness knows how many other things besides.
I don't think the government can legally raise the rents of current social housing tenants to market rates because those tenants have a pre-existing tenancy agreement, hence only new tenants may be affected. And, it is only an option for the social landlord to charge up to 80% of market rate, some social landlords have stated they will not take advantage of the change in rules. Social housing rents are cheaper because they are run by not-for-profit social landlords. If somebody is renting an ex council property they will pay more rent than their neighbours because the owner is now trying to make a tidy profit.
Yes I know that private sector rents include an element of profit for the landlord so here is another thing concerned with fairness and private sector rents.
Is it fair that the taxpayer should 'give' money to private sector landlords by way of housing benefit? After all the private landlord seems to on a nice little earner anyway - a capital investment (property) plus an income stream (rent). And then we go and add a third dimension - housing benefit.
Is that fair?
I merely pose the question.
Some might respond that it is only fair that all who rent should be able to rent where they wish because of, for example, nearness to place of work. This may not necessarily be in an area however where they can afford to meet the full rent from their wage. On the other hand others might say that those who rent should only do so where they can afford to meet the rent themselves because it isn't fair that they, and private landlords, should be subsidised by the taxpayer by way of H. Ben.
There are some interesting articles in today's Independent on Sunday about Stephen Hestor's true remuneration and the concept of fairness.
I've argued that housing benefit should be scrapped. It is just another prop propping up over-inflated house prices.
£20 billion a year (which is what the tax payer bill is) would build a lot of council houses. We will need these for the next generation of workers since there will be no chance of them being able to buy a house whilst Mervin King and his gang deliberately prevent house prices from falling back to their true value by robbing savers and sensible people that didn't get involved in the last credit binge through low interest rates and high inflation
Just looked at the independent article and it says Hester is due for an extra £3.3 million bonus on top of the £900K. Also to date he has "earnt" £35.54m in pay.
So there is no one that could have run the bank for say a £100K salary or a £200K salary, even £800K or even a £1.6 million salary? I mean David Cameron runs the country for £100K (tempted to put the 'i' in the 'run' there but seriously, he could do a lot more damage than Hester could with RBS, surely?).
Just love the cartoon that accompanies this article from today's Observer.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jan/29/stephen-hester-bonus-popular-capitalism
Perhaps one way that the *ankers might sit up and take some notice could be for those of us who have bank accounts with RBS, Lloyds, Barclays, HBOS and similar to close our accounts with them and open accounts elsewhere?