Another Bank gets it's bonuses at our expense.

Innys

chewmylegoff wrote: »

well, if you add up all the tax paid by HBOS over the last few years, and deduct the loan, i expect you'll find that HBOS is still a net contributor to the brown regime.

I have been paying 40% tax for well over 20 years. However, I have no kids, never claimed the dole, HB, tax credits or any of the multitude of handouts on offer. Therefore I too am a net contributor to the Brown regime.

If I were to follow your logic would I qualify for a bonus as well, not to mention a state bail out if I became insolvent?

kunekune

I started to type out a response that was measured and calm, but there's no point is there. This is a witch hunt. Oh, look, your husband works for a bank AND THEY HAVEN'T HUNG DRAWN OR EVEN QUARTERED HIM YET. Let's have a go and doing it for them.

One point I'd make is that the idea that the jobs have been saved is complete rubbish. They haven't started redundancies yet, but they will come. Oh, sorry, that's what you want isn't it. You want maximum possible misery for the ordinary workers who had absolutely nothing to do with the decisions that led to disaster, just because the government decided that it was best to step in. That decision had nothing to do with saving individual workers - in fact, many have lost huge amounts of money already, since they had taken part of their salary in shares for years. That decision had to do with the perceived needs of the wider economy and it certainly didn't come with any promises of saving jobs in towns like Halifax or Bingley. Disagree if you like, but it has nothing to do with the thousands of people frantically saving for the hard times to come, just like people who don't work in banks.

lukekelly_2

While I agree that shop floor staff may have worked hard over the last 12 months, isn't working hard part of the job that they get a salary for? Why is it an almost automatic right to get a bonus?

Bonuses break down into several categories. For some people their bonus is part of their basic pay. So my partner is paid £x per month and £y once a year. It is a bonus in the sense that it is an annual payment, but it should really be considered as part of people's basic pay.

The second type is corporation-wide profit sharing. This is where a certain proportion of the profit of a organisation as a whole is given as bonuses to employees. This type of bonus would clearly be absurd for the banks at present.

The final type is individual or group performance related bonuses. You give a worker targets -- "achieve this level of customer satisfaction" or "invest this money and get a 10% return" -- and a bonus according to the extent with which they meet this target. This is where there is an argument to be had, should people making their targets locally in an organisation that failed globally be rewarded? My answer would be yes as long as the organisation can afford it, but I can see the reasonable argument that in the present financial climate such bonuses shouldn't be paid.

If the bank weren't there today they wouldn't have got a bonus so how come, just because there's been a major injection by the public, they should still get it?

They would have gotten no basic salary either, so if this argument holds then they should receive no pay at all. Carrying the argument to its logical conclusion, the thousands of non-banking businesses which would have gone bust if the government hadn't propped up the banks also wouldn't exist if it wasn't for that tax-payers money. Thus they should receive no bonuses or basic pay either.

lukekelly_2

Either you believe in a capitalist model, which entitles a business to run itself how it sees fit, and that includes using foreign workers and paying bonuses if so desired OR you really do want a Socialist model where we all get the same as each other.

This is an absurd binary model thankfully existing normally only in the barmy world of American politics and bearing no relationship to the world we live in. Capitalism isn't some platonic ideal where the state has no role at all. Capitalism a the complex mixed system where the relative roles of the state and private organisations is constantly varying and under negotiation. The idea of private enterprise removing the state almost entirely was the lynchpin of 19th century liberal thought and died a death the first time it met a recession. (We may of course be seeing a repeat of this now.) Without the state to control, calm and reduce social distress and disorder the private section of capitalism cannot exist. The question isn't Socialism or Capitalism but on the relative roles played by the public and private sectors. Unfortunately for those who enjoy their soap-box ranting this isn't a black and white issue but a subtle and evolving grey panorama.

Max_Headroom_3

kunekune wrote: »

I started to type out a response that was measured and calm, but there's no point is there. This is a witch hunt. Oh, look, your husband works for a bank AND THEY HAVEN'T HUNG DRAWN OR EVEN QUARTERED HIM YET. Let's have a go and doing it for them.

One point I'd make is that the idea that the jobs have been saved is complete rubbish. They haven't started redundancies yet, but they will come. Oh, sorry, that's what you want isn't it. You want maximum possible misery for the ordinary workers who had absolutely nothing to do with the decisions that led to disaster, just because the government decided that it was best to step in. That decision had nothing to do with saving individual workers - in fact, many have lost huge amounts of money already, since they had taken part of their salary in shares for years. That decision had to do with the perceived needs of the wider economy and it certainly didn't come with any promises of saving jobs in towns like Halifax or Bingley. Disagree if you like, but it has nothing to do with the thousands of people frantically saving for the hard times to come, just like people who don't work in banks.

What a bizarre and slightly troubled post!

kunekune

Yes, I was angered by some of the attitudes on this thread, if that's what you mean, but it's about the way in which a large number of the victims of the banking collapse - the employees - are being treated as though they had caused it and therefore deserved everything they are getting. They don't, any more than employees in any other collapsed business - and from the perspective of the employees this is just another collapsed business. It's just taking longer for it to happen. Troubled? Only by those said attitudes.

Graham_Devon

kunekune wrote: »

Yes, I was angered by some of the attitudes on this thread, if that's what you mean, but it's about the way in which a large number of the victims of the banking collapse - the employees - are being treated as though they had caused it and therefore deserved everything they are getting. They don't, any more than employees in any other collapsed business - and from the perspective of the employees this is just another collapsed business. It's just taking longer for it to happen. Troubled? Only by those said attitudes.

It's nothing like that.

All people are saying is they do not deserve the bonus. No one has said they deserve to lose their jobs, however they would have, like woolworths staff should the taxpayer not have bailed them out.

It it us, the taxpayers, that are paying their bonus now. How would you feel if your tax money got used to pay the staff at Tesco their bonus's?

You are getting annoyed at people on this thread, because of your own interpretation of what people are saying. What you have explained above, NO ONE is saying. So it's not the attitudes on this thread that are wrong.

Ian_Griffiths_Halifax

kunekune wrote: »

Yes, I was angered by some of the attitudes on this thread, if that's what you mean, but it's about the way in which a large number of the victims of the banking collapse - the employees - are being treated as though they had caused it and therefore deserved everything they are getting. They don't, any more than employees in any other collapsed business - and from the perspective of the employees this is just another collapsed business. It's just taking longer for it to happen. Troubled? Only by those said attitudes.

I'm sure that there are many 'team building' events and 'brain storming' sessions held within the organisations we are talking about, where all of the attendees are told the same old lines "there's no I in team", "you're all makeing a difference", "we're in it together" etc etc etc. Now that the !!!!!! has hit the fan, they can't say "ah, but it was that departments fault", "oh, it was his fault" etc.

No profits, No bounses! Jeez, I'm starting to sound like John Prescott!

I, and I'm certain most who have commented, don't think it is the fault of the majority of the workers, that the banks are in the situation they are in, but "they are in it together"!

Innys

kunekune wrote: »

Yes, I was angered by some of the attitudes on this thread, if that's what you mean, but it's about the way in which a large number of the victims of the banking collapse - the employees - are being treated as though they had caused it and therefore deserved everything they are getting. They don't, any more than employees in any other collapsed business - and from the perspective of the employees this is just another collapsed business. It's just taking longer for it to happen. Troubled? Only by those said attitudes.

It is desirable for a distinction to be made between those bankers who caused this mess and those on the "front line". Arguably, those on the front line should still be paid bonuses for they are blameless.

However, if the banks were still fully privately owned, made massive losses, asked for more money from their shareholders and then still insisted on paying bonuses to anyone in their company - whether they caused the losses or not, you can bet the shareholders would not be sympathetic. So why should we, the taxpayer, be any more so?

Personally, I don't blame front line staff for causing it, but given the redundancies in the rest of the economy, I think they should be glad they have a job - never mind a bonus.

kunekune

The comments that 'got my goat' were the ones that suggested jobs have been saved and therefore the employees should just feel bl**dy grateful.

So, for instance,

“Their salary would have been a whole lot less if they were in the dole queue like many others not lucky enough to have been bailed out by taxpayers.”

"The bailout money WAS NOT FOR BONUSES, it was to keep the banking system functioning saving these peoples jobs, a luxury many people (eg Woolworths employees whom I am sure earnt less than the average bank worker) have not had."

"The BONUSES paid out by RBS and HBOS/Lloyds TSB Banking Group, could have saved a lot more jobs in businesses around the country that have gone to the wall, but instead it gets spent on people who have the luxury of a job."

"As for me, having had my tax money keep you in a job, guess what will happen if the company I work for runs out of money? I (having kept you in a job with my tax money) will be out of a job and joining the Woolworths employees on the dole."

"Can you understand then why I might feel somewhat miffed that my money, having been used to keep your company in business (which I object to) is now being spent in part on bonuses for the lucky staff who were able to keep their jobs because of my tax money?"

"We are having it bred into us that failure is acceptable and you will still get rewarded regardless of incompetence or irresponsibility."

As pointed out earlier, the jobs have not been saved, many many are at risk, it's just that it takes a while to wind down a bank because of the nature of the business. I'll admit that I may have overreacted, that was partly because I was reacting not just to this thread but to other stuff in the media, and to the failure of the anti-bank faction to listen to everyone who points out the perspective of those involved at the ground level.