Banker's exodus possible - does anyone care?

carolt

misskool wrote: »

If you choose a job that isn't driven by money, then why is it so important to castigate a group of people who happen to make more money than you? So what if they don't get paid ordinary salaries? I get annoyed when footballers and celebrity housewives get paid more than me, yet all they do is prance around doing nothing.

The problem lies in the fact that people don't really know what banking is about and therefore choose to belittle it and don't really care. It's the same as science, people have no idea of the implications of it for them and run away scared. You can't talk about cloning without people thinking you're going to be creating some sort of Frankenstein or make tomatoes grow their pesticides.

I know bankers too, it's hard not to. The ones that work in the city and yes, they love money. You don't do a job where you work stupid hours and are treated like scum if you don't get rewarded.

If you think it's so easy carol, why not apply and see how far you get?

Because (a) I'm paying their salaries through my taxes, and (b) because through their incompetence, our economy nearly collapsed and we are all paying for the consequences.

I don't believe in rewarding failure with huge cash bonuses. I believe it's called moral hazard.

NB I have absolutely no interest in being a banker, personally. Whatever the salary. But I find it extremely hard to believe that even on half those salaries they'd struggle to recruit, considering the sitution we have currently in terms of unemployment and short hours/lower wages.

Out of interest, in what ways are the bankers you know treated like 'scum'? The ones I know are treated very well, thank you.

lemonjelly

ruggedtoast wrote: »

But anger is the food of the peasant. And resentment is the fine wine of the prole.

It was ever thus.

Personally I'm just glad they've momentarily forgotten about fat indolent public sector workers wallowing like pigs in our final salary pension troughs.

Oink.

You owe me a new monitor. Mine is now covered in hot sweet tea!:rotfl:

Mr_Matey wrote: »

Simon Cowell's been doing that for years. Where's his lynch mob?

It has started - in a manner of sorts. There's a facebook campaign to get Rage Against The Machines Killing In The Name as the christmas number 1, to avoid yet another xfactor number 1. Cowell gave an interview yesterday where he turned the whole thing into a "the british public are mad, going into this vendetta against me. They're cutting off their nose to spite their face as they risk missing out on one of these exceptional talents".

The facebook campaign has over 500,000 members. I wish them well to defeat the cowell ogre.

adampeek

I can't quite understand the "banker bashing". How many people fully understand why financial institutions around the world have crumbled?

The super tax announced by the government is a populist measure that will have little to no effect in terms of income in the short term and is likely to see a decline in the tax take in the long term. It's idiotic in the extreme. I'm sure the readership of the Sun are happy though!

movilogo

Let them move out. This small island is too crowded anyway.

fedupfreda

PasturesNew wrote: »

Let them.

Many are there because of who they know, not what they know.

Ask anybody doing any job and they can't wait for the guy above them to leave so they can do their job... there are a lot of equally bright people who could take their places. Maybe people bright enough to actually do a GOOD job this time.

Quite. And thats the whole reason this country is going t1ts up. Nepotism rules, sadly. The old guard have had their chance at running things - and failed spectacularly. Time for some new people, methinks. People who actually have experience at the sharp end - who know that real life goes pear shaped sometimes, despite the best laid plans - and who will take action accordingly - the cautious middle ground was largely forgotten in the greedy chase for profits.

StevieJ

treliac wrote: »

Not at all but I'd like to think they wouldn't have let our economy reach it's present state.

Dream on

StevieJ

ruggedtoast wrote: »

But anger is the food of the peasant. And resentment is the fine wine of the prole.

It was ever thus.

Personally I'm just glad they've momentarily forgotten about fat indolent public sector workers wallowing like pigs in our final salary pension troughs.

Oink.

What was that about anger and resentment

kabayiri

A slightly different take on this.

I suspect that one reason Gordon and co. embraced the new age industrial engine of Global Finance is because they don't have the vision for any other growth areas in the economy, on anything like the same scale.

To me, that's a worrying thought.

doire_2

carolt wrote: »

Am I the only person to feel 'Oh good, I'll be glad to see the back of the greedy, incompetent barstewards', when I read articles like this?

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9c7d6520-e37e-11de-8d36-00144feab49a.html

Sadly moves like this:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/10/brown-and-sarkozy-tax-bankers

make it less likely they'll have anywhere more lucrative to bog off to.

Last 1,700 people lost their jobs when a Corus plant shutdown.

This week we have bankers complaining their bonuses are to be taxed by 50%

Mr_Matey

"We need bankers more than they need us" - The Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/anatole_kaletsky/article6952307.ece


Interesting points include:

• The estimated yield of £550 million from the bank windfall tax.
• The direct contribution of financial companies to Britain’s tax revenues, which amounts to 25 per cent of the total yield from corporation tax or £11 billion a year. This excludes the much larger sums paid by their employees in income tax, stamp duty, VAT — a number that must run into many tens of billions a year.
• The estimated final cost to the Treasury of all the bank bailouts since the collapse of Northern Rock will be £10 billion. and Mr Darling predicted that the Treasury would eventually eliminate even this and also recoup what it spent on banking advice, accountancy and so on during the post-Lehman panic.

As I said, not an industry that you should drive offshore...