500,000 Public Sector Workers Culled

bendix

ninky wrote: »

i thought there were also costly measures like the credit guarantee scheme and special liquidity scheme where the taxpayer basically took over the risk of the badly judged deals given out by these rogues and put in the much needed 'fiscal stimulus' to keep the economy afloat. if the bonuses were for turning a profit then why did the banks which were about to go under without govt help give out any bonuses?

Because there is no such thing as a 'bank bonus'. Instead, different people in various profitable parts of banks were awarded bonuses. Others weren't

You need to expand your reading outside of the tabloids. I work close to the banking industry. The bonus culture is nowhere as ridiculous as the mass media would have you believe.

However, in the instances where large bonuses exist, it is because it is an integral part of their overall remuneration package. Most merchant bankers as you and I understand them, get very very low basic salaries.

bendix

edinburgher wrote: »

Well, if you believe his figures, which I don't for a moment.

LOL. But you would have believed them had they been 21% right?

Intellectually weak. Very.

Old_Slaphead

bendix wrote: »

They don't pay each other bonuses. They are paid bonuses by their employers, for generating massive profits for their companies, shareholders and employers.

I suggest you check the share prices of the major UK banks over the last decade to see how much they generate for shareholders (companies and employers are effectively the same thing).

Most retail bank profits come from bank charges on which they have a virtual monopoly.

A significant proportion of investment banks profits come from trading shares/commodities/currencies etc which is a zero sum game. Traders who make a profit get a (huge) bonus, those that don't merely find a job somewhere else. No-one forfeits anything in hard cash if they lose their company money. The cost of all this non-productive work gets filtered into the real world in the form of commissions, fees etc which are far higher than the should be (IMO).

Do bankers create wealth - or merely a funding market for other people to do so?

shortchanged_2

And why do these company directors still get rewarded for failure. They still get bonuses if the company makes a profit or not. It's ridiculous, many of them are in a no lose situation.

Hank_Rearden

tomterm8 wrote: »

I just remember in the mid 1990's, one of my IT lecturers worked in a bank. He was a Fortran and COBOL programmer, which was dead old at the time. None of the bank senior management really knew what he or the rest of the department did. All they could see were old, ugly guys in bad suits that huddled around computers all day. So, one day they brought in guys with shiny suits and good hair cuts and closed the department down.

A few years later it turned out all those guys in bad suits with bad hair were actually necessary... and a little think called the Y2K bug meant that they rehired all the old guys as consultants and paid them ten times their old salary, to fix problem that, in the old days, the department no one really knew anything about sorted out without anyone noticing.

I was on duty at a bank (Citibank) over the millenium eve (oh joy) keeping an eye on whether the Y2K bug hit. Obviously it didn't. Given that most of the work that was intended to have been done to stop the possible disaster hadn't actually been completed, I would run a different story/fable....

Consultants (men in shiny suits) saw an opportunity to sell a solution to a credible (at least to the men in big offices and fine tailored suits) risk. The shiny suits then employed the men in ill-fitting suits to do work. This was a very expensive project, full of unknown black box risk management stuff that required lots of attention from the tailored suits at remote, board levels. And with that high profile came much money for the shiny suits. The more work they could dream up, the more they could cream off after they'd paid the men in shabby suits. But then the shabby suits were happy too, being paid more than they would have otherwise learnt as lecturers. They weren't too worried about whether it was complete or not - although they did enjoy working late and being paid more for it. In any event, tailored suits were relieved nothing went wrong, and rewarded.

So did everyone win?
Shabby suits - got paid more.
Shiny suits - got paid more.
Tailored suits - got paid more.
So who got paid less?
Bank customers.

It's a bit like government, really.

hallmark

The main people who bleat about "Greeeeeeeeeeeedddy bankers" are union bosses on £200K/year.

ILW

Head of Unison is sayings it's all the bankers fault.

neverdespairgirl

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Great news for the economy! We have a deficit largely caused by a big drop in tax revenues caused by the recession!

Government isn't supposed to be a job-creation scheme, you know.

neverdespairgirl

Rochdale_Pioneers wrote: »

Lets not talk about the lack of breast feeding support across the NHS in violation of their own and WHO policies. Nor about the money-saving benefits that healthier breast-fed babies bring to the NHS by being ill less.

Well not in this case, no. Because it was posted in reply to someone who wrote:

"

Quote:
Originally Posted by bendix
Indeed it will. Instead of paying them £40,000 a year salaries to be breast-feeding coordinators and another £10,000 a year to finance their final salary pension, they will instead be cost the taxpayer £5000 a year dole money.

Lovely jubbly.

OK, find me a breast-feeding coordinator on £40k. Did you read this in the same newspaper that found a London bus on the moon? Why come out with this asinine !!!!!!!!?

neverdespairgirl

nomoreboomandbust wrote: »

I can't see it anywhere that mentions breastfeeding on the job spec

Here you are, I've highlighted the word "breastfeeding" or similar to help you out.

An exciting opportunity has arisen for the new post of Clinical Infant Feeding Lead to join the midwifery team at Guy’s and St Thomas’ NHS Foundation Trust. We are looking for a dynamic, innovative, midwife with a passion for breastfeeding to build on the good work we have already achieved on raising the profile of breastfeeding within Women’s Services and work towards full UNICEF UK Baby Friendly status (stage 1 achieved). You will be a midwife with a proven understanding of the challenges surrounding breastfeeding to act as an effective resource within the maternity team. You will work along side our breast feeding coordinator using your expert clinical skills and effective leadership to co-ordinate, implement and develop strategies to support breastfeeding in the clinical setting.

To be fair, it only says it 5 times.