City bonuses hit £8.8bn

sossij

GRRRR!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/6098162.stm

That's our pensions and savings (and debts!) they're stuffing themselves with.... that's an average bonus of approx £2 Million each.

Absolute scandal!

(Sorry if this has already been vented elsewhere)

nomoneytoday

Why shouldn't individuals who invest time into something and earn their shareholders money take some for themselves?

If someone takes home a £2 million bonus, they would probably be making their company £200 million.

There is nothing in life stopping you from working hard and getting paid well for it

Willsnarf1983

nomoneytoday wrote:

Why shouldn't individuals who invest time into something and earn their shareholders money take some for themselves?

If someone takes home a £2 million bonus, they would probably be making their company £200 million.

There is nothing in life stopping you from working hard and getting paid well for it

here here

Will

Astaroth

I would imagine that their bonus is probably under 1% of the profit that they have generated.

At the end of the day, if you think their bonuses are obsenely large why not get a job where you two can get a bonus of £2m and then just give it to charity?

Matt_Nixon

Such large bonuses are obsence esp. when pensions are performing so poorly!

sossij

nomoneytoday wrote:

Why shouldn't individuals who invest time into something and earn their shareholders money take some for themselves?

If someone takes home a £2 million bonus, they would probably be making their company £200 million.

There is nothing in life stopping you from working hard and getting paid well for it

Groan!

A two million pound bonus and an apologist for it too. Excellent

sossij

Astaroth wrote:

I would imagine that their bonus is probably under 1% of the profit that they have generated.

At the end of the day, if you think their bonuses are obsenely large why not get a job where you two can get a bonus of £2m and then just give it to charity?

Heh heh, fair enough Astaroth

I'd agree with you if their vast profits and bonuses were the results of entrepreneurship based on commerce and industry rather than speculation and debt. Sadly, we've seen this kind of thing before (e.g. at the end of the 1980s). What I fear is this that this display of greed is symptomatic of a long boom based on historically low interest rates, an increased (inflated) money supply and rampant house price inflation before we enter a long bust period that'll take our pensions and savings with it.

Yes, nice work if you can get it but the rest of us will end up paying the bill.

ncd

Your `Pensions & Savings' have nothing to do with these people's bonuses. The places these people work are like premership football teams. If you are very good at your job, you will be in demand. This allows you to negoiate your pay and package etc, just like if you are a very good footballer. The big bonuses that are talked about are often paid to people who deal with big company mergers worth billions. This of course doesn't make it right when you compare to what to nurses etc are paid but then this is the same in any line of business. You get top doctors, dentists, surgeons, etc all paid very very well. The strange thing is, if you are joe public and you earn alot or get a nice bonus everyone jumps up and down complaining. If however you are a celeb or top sportsman and you earn loads, nobody seems to bat an eye lid. At the end of the day if someone offered you the same terms would you turn them down ??

surfcat

nomoneytoday wrote:

Why shouldn't individuals who invest time into something and earn their shareholders money take some for themselves?

If someone takes home a £2 million bonus, they would probably be making their company £200 million.

There is nothing in life stopping you from working hard and getting paid well for it

This argument is a little flawed methinks. If everyone who worked hard* was on superstar wages, who would actually be cleaning the streets, emptying bins, cleaning up !!!! in old folks homes while treating people with dignity? The mere existence of such high bonuses can occur only because of treading on those beneath.

* I've never bought the tired old argument that if you work hard you are rewarded with good pay.

Astaroth

Certainly it isnt simply a case of working hard as there has to be significant amounts of natural skill/ intelligence, luck and probably still who you know (though this is arguably luck too).

Obviously not everyone can be on £2m bonuses otherwise we simply devalue the £ but then the majority of people probably dont want to put in the hours required to work up to that sort of possition (or just dont have the natural ability/ character type to do so).

I get a decent salary, unfortunately not up to the £2m bonus level yet but working on it, but as I am still very much climbing the career ladder I have to work long hours, go away a lot at short notice etc, a lot of my friends from back in my call centre days are envious of my salary but think I am "mad" for routinely being away from home 11-12 hours a day when working from the office and away on business at least a few times a month.

sossij

ncd wrote:

Your `Pensions & Savings' have nothing to do with these people's bonuses....*snip* The big bonuses that are talked about are often paid to people who deal with big company mergers worth billions *snip*

Have a word with an actuary. One of the incentives for large companies to merge can be to get out of their huge historic pension liabilities, which are often 'secured' outside the resultant merged entity. That is, after a merger companies often dump their existing pension obligations, such as final salary scheme etc leaving their employees worse off. Where do you think the fees paid to your 'mergers and acquisitions' people come from?

Many companies (see Ford in America http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2846587.stm & BAE in the UK http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4293673.stm) carry around huge pension liabilites/debts which they see as making them uncompetitive against overseas manufacturers, who may have no such obligations. Do you imagine for one minute that they'd honour their obligations if they didn't have to?

Yes, of course I'd love a £2 Million pound bonus, who wouldn't - but I'd prefer one that was earned by not impoverishing others.