"London is now the worst place in the world to do business..." - The Daily Mail

Graham_Devon

CLAPTON wrote: »

yes indeed they are still here but fewer now....

Fewer needed to be fair.

I'm struggling to sympathise in all honesty. Cried wolf too often. Even the cheif of RBS has stated they need to realign pay....whether they will or not is another matter.

My dad said today, the wealth transfer is simply becoming wider in this country and it's worse than he has ever seen, stating "these people [bankers] live in another world"

property.advert

pqrdef wrote: »

....That many City folk still have no idea how richly they deserve the hatred directed at them, only shows what kind of people they are.

And conversely most, nay nigh on 100% of the non City population are talking out of their behinds when it comes to their knowledge of the machinations of the City or what actually goes for business there.

Did people get it wrong ? sure they did. As for bonuses, would you be happy to have a significant part of your salary held back until the end of the year and then perhaps not receive it all ? or have it paid in share options you could not exercise for years ?

Bleating on about it because Mr Average doesn't earn enough and envies what "bankers" make is pathetic. Yet the same people idolise football players, who are such role models !

Wookster

This is all a bit hysterical.

And there is no denying that bankers pay is far too high relative to the return shareholders make. Bank exist for the benefit of senior staff, rather than shareholders.

julieq

In which case you'd have thought that paying bonuses in shares would be a good thing?

Anyway there's no reason to believe Shareholders care much about the remuneration of executives. Billions of pounds in profits against a few million.

chewmylegoff

julieq wrote: »

In which case you'd have thought that paying bonuses in shares would be a good thing?

Anyway there's no reason to believe Shareholders care much about the remuneration of executives. Billions of pounds in profits against a few million.

shareholders may not care too much what the CEO gets paid, but i'm sure they are pretty interested in the total bonus pools running into billions. in the lead up to the financial crisis it was fine because they were still getting decent returns even after £billions was paid away in bonuses. going forwards if they are going to start getting grumpier if staff get the bonuses as before, but they are now expected to be happy with much lower returns.

i'm surprised all the media fuss has been about hester to be honest, and not about the gaggles of lower tier staff earning much more than him (often on a guaranteed package) for doing nothing much useful.

macaque_2

vivatifosi wrote: »

Yes there's a lot of rhetoric in there, but take a step back for a minute and ask yourself what we would do without a healthy banking sector.

We haven't had healthy banking sector for a long time. The banks are double dipping, overcharging and misselling to customers everywhere you turn. Small businesses survive in spite of banks, not because of them. When they do use them they get hit with userous charges. Banks are also behind the destruction of many of our best companies. These activities go under the guise of restructuring or take overs and they do it until the company has been completely stripped.

We definitely need financial services but our need for conventional banks is dwindling. The one thing that banks are brilliant at is self promotion and lobbying.

pqrdef

The_White_Horse wrote: »

all it would take is for one of the big boys to leave the UK and the Govt would !!!! their little pants

That's why they can hold us to ransom.

But then, that's the problem we have to try to solve. Maybe we don't have to put up with it. We certainly don't have to celebrate it.

ruggedtoast

Investment banker Nicola Horlick, a university friend of Mr Hester has warned against a 'witchhunt' towards bankers.

'You shouldn't underestimate the importance of financial services to the country,' she told The Times. 'Without it we would be in dire straits. Let's not kill the golden goose that saved the country.

I almost can't believe how out of touch this woman is with actual public opinion on this matter. I think if you were to stand on any recession hit British high street with a clipboard for a few hours, you would be hard pressed to find a single person who could care less if City bankers move away from London.

Really astonishing.

CLAPTON

Putting bonuses to one side for a moment it seems astonishing that RBS and Lloyds haven't been broken up into their constituent parts.

whilst our money would still be at risk, it would have the benefit of re-introdcuing a lot more competition into retail banking, to separate investment banking from retail and to make many of the parts small enough to fail without bring the economy down

pqrdef

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I almost can't believe how out of touch this woman is with actual public opinion on this matter. I think if you were to stand on any recession hit British high street with a clipboard for a few hours, you would be hard pressed to find a single person who could care less if City bankers move away from London.

It's not just what they've done. It's the conviction that they haven't changed and will do it again.

The government is planning a draconian programme of reform and regulation to try to force the bankers to run the banks properly. The bankers are going all out to prevent and circumvent this. Who do we think will win?