The last time I checked the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) was 82% owned by the taxpayer – that’s you and I by the way. And no, before you ask, I – like you – have not received my share certificate or, should I say, the modern electronic equivalent.
As you may recall the politicians handed RBS a cool £42 billion chunk of our tax money, without even our let or leave, in order to save their bankster pals from the consequences of their stupidity, greed, incompetence and even – some claim – criminality.
The recent news that no fewer than 93 of its employees “earned” more than £1m each last year would have had us peasants, in more enlightened times, reaching for our pitchforks, scythes and flaming torches and marching on the City seeking a little retribution.
According to the news reports, the total pay for RBS’s top directors and eight executives was an obscene £21m. That’s £21m of our money that could have and should have been returned to the taxpayer. Quite why these people have retained their jobs, far less “earned” these outrageous payments, is a question unlikely to be answered.
It is reported that the chief executive of RBS, Stephen Hester, has waived his bonus. An empty gesture, in many an opinion, considering that his “residual” total remuneration package for the year is reportedly worth £3.27m.
To rub salt into the wound RBS sources have also announced that an unnamed senior executive “earned” £4.8m (that’s almost £100,000 per week), a figure which includes long-term incentive shares that will pay out if certain future targets are met. Whether these “future targets” relate to making or, indeed, losing money is something else that has not been disclosed as far as we are aware.
RBS’s annual report also showed that of the 93 employees in their “millionaires’ club” no fewer than 36 “earned” between £1.5m and £5m – which is as staggering as it is unacceptable considering that the bank made a jaw-dropping £5 billion loss last year.
The chair of RBS’s remuneration committee is reported as claiming that the committee had “spent a great deal of time challenging and taking action in response to past events and considering how remuneration can help to drive appropriate behaviours at RBS in future”.
Perhaps we can help them out a little as far as “appropriate behaviours” are concerned, by suggesting that they stopped rewarding failure and, better still, sacked those responsible for losing so much of our money. not forgetting the wretches responsible for reducing the bank to the shambles in which it currently finds itself.
Meanwhile the silence from Mr Cameron and his bankster-friendly cabinet is, as they say, deafening – well, almost deafening; one can still hear shrill pained calls for more austerity for us peasants and for fewer restrictions on banksters bonuses.
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Hello. I have only one simple question for you ,Do you intend to throw out the banks and print our own currency ..yes or no
I for one do not understand the question.
Having has a look at the policy statement I note that there is no specific or detailed policy relating to banks. But having said that there is no specific policy relating to trades unions, the BBC or the Commonwealth either. This is not surprising considering that the party is just about a month old. No doubt policies will be determined and fleshed out over time and in accordance with political principles. As for printing our own currency I would assume that the answer to that would depend upon need and circumstance and in the absence of specifying either what the need or circumstance are, it is clearly impossible to provide a yes or no answer – in exactly the same way as asking “how long is a piece of string” is. That’s my take for what it is worth.
We already print our own currency. The Bank of England does it. Modern economies need money. The essential questions are how much should the Bank print and whether the banking system should be able to create money as well or have 100% reserves.
You cannot operate a modern economy without banks and credit so you can’t ‘throw them out’ unless what is meant by that is reform what they do and how they do it.
All questions with no easy answers since there are pluses and minuses. The curse of economics!
The argument is that high salaries are required to attract the talents needed to run the banks.
If the highly-paid bankers were so clever one might ask why RBS went belly up may one not? The fact is that they were clever but not in the way of the public interest. They were very clever in engineering bubbles which were highly profitable in the short-term – especially to them – while being disastrous in the longer run.
What we actually need is people as bankers who are not clever at ingenious financial schemes but simply efficient at lending for productive purposes. Much how banking was a generation or two ago. Banks will make less money but the country will be better off.
The clever men are actually too clever by half which is a different thing entirely.