Who Do Bankers Think They Are?

'If I don't get a seven figure bonus this year, I'm emigrating' I threatened my boss.

He laughed.

So I rang Prime Minister David Cameron's Office and repeated my threat, emphasising how ruinous to the economic recovery my departure would be if this country were not prepared to renumerate the top rate to the top people.

Ok, so I didn't really phone David Cameron's office, but you get the picture.

How come bankers can hold this country to ransom, and not even over their obscene salaries, but their obscene BONUSES? And believe it or not, the actual industry term is 'compensation' (???????)

Why do the rest of we employees (most of whom do not even receive bonuses) lack this snake-like mesmerism over our government to persuade them that our workaday mediocrity is actually genius in disguise so that they live in terror of us hightailing our talents elsewhere?

If ALL banks were capped by the government at the £2,500 max per banker pledged by the LibDem government when they came to power, where are they all going to go in protest? There are only so many top banking jobs abroad paying even more, and other countries may actually follow suit if they see Britain taking a firm stand as many can no more afford it than we can in a worldwide recession. Plus countries such as Dubai are on the edge of bankruptcy in their own right, having been constructed on a house of cards known as debt. Greece has already toppled over the edge. Spain is teetering. Japan and China will soon get over the novelty of their newfound wealth and realise they don't have to pay these a-holes as much as they think.

I firmly suspect if we lost half, we wouldn't even notice, so they don't scare me with their threats to emigrate. And let's not forget they're the ones who got the banks into the mess they're in, forcing us to bail them out in the first place, so they should be incurring performance penalties and paying US compensation, not to mention actually acting in our interests!

Why would we need people at the top of the financial pyramid who regard our savings as casino chips? This was never the way banks used to behave before they watched 'Wall Street' and decided it was a documentary. They used to be solid institutions we all trusted and we were rewarded with stability and predictable steady growth in return. Old fashioned things known as 'Codes of Conduct' also kept them in check.

Hardly thrilling, but then losing your hard-earned pension or life savings is hardly thrilling to the victim, yet from the 1994 Lloyds name scandal to today, it seems not a fig has been learned. Or earned by these wondrous winged beings in charge of our piggy banks.

I remember when 9/11 happened in 2001, a financial expert on TV predicted the whole world would suffer at the loss of at least 1500 top people in the financial world. Not a word more did I ever hear on the subject, so perhaps the loss was entirely personal, to their friends and families, rather than the global economy.

Businesses Not Bonuses

Nick Leeson was jailed for six and a half years for what today's bankers receive obscene bonuses for - namely bringing our banks to their knees.

This morning on Radio 4's Today programme, Barclays Bank Chief Executive, John Varley opined that most people wouldn't consider the expending of 15% of a business's total costs on bonuses unreasonable.

Well that's where you're mistaken and completely out of touch with public feeling Mr Varley. During a recession where the majority of British employees are suffering pay freezes, pay cuts and even worse, job losses, many of us feel that ALL bonuses are grossly insensitive and ought to be frozen indefinitely at the very least, particularly in the banking sector largely responsible for the economic black hole we now find ourselves in, and which taxpayers have been forced to bail out, so consequently we expect some gratitude and favours in return, in addition to seeing performance-related pay implemented.

As for the old chestnut that you 'can only recruit the top people by paying top banana', for all the good the 'top people' have done, a bank may as well let the janitor loose on the system to have a go. At least the janitor is more likely to consider the customer and the consequences of his actions and is less likely to be motivated by blind avarice.

Even the Royal Family during World War II recognised that it was politic to announce they were going to be consuming the same food rations as their subjects at the Palace which, whether a short-term gesture of support for their subjects or otherwise, contributed greatly to the public morale at a time when it was besieged from all directions. The Royals were never so popular indeed.

The banks do not even have the decency to make a gesture such as suspending bonuses or lending to small businesses and the demolition of our once proud nation goes on.

I urge everyone who feels as I do to vote with their feet and close any accounts with the big 4, taking their business to a smaller or more stable bank. I myself defected from the Royal Bank of Scotland to Smile internet bank (the online version of the Co-Op bank) nearly 10 years ago now. It was easier than getting a new credit card and banking regulations have long prevented your old bank making it harder for you than a tearful pleading phone call. Whilst my interest rate with Smile has sadly plummeted over the years to become as poor as the big 4, at least I have the comfort of knowing I am supporting an otherwise ethical and stable enterprise, and one which does not send me any junk mail or spam whatsoever.

Slow Down Unless You're A Banker (in which case honk!)

Last week saw the start of a new half-cocked (undemocratically elected) scheme to grind Oxford's traffic to a fume-farting halt by imposing a 20 mph speed limit on various sections of the city centre and residential streets.
Now narrow residential streets with cars parked on both sides with their multitude of hazards such as possible small boys running across the road in-between parked cars I understand, but MAIN roads which already have a plethora of crossings, traffic islands, lights and speed cameras to slow the motorist down? Where is the logic in reducing these to 20?
It feels as if we sensible drivers (and whatever my green sympathies, I am required to drive around the city quite a lot as part of my new job) are being penalised for the drink and drug-addled minority who commit the moronic acts such as cutting up or overtaking on a 30mph stretch and swinging out of corners at high speed minus signals - offences they continue to commit if not more so under the new more-restrictive regime, surprise surprise. Now if the REAL dangerous drivers such as these, not forgetting the latest breed who TWEET about how clever and badass they are to post to Twitter whilst driving faced stiffer penalties such as losing their licence for 10 years if caught, rather than a slap on the wrist, a life ban if they killed or mained anyone, THAT would be be more sensible and effective than this ridiculous money squandering scheme where it is 30 miles an hour one minute and 20 the next with no particular rhyme or reason attached to which section of road is which, bar the obvious side streets. And don't get me started on dangerous cyclists or lemming pedestrians who seem to rate listening to their iPods above looking before they pull out or cross! Don't they deserve a penalty or two? Or doesn't the Highway Code apply to them?
Cars are not going to go away after all. Though perhaps they might be drastically reduced at least if truly radical schemes such as the reintroduction of trams or the provision of continuous cycle lanes were considered, so what is the point of deliberately creating obstacles for cars, thereby promoting the mass pollution of idling engines?

Meanwhile on Radio 4's Today programme this week, a city finance chief was challenged about the fact that huge bonuses continue to be paid to bankers, despite the recession, and performance regardless - even in the cases where banks have been bailed out by the government via our taxpayer's money to stay afloat.

His reply was that they had to continue to pay large bonuses as our banking talent would otherwise be lost abroad.

What a brilliant strategical tactic, I thought! Kill the bonuses so they go abroad and destabilise somone else's economy with foolish risk taking whilst our own country has a chance to recover and fight back.

And do they leave us any alternative when no financial institution will seemingly hear of bonuses being performance-related, or at the very least, paid after tax, and after profit margins have been factored in? It now even emerges that a handful of cheeky bankers are suing for not receiving the obscene bonuses they expected.