Over-rewarded elite

[Lippytarian]

How stupid are we supposed to be?The feeble measures announce recently by Vince Cable will make no material difference to anything.

The recent crisis has focused a spotlight on our brand of capitalism and exposed it for the crude fraud that it is. And nothing whatever is going to be done about it.

[Lippytarian]

And as if by magic....

David Cameron sparks outrage as he nods through RBS chief Stephen Hester's £1m bonus

Yes it was all lies. Of course. Even when the govt is an 81% shareholder. Even when the bank misses its lending targets. Even when the bank's share price has plummetted in the last year. Out come Cameron and Osborne supporting the absurdly unfair status quo.

How stupid are we supposed to be?

Still, we can at least revel in the irony as the government simultaneously insists that a single household cannot possibly need more than 26,000 per year.

[Lippytarian]

So Stephen Hester threw in the towel in the face of an opposition debate on bonuses, which he was told would lead to a Commons vote going against him. And while Labour make hay, the Tories feel compelled to underline how empty their promises and their rhetoric have been:Government will not 'block' other RBS bonuses.

[Tattie]

So Stephen Hester threw in the towel in the face of an opposition debate on bonuses, which he was told would lead to a Commons vote going against him. And while Labour make hay, the Tories feel compelled to underline how empty their promises and their rhetoric have been:Government will not 'block' other RBS bonuses.

Not surprised Labour are making hay, it would be hypocritical of them not to. They negotiated his contract after all

[Lippytarian]

Not surprised Labour are making hay, it would be hypocritical of them not to. They negotiated his contract after all

That was another lie repeated by both Cameron and Osborne when the bonus was announced. In fact the amount of the bonus was not an entitlement under his contract, it was awarded at the year-end by the RBS at their discretion. There was no contractual liability to pay him a penny. And despite the lies that dribbled out the government did absolutely nothing about it. They never intended to. Nothing about any of this is going to change if the Tories can help it. Because things are already just as they like them, with the poor being sacrificed to subsidise the rich.

These supermen supposedly deserve all of this because of the skill they have and the risk they are taking. But they are in fact no better than sheep who all blundered over a cliff together. And they aren't taking any risk at all! When they bu33ered it all up the ordinary folks bailed them out. It turns out that all this time while the rewards have been very private and the preserve of an undeserving elite, all the risk was being taken by the public at large!

That is the fraud that our market capitalism has become. And the government is not going to change a thing.

[Lippytarian]

In a way what happens to these individuals, Hester and Goodwin, is at best irrelevant and at worst a deliberate distraction to deflect attention from the fact that capitalism itself has proved to be a crude fraud and nothing is going to be done about it.

But it has to be noted in passing that what happened to these two smacks of scapegoating of the basest kind.

[John]

I understood that Hester was head hunted for the job of sorting out the problems at RBS and returning it to profit in return for a salary. If he succeeds in doing so I see no problem with giving him a bonus. His salary seems to be excessive until you ragard the remuneration given to the head of Barclays, her packet is reported as being six million per annum, which makes Hester look like a pauper.

I would really like to have someone explain exactly what a banker`s bonus is. By which I mean what the amount is based on, under what circumstances it would be witheld and has a bonus EVER been witheld from anyone for any reason. Since fred the shred **** up RBS and still got his bonuses and his K it seems you would have to do it in the street and frighten the horse before you`d lose your dosh.

[Lippytarian]

The problem is that there is too much disparity in the economy. The wealth of the top 1000 surged by 30% 2 years ago and then by about another 18% in the last year. The figures for the top 1% are not dissimilar (can't immediately find the survey), and top directors are getting an extra 49%.

And the disparity in wealth is even greater than the disparity in income with (2001)1% of people owning 23% of wealth, 25% of people owning 74% of wealth and 50% of people owning 94% of wealth.

This has been going on for decades, receiving a huge boost during the 1980s,not being reversed under Labour and now accelerating again as the downside of the recession is visited upon the those lower down, while the richest surge strongly yet further ahead.

The growth in the economy over these decades has all accrued to the richest, while the real-terms increases for most people has been pretty-well static. And the only reason this has been sustainable politically is because ordinary people have been able to boost their living standards by the ready availability of affordable credit.

As I've said before, this should be fertile ground for a resurgance of a new, or maybe even an old-fashioned leftish politics. But the Labour Party evidently does not see an opportunity in that direction, and the "Occupy" movement shows no sign of snowballing into a new political movement capable of succeeding at the ballot box.

[Lippytarian]

Ok it was stating the obvious, but we have confirmation that the government will do nothing about bonuses. As I said, they never intended to and all the noise was just lies.

Cameron calls for truce over banker bonus row.