Brown very angry about bonuses

[Merc fan]

The man is not in the real world. So people who may well lose their jobs should give up their contractual bonuses and are made to feel greedy? Ludicrous.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7878418.stm

[tomTVR]

I agree with him. I would rather my taxes didnt help pay for those sort of bonuses.

[grumbledoak]

He is a moron. He has done nothing but demonstrate his fiscal ineptitude for twelve years now.


When we pay our taxes, do we get to choose what his government spends them on? No? I thought not. Any money the halfwit gives to the banks will be 'income' and spent as they see best (or are contractually obligated to).

[loltolhurst]

rbs have biggest corporate loss in history and yet are gonna give bonus's? hate to say it but agree with brown if only he had the guts to do something about it

[fido]

Yeah, i'd rather my taxes went towards funding second homes for Ministers, than some till dolly at Notwest. i think he should take out that Log from his eye, the good one.

Edited by fido on Monday 9th February 14:45

[telecat]

If they have met their targets then why not??? Brown should sort out his own house before throwing stones in others.

Edited by telecat on Monday 9th February 14:47

[FourWheelDrift]

RBS was failing, why reward failure? They needed a massive injection of public funds (our taxes) to prevent them from going bankrupt. Then they want to give £1billion out in bonuses. They are effectively going to be giving £1billion of taxpayers money to their employees for failing.

Sad thing is Brown will back down because he has no friends and the only way he can get any support is by buying it and he won't want to be the saviour of the banks one minute and the evil enemy the next.

[10 Pence Short]

tomTVR said:

I agree with him. I would rather my taxes didnt help pay for those sort of bonuses.

The problem is, high level banking and the bonuses Brown is talking about are not like 'normal' jobs.

There are only limited numbers of people capable of doing the job properly and, naturally, they like to be paid. A lot.

If you are going to artifically limit the amount of bonus, the best people are instead going to go and work where their income isn't limited. Then you end up with state owned businesses that can't attract the best people and don't succeed as they should.

Yes there have been some huge mistakes and crazy risk taking, but that does not mean you rip up every principle of free market economics.

What I suspect is that Labour are looking for positive 'with the people' headlines and that very little will be done about bonuses (or pay by any other name).

What I also suspect is that the FSA, who did nothing to avert any part of the situation, will not be facing calls from 'Gordon Brown' to limit pay or bonuses.


Frankly the Labour attitude of policy-by-headline is one of the things that history will be most damning over.

[EdJ]

Not every single team at RBS will have performed badly. Presumably there are pockets of excellence still? Nobody thinks the top boss should get huge bonuses, but there are plenty of people throughout the firm that are entitled to a bonus if they've done a good job.

Attacking the bonus culture is such a waste of time. Typical socialist focus on everyone getting paid the same whether they do a good job or not. If there is an incentive to perform (ie a bonus) then people will generally do a better job. That is obvious isn't it?

[Eddie the Ead]

FourWheelDrift said:

RBS was failing, why reward failure? They needed a massive injection of public funds (our taxes) to prevent them from going bankrupt. Then they want to give £1billion out in bonuses. They are effectively going to be giving £1billion of taxpayers money to their employees for failing.

Sad thing is Brown will back down because he has no friends and the only way he can get any support is by buying it and he won't want to be the saviour of the banks one minute and the evil enemy the next.

Not all employees failed and if you work in a target driven environment then you have to reward successes by those individuals. Are you that harsh you would see a single mother on 10k a year as a cashier do without her £500 bonus which will probably have paid for her christmas.

The board should not get bonus as they failed contractual or not but the workforce who have no say on policy or direction should not be punished for there leaders incompetance.

[FourWheelDrift]

EdJ said:

Nobody thinks the top boss should get huge bonuses,

That's where I'm coming from, the biggest bonuses in the package will be given to the top people, the people who clearly haven't been at the wheel in the dangerous waters of the past few years.

[Hedders]

10 Pence Short said:

There are only limited numbers of people capable of doing the job properly and, naturally, they like to be paid. A lot.

But who are these people? Obviously it is not the ones who were doing the job for the last few years.

[greygoose]

I don't agree with most of what Gordon Brown does but I can't see how any responsible company can have contractual bonuses despite the fact that the business has failed massively, did they have no legal advice when drawing up the contracts for staff?

If you are guaranteed a bonus no matter how badly the company performs then why not just class this as part of the wage rather than a bonus? If there was a shortage of bankers in the employment market then they could argue they need to retain them but that hardly seems to be the case at the moment.

[Horse_Apple]

tomTVR said:

I agree with him. I would rather my taxes didnt help pay for those sort of bonuses.

It's a drop in the ocean. Far more of your taxes go on MP's expenses, failed Govt IT projects, the Dome, the Olympics, the NHS......etc etc...

This is all one massive smoke screen.

Certainly, the heads of Depts which lose money should recieve nothing, and that inludes the Board Directors when the company loses as a whole, but individuals who make profits for the the firm they work for are 100% entitled to any contractual bonus that they are due.

I'll start worrying about City pay packets once footballers are paid what they are worth and once MPs have to account for every penny that they spend. Until then, they can take a running jump. Crooks the lot of them.

MPs are the real parasites screwing the taxpayers over and over again.

[esselte]

Gazboy said:

FourWheelDrift said:

Sad thing is Brown will back down because he has no friends

Actually I'm not so sure about that, pretty much all the politicians think it's a bit off that RBS are handing out £1bn after being bailed out with £20bn.

It's not exactly good PR is it.

Add to that the fact that Brarclays,who didn't take our cash,have made a profit and are not paying bonus to board members.......makes RBS look a trifle bad...

[Mars]

But they haven't performed, hence the mess they're in. Now they are owned by US the taxpayer and I don't want my money rewarding the failure of those who were in charge at the time. If a company I worked in had a bad year, bonuses would be cut down or even cut out. No difference here. They performed poorly and so shouldn't get a bonus. If they earn money next year, part of that profit will no doubt go towards their own personal bonuses.

[Davi]

10 Pence Short said:

There are only limited numbers of people capable of doing the job properly and, naturally, they like to be paid. A lot.

Frankly this is the sort of bks sprouted by people who have bonus's to protect and no real reasoning to back it.

[BigJonMcQuimm]

EdJ said:

Not every single team at RBS will have performed badly. Presumably there are pockets of excellence still? Nobody thinks the top boss should get huge bonuses, but there are plenty of people throughout the firm that are entitled to a bonus if they've done a good job.

Attacking the bonus culture is such a waste of time. Typical socialist focus on everyone getting paid the same whether they do a good job or not. If there is an incentive to perform (ie a bonus) then people will generally do a better job. That is obvious isn't it?

Well said that man

[Welshbeef]

I worked with 1 company which was bought out during one pretty good year results wise. However the new owners totally disagreed with the Bonus which was for the Middle Mgt at the time so they changed the rules to 0% - even though in some groups they had smashed their targets and it was in their individual contracts that if that business made x% above budget then its a bonus of 15-20% or what ever the rate was. They flatly turned round and said no bonus.

Those who were due bonus's in areas where they had met/beaten targets got the union etc. Anyway result was they didnt pay any bonus and following the bring in the union action - they suddenly changed the payrise for the following year all middle mgt and above to get 0% payrise... reason being they believed the salaries were too hgi relative to the marketplace.

What happened ... many walked, which in turn gave me and many others the chance to step up to the next level (significant payrises for us to the higher grades). Many good people with 20 years experiance and real hard workers gone or the ones which stayed suddenly changed their attitude and hardly ever did over std hrs they purely did the min work they had to.

[Rawwr]

Brown Bonus sounds hideous.