Panorama - The Bankers

[crankedup]

BBC last night a 30 minute prog' 'bankers bonus payouts'. Seemed to me that they simply said its business as usual and the Governments proposals in adjusting the format of payment to be introduced will be in essence part cash and part shares. Already some banks are ahead by offering higher base salaries to those affected. Did anyone else watch and was it a fair reflection of the situation or simply waffle for public consumption?

[NoelWatson]

crankedup said:

BBC last night a 30 minute prog' 'bankers bonus payouts'. Seemed to me that they simply said its business as usual and the Governments proposals in adjusting the format of payment to be introduced will be in essence part cash and part shares. Already some banks are ahead by offering higher base salaries to those affected. Did anyone else watch and was it a fair reflection of the situation or simply waffle for public consumption?

I would rather watch a drag race between a Fiat 126 and a 2CV.

[HowMuchLonger]

Program complaining about bankers excess.

Intro and outro by Jeremy Vine, who gets paid 200k just for introducing Panorama.

[HowMuchLonger]

Wurls said:

HowMuchLonger said:

Intro and outro by Jeremy Vine, who gets paid 200k just for introducing Panorama.

..........Funded by the license fee payer rather than through credible commercial activity.

I said it on the other bonus thread but I felt typical BBC bias.

It was beyond bias. It was a pathetic piece of pseudo journalism pandering to public sentiments.

[Busa_Rush]

I thought they were just reading out clips from the Daily Mail . . .

[anonymous-user]

Wasn't it true then?

[chimster]

Anyone actually watched it?

[Bing o]

crankedup said:

BBC last night a 30 minute prog' 'bankers bonus payouts'. Seemed to me that they simply said its business as usual and the Governments proposals in adjusting the format of payment to be introduced will be in essence part cash and part shares. Already some banks are ahead by offering higher base salaries to those affected. Did anyone else watch and was it a fair reflection of the situation or simply waffle for public consumption?

I'm not in the UK (I claimed asylum elsewhere) but I assume there will be a Panorama on "How Gordon fked the economy for generations" some time soon?

[sidicks]

crankedup said:

BBC last night a 30 minute prog' 'bankers bonus payouts'. Seemed to me that they simply said its business as usual and the Governments proposals in adjusting the format of payment to be introduced will be in essence part cash and part shares. Already some banks are ahead by offering higher base salaries to those affected. Did anyone else watch and was it a fair reflection of the situation or simply waffle for public consumption?

Over 5 years go, the investment bank I worked at was paying 1/3 to 1/2 of bonus in shares which could only be sold after 3 years or more.

Do people honestly think that increased basic salary (guarantee) at the expense of bonus (not guaranteed) is a sensible 'solution' or just more political posturing.........

Sidicks

[NoelWatson]

sidicks said:

Over 5 years go, the investment bank I worked at was paying 1/3 to 1/2 of bonus in shares which could only be sold after 3 years or more.


Sidicks

I made the same point on another thread.

[eyebeebe]

Bing o said:

crankedup said:

BBC last night a 30 minute prog' 'bankers bonus payouts'. Seemed to me that they simply said its business as usual and the Governments proposals in adjusting the format of payment to be introduced will be in essence part cash and part shares. Already some banks are ahead by offering higher base salaries to those affected. Did anyone else watch and was it a fair reflection of the situation or simply waffle for public consumption?

I'm not in the UK (I claimed asylum elsewhere) but I assume there will be a Panorama on "How Gordon fked the economy for generations" some time soon?

Ditto economic asylum seeker here too. Good to see the pound plumbing new depths against the Swiss Franc again to today just in time for a visit! So I didn't see the show either. What I don't understand though is that all these "measures" that the Govt wants to put in place are broadly there already: Banks already defer most of a big bonus over a number of years anyway and it's in the form of equity. In 2008 we paid our bonuses to senior staff mainly in the form of these toxic assets that we still had on our books. Last time I looked though they were doing quite nicely out of it.

We've also raised base salaries for senior staff. It has to be the single most stupid thing we could have done, but that's what the G20 wanted: Variable compensation to be a lower % of total compensation. They will still get the same overall number, just more of it is guaranteed. Ironically enough the Govt is also trying to outlaw guaranteed bonuses over 1 year... go figure. The problem is this gives the bank far less cost flexibility. If revenues are down and people are paid mainly in bonuses, they get next to nothing. No major drama. If revenues are down, but we have higher fixed costs (salaries and associated taxes, pensions etc), we have a problem and banking always has been and always will be a hiring and firing sector.

Edited for horrible English

Edited by eyebeebe on Tuesday 21st December 15:35

[crankedup]

Thanks for replies, pretty well what I thought about the prog'. Feel that at least I am learning something about how the banks operate.

[Bing o]

crankedup said:

Thanks for replies, pretty well what I thought about the prog'. Feel that at least I am learning something about how the banks operate.

If you want to learn about how banks work, I would avoid the BBC altogether.

[anonymous-user]

HowMuchLonger said:

Intro and outro by Jeremy Vine, who gets paid 200k just for introducing Panorama.

Now that's not quite fair, he has to work hard at being a complete prick for two hours every weekday on BBC R2.

[anonymous-user]

NoelWatson said:

I would rather watch a drag race between a Fiat 126 and a 2CV.

I don't know why, but that's really touched my funny bone

[HowMuchLonger]

Symbolica said:

HowMuchLonger said:

Intro and outro by Jeremy Vine, who gets paid 200k just for introducing Panorama.

Now that's not quite fair, he has to work hard at being a complete prick for two hours every weekday on BBC R2.

He gets an additional £1m for his radio 2 show. The £1/4m is just for panorama!
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard/article-237...

[crankedup]

I used to read 'The Investors Chronicle' but that was some years back and I haven't read a copy for some years. I always found it interesting and the Company share buying information excellent. Two memorable purchases were Consolidated Goldfields and Charles Bains, two highlights but a long time ago.
Back to now, I thought that the two guys that when asked if they felt at all 'bad' about their bonus payments and how much the public are suffering through job losses blah blah blah, the guys simply said not at all. Honest answer but one that won't help rebuild public confidence perhaps. Suspect the Beeb may have had twenty replies to same question and selected to air most aggravating.

Any decent guides to banking for a layman you could recommend would be handy.

[Bing o]

crankedup said:

Any decent guides to banking for a layman you could recommend would be handy.

Well, it was written by one.

[crankedup]

No decent guides available then.

[robsti]

Thought it was quite fitting that the bankers wore masks!