I’m not usually a reader of morning papers, particularly the Daily Mail, but as there was a pile of them in the breakfast room of my hotel this morning, I thought I’d give it a go. I was astonished to read that (according to the Daily Mail), Goldman Sachs have increased their profits threefold and as a result are paying all of their 5,500 UK bankers a whopping £440,000 bonus. (That’s £2.4billion for those without a calculator handy.) Whether you believe those figures or not, the fact remains that vast sums of money are being paid to staff of companies that essentially failed. “Obscene” is the word.
Bonuses are paid for success. Chucking an economy down the proverbial toilet and failing completely as a company to the point where a bailout is required by the tax payer, is not “success” and those responsible do not deserve any kind of bonus until the tax payer has been repaid. With interest.
Didn’t Mr Brown promise an end to the bonuses? Does he actually have any power to do anything about it anyway? Probably not. It’s not the politicians that rule the world, it’s the super rich behind the scenes manipulating everything. The public have to suffer a rotten economy while these reckless jokers get rich. People all over the world are starving and living in abject poverty while moronic bankers are spending £500 per head on caviar and foie gras in posh London eateries.
It doesn’t matter how bad the recession gets for any of us, one thing you can always rely on is that the rich will keep getting richer.
Couldn’t have put it any better if I tried. Very well said.