Government to take no action on banker's bonuses

[Keith Rich]

The useless lot in the banks wouldn't know one end of a sweeping brush from the other. Please dont insult roadsweepers, they do an essential service.

 

 

Agreed.

 

Roadsweepers, dustbinmen, toilet cleaners and many others do a valuable job of work that we couldn't do without. Whereas w...er...bankers are just parasites and totally unproductive.

 

They do have one skill though. They have brainwashed many people into believing that they have skills that are denied the rest of us. Until people realise they have been brainwashed then the bankers will contine to feast. The money used to finance their feasting comes from us.

[Rupert_Baehr]

They can. They are the Government. They could pass any number of laws to limit the size of bonuses if they wanted to.

 

Just as they promised.

 

Indeed. Parliament can pass whatever laws it likes.

 

And companies can set up shop wherever they like, too.

 

I think HSBC moved to Hong Kong, because they are the HSBC.

 

RBS might move to Edinburgh too. Why should we care?

 

We can tax banking activity if we like. Getting rid of the leeches from London might just have a positive effect upon the housing market.

 

In any case there are loads of low tax economies around the world, yet the banks seem to want to be in London. Now, why is that?

 

Low Company taxes. When Thatcher startd attracting Banks to the UK, she did so by offering very low rates of company tax. The British Government complains about other low-tax economies which attract British companies overseas by offering tax advantages, but it's remarkably quiet when it comes to discussion of those it has poached from elsewhere.

 

As for banks (or perhaps bankers) wanting to be in London, well they do seem to be city-dwellers. There are plenty of companies with 'Head Offices' and only a handful of people in so-called 'tax havens' but I wonder how many of the (existing) tax havens have room for some thousands of additional employees? It's been a long time since I visited the IOM, but I doubtthey've got thousands of houses just waiting fro an influx of wealthy bankers. The Channel Islands would probably like the money, but they too are running out of space to accommodate wealthy bankers.

 

I wonder how many people there are who are getting the bankers' bonuses? Is the figure a few tens of people, a few hundred or a few thousand?

 

If the government pushes the banks hard enough, then no doubt they wil move. I wouldn't be too surprised if the Chinese managed to find a bit of room in Shanghai, or the Indians made some space in Delhi.

 

The useless lot in the banks wouldn't know one end of a sweeping brush from the other. Please dont insult roadsweepers, they do an essential service.

 

Roadsweepers do indeed provide an essential service, but it seems that those who pay the bankers think that the ones they employ are more valuable than roadsweepers.

 

I must admit, I wasn't aware that the banks are owned by Father Christmas.

 

If I owned a bank, then I wouldn't pay the top employees any more than I had to pay them to keep them. I probably wouldn't pay them any less, either.