Bankers gone bonkers
BANKERS' pay and bonuses have got millions of people in the UK hot under the collar and the suggestion that banks should disclose salaries of their high-fliers have got people writing to TV and newspaper blogs by the thousands.
Politicians will latch onto the debate with relish, after all, there's an election not too far away and it deflects away from their own greedy expenses scandals.
Sadly, Britain has, over the years, sold out its manufacturing base and the only thing we've got left which keeps us from being a second-rate power is our banking sector.
Equally sadly, bankers and traders know they can work anywhere in the world and if the UK makes it too difficult for them to earn mega bucks, they will leave our shores, taking their money with them, and that will be bad for all of us.
But someone with the wisdom of Solomon must come up with a way of curbing the excesses of the rich – bankers, politicians, leaders of the top companies, etc., who seem hell-bent on awarding themselves pay increases way ahead of inflation.
All it does is increase the huge divide between rich and poor and further destabilise an already fragile society.
If we go down the path of requiring the pay of bankers earning over 1m to be named, then that must apply to everyone – footballers, TV personalities, etc., and all that would achieve is to make the have-nots more angry and discontended.
Let's not foreget it is not just bankers and politicians who have milked the system for all they can get. How many people who run their own small businesses or are self-employed milk the tax system for as much as they can get away with? How many benefit cheats are there still getting away with it? How many motorists are there driving without tax and insurance? How many are regularly stealing from shops?
Add it all up and we're a pretty sick society.
Still on the subject of the banks, I welcome the Supreme Court decision over the bank charges saga.
What on earth gives people a divine right to take from a bank account without permission?
Some might call that theft, but at best it's totally irresponsible. It amazes me that people who have, in the past, incurred bank charges for going in the red, continue to do it time and time again, and then expect a fairy godmother to wipe out the charges, at the expense of people who are responsible with their bank accounts and don't spend beyond their means.
We've had a decade in which people believed they could spend, spend, spend without any day of reckoning. Well, that's over, but the consequences of it will be with us for many years.
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Tuesday 29 May 2012
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