Alistair Darling has announced in his pre-budget report that City bankers are to face a one off tax on their bonuses. As we have all come to expect from this shameless bunch of spivs, they are all up in arms and threatening to leave the country.
Not satisfied with causing global meltdown due to their unrestrained greed, their sense of entitlement now dictates that they should still receive obscene bonuses. While ordinary people are facing job losses, losing their homes and money worries, bankers are more worried about losing out on their bonuses.
I have no doubt that bankers perform a valuable service to this country, and that they generate a lot of business and commerce through their activities. However, that does not grant them immunity from their responsibility for rectifying the mess they have collectively caused.
To threaten to leave the country, and take their services elsewhere is tantamount to blackmail. When you have done something wrong, most people with any sense of integrity and decency try to correct it. Most people would not demand to be paid vast sums of money for making a gargantuan mistake, and then threaten to emigrate when those vast sums are not forthcoming.
As someone who works in local government, I have seen first hand how the recession has affected the delivery of services to local communities. Every single local government has had to face up to the financial crisis, and plan how they aim to keep delivering the same level of services with less money.
But despite the pain and suffering that they have inflicted on the rest of us, they still seem to think they are entitled to their obscene bonuses.
To those that wish to leave the country, please hurry up and go. If you lack the integrity, decency and responsibility to clear up the mess you have made with your unrestrained greed, then quite frankly, the country is far better of without you!
Not satisfied with causing global meltdown due to their unrestrained greed, their sense of entitlement now dictates that they should still receive obscene bonuses. While ordinary people are facing job losses, losing their homes and money worries, bankers are more worried about losing out on their bonuses.
I have no doubt that bankers perform a valuable service to this country, and that they generate a lot of business and commerce through their activities. However, that does not grant them immunity from their responsibility for rectifying the mess they have collectively caused.
To threaten to leave the country, and take their services elsewhere is tantamount to blackmail. When you have done something wrong, most people with any sense of integrity and decency try to correct it. Most people would not demand to be paid vast sums of money for making a gargantuan mistake, and then threaten to emigrate when those vast sums are not forthcoming.
As someone who works in local government, I have seen first hand how the recession has affected the delivery of services to local communities. Every single local government has had to face up to the financial crisis, and plan how they aim to keep delivering the same level of services with less money.
But despite the pain and suffering that they have inflicted on the rest of us, they still seem to think they are entitled to their obscene bonuses.
To those that wish to leave the country, please hurry up and go. If you lack the integrity, decency and responsibility to clear up the mess you have made with your unrestrained greed, then quite frankly, the country is far better of without you!
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Couldn't agree more!
ReplyDeleteClearly they're not as clever as they thought they were else we wouldn't be in this mess.
This whole episode has shown that the unrestrained greed of the 1980s, of the Reagan and Thatcher era, has never gone away.
ReplyDeleteCity banking obviously attracts entirely the wrong sort of people, by employing those who are purely self interested.