Bankers: Cameron shows his true colours

[NormanH]

As Europe seeks to cap Bankers' bonuses, and the RBS paid out 600 million in bonuses despite losing 5 billion, Cameron shows who really pulls his strings:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/feb/28/uk-fight-eu-cap-bankers-bonuses

[woolybanana]

Europe, lead by the French socialists and their mediocritizing minds and plans, seeks to control everyone's potential, by limiting their pay to a multiple of that of a semi skilled tyre maker!

Idiots, you don't ban high bonuses, you TAX them out of existence ..... No, ooops, tried that already.

All that this will do is increase some salaries and the rest will have as little incentive to do anything, ....... Just like fonctionnaires.

[just john]

Like it or lump it lets not pretend that bankers are solely to blame, just look at the profilgacy of the nation states?

I contend that for a nation to try to tax itself into prosperity is like a man standing in a bucket and trying to lift himself up by the handle. --Winston Churchill 

A liberal is someone who feels a great debt to his fellow man, which debt he proposes to pay off with your money. -- G. Gordon Liddy 

Democracy must be something more than two wolves and a sheep voting on what to have for dinner. --James Bovard, Civil Libertarian (1994) 

Giving money and power to government is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys. -- P.J. O'Rourke, Civil Libertarian 

Government is the great fiction, through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else. -- Frederic Bastiat, French economist(1801-1850) 

Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it. --Ronald Reagan (1986) 

If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free! -- P. J. O'Rourke 

In general, the art of government consists of taking as much money as possible from one party of the citizens to give to the other. --Voltaire (1764) 

Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won't take an interest in you! -- Pericles (430 B.C.) 

The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of the blessings. The inherent blessing of socialism is the equal sharing of misery. -- Winston Churchill 

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have. -- Thomas Jefferson 

We hang the petty thieves and appoint the great ones to public office. -- Aesop 

AND THE BEST

You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity, by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. 

What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. 

The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. 

You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it. 

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work, because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation! 

 

[woolybanana]

Well done JJ. You must have worked hard to get that lot together, spoiled the afternoon nap?[6]

[just john]

[quote user="woolybanana"]Well done JJ. You must have worked hard to get that lot together, spoiled the afternoon nap?[6][/quote]

Fate WB, just an opinion swell that created something going the rounds at the mo [;-)]

 

[Quillan]

The 'loss' is considerably less than it could have been. Lets not forget the vast amount of money RBS has had to ring-fence for its Libor fines and compensation to people who were cheated out of their money by the PPI scandal. They also have to put money aside to payout people from illegal bank charges which is the next big thing after PPI and will cost them a lot more. All this miss selling and Libor stuff was done by the previous lot who run RBS and who in 2007, the year before the crash, took bonuses totalling £1.83bn. In short £600M sees to be very little compared to what they have achieved. By the way it was the Labour Party that agreed their salaries and bonuses when they employed them after they rescued RBS. But if your a socialist it is very convenient to forget that fact.

[Rabbie]

I have no problem with people being paid bonuses if these reflect the actual contribution these people have made to the business. What irritates me is when people get large bonuses for failure or dsiproportionately ;arge ones for mediocre performance. The golden goodbyes that people who have failed to meet their targets leave a sour taste in the mouth.

[Russethouse]

When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work, because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that is the beginning of the end of any nation!

A few months ago an elderly lady I know off was violently attacked by her husband who has Alzheimer's.....it was not considered safe for him to live at home and so now he is a home. Because they have been careful and saved all their lives his wife has to pay £3000 a month for his care......is it any wonder that people feel that working and endeavouring to take care of yourself is a waste of time?

[Patf]

Why should bankers be among the very few jobs that pay bonuses to their employees? Because they "look after " our money, and can use it as they wish. So they treat themselves at our expense.

We use them, let them "guard " our hard earned wages, because there's no alternative, unless we get paid in cash and keep it under the bed.

But is there another way?

[YCCMB]

If you didn't watch the first two-parter some months back, watch the follow-up to "Bank of Dave" tonight at 10 pm UK time on channel 4.

The man's a hero. (IMO)[:D]

[just john]

[quote user="You can call me Betty"]If you didn't watch the first two-parter some months back, watch the follow-up to "Bank of Dave" tonight at 10 pm UK time on channel 4.
The man's a hero. (IMO)[:D]
[/quote]

Heart warming stuff.

http://www.cityam.com/article/bank-dave-two-how-one-man-took-fsa-and-won

 

[Théière]

[quote user="Quillan"]compensation to people who were cheated out of their money by the PPI scandal. .[/quote]

I see you have your Tabloid head on again Q.  People have had the benefit of protecting their loans and mortgages with a policy, those who haven't claimed however can now get all their money back and some interest.  Not everyone who is claiming back their premiums was blind to this insurance but that wouldn't stop the public form being dishonest.  That also doesn't defend banks from forcing people to take the policy with their loans as was the case in many circumstances, I fought Barclays bank twice on behalf of my clients and forced Barclays to do a U turn or face the FSA and this was years ago and didn't make me any money.

So Bankers deserve for screwing up do they, whereas the hospitals that have done well like our Lewisham hospital in profit and successful their reward is to have services cut. So the lying two faced Cameron rewards failure and cuts success, well he does if it's good for his wealthy pals. The lying two faced Jeremy Hunt is now further carving up GP's and forcing through issues to use private facilities.  Bent absolutely bent.

Good program following straight talking Dave's bank 

[Pickles]

[quote user="Théière"][quote user="Quillan"]compensation to people who were cheated out of their money by the PPI scandal. .[/quote]

People have had the benefit of protecting their loans and mortgages with a policy, those who haven't claimed however can now get all their money back and some interest.  Not everyone who is claiming back their premiums was blind to this insurance but that wouldn't stop the public form being dishonest.  That also doesn't defend banks from forcing people to take the policy with their loans as was the case in many circumstances, I fought Barclays bank twice on behalf of my clients and forced Barclays to do a U turn or face the FSA and this was years ago and didn't make me any money.[/quote]

Bit of thread drift here, but I am at a loss regarding some of the numbers being bandied around regarding PPI - particularly the few "large" payouts (tens of thousands of £) that have been mentioned in the press - how much were these people borrowing? I think I was offered PPI with my first and second credit cards, but refused because I was on fixed-term contracts and knew that they would not cover redundancy due to the ending of a fixed-term contract. Ditto my mortgage. The one thing that I know WAS mis-sold was my mortgage endowment, but despite having a quantifiable loss in that regard, I am apparently not eligible for compensation because I had taken steps to mitigate the problem by turning the mortgage into a repayment one. D'oh!

[powerdesal]

It's unlikely that the UK Govt will ever seriously curtail the mega-bonus payments. It's not in their best interest to do so.

For every million pounds in bonus payments paid out to whoever, HMRC get an immediate windfall tax payment of at least 50% ( I think ). Therefore the £600M bonus payments by RBS give the Govt a boost of £300M, without any other actions on their part.

[Russethouse]

When we started this business in the 1990s we borrowed an amount to see us over the first quarter, we were quite clearly told that we had to take out the insurance as a condition of the loan even though it was clear that we could never claim because we were then going to be self employed.

I'm not sure I can be bothered to go through the faff of claiming,

[Quillan]

[quote user="Théière"]

[quote user="Quillan"]compensation to people who were cheated out of their money by the PPI scandal. .[/quote]

I see you have your Tabloid head on again Q.  People have had the benefit of protecting their loans and mortgages with a policy, those who haven't claimed however can now get all their money back and some interest.  Not everyone who is claiming back their premiums was blind to this insurance but that wouldn't stop the public form being dishonest.  That also doesn't defend banks from forcing people to take the policy with their loans as was the case in many circumstances, I fought Barclays bank twice on behalf of my clients and forced Barclays to do a U turn or face the FSA and this was years ago and didn't make me any money.

So Bankers deserve for screwing up do they, whereas the hospitals that have done well like our Lewisham hospital in profit and successful their reward is to have services cut. So the lying two faced Cameron rewards failure and cuts success, well he does if it's good for his wealthy pals. The lying two faced Jeremy Hunt is now further carving up GP's and forcing through issues to use private facilities.  Bent absolutely bent.

Good program following straight talking Dave's bank 

[/quote]

I didn't have to go to anyone to fight and win with Barclays bank regarding two PPI claims I made against Barclaycard Visa and Master Card. I was never asked if I wanted PPI when I got both the cards, it came with the cards automatically, and when I asked them they told me I had to have it. I suspect I am not alone. All my payments have been refunded, with interest, and are now in my saving account.

The current staff of RBS have worked very hard to get the bank back up it's feet. It was not them that got the bank in a mess and it is not them that were involved in the PPI and Libor scandals. If your looking for somebody to blame for that lot I suggest you look at Blair and Brown for messing around with the regulatory bodies.

So now we are saying it is OK for NHS hospitals to make a profit out of the sick and dying and then moan when their services are cut. But then what you have failed to mention, just like a tabloids, is why. The heath trust 'next door' (SLHT) has run up a debt of £150M because it is paying out £60M a year in PFI contracts that they were forced in to by the last Labour government which is not exactly either Cameron's or Hunts fault. This trust is now in the hands of the receivers and money has to be taken from Lewisham to pay off the debts of SLHT. Unfortunate I know but that's just how it is. Have you tried writing to your MP or starting a petition to have trusts ring-fenced so money can't be taken from one to pay the debts of another, probably not.

Governments are accountable to the people, they vote them in to power and can vote them out again. Banks are accountable to shareholders. If you don't like a bank and the way it runs then buy a share and attend the share meetings and vote. Before yo say whats the point you may be interested to know that bonuses and salaries have been either cut or cancelled by shareholders at Credit Suisse, Citycorp, Bank of America, Barclays, Aviva, UPS to name but just a few. To my mind if you want to sit and moan about a bank and don't own a share in it (or any bank you don't like) then just like not bothering to vote you don't have a right to a say in how it is run.

[Benjamin]

At some point (I think during the last 12 months) Lloyds reported that in 30% of the claims for PPI compensation the claimants had never had a Lloyds bank account. Who do we have to thank for this situation (and costing the rest of us £millions), but the proliferation of claims companies and many in the legal profession who are blatantly encouraging bogus claims.

 

[Quillan]

[quote user="powerdesal"]It's unlikely that the UK Govt will ever seriously curtail the mega-bonus payments. It's not in their best interest to do so. For every million pounds in bonus payments paid out to whoever, HMRC get an immediate windfall tax payment of at least 50% ( I think ). Therefore the £600M bonus payments by RBS give the Govt a boost of £300M, without any other actions on their part.[/quote]

What they don't have to pay is NI. I cut my salary by half then took the other half as a bonus to avoid paying NI for both myself and my company. It is very common practice and the biggest users of this 'loop hole' are contractors. You take a salary just above your tax allowance so you pay some tax and the rest as a monthly bonus which in total saves you around 30% NI contributions (employer and employee) on the bonus. Likewise if they get their bonus in the form of shares then there are penalties involved if they sell them immediately. I think they have to pay CGT as well as ordinary tax.

[powerdesal]

[quote user="Quillan"]

[quote user="powerdesal"]It's unlikely that the UK Govt will ever seriously curtail the mega-bonus payments. It's not in their best interest to do so. For every million pounds in bonus payments paid out to whoever, HMRC get an immediate windfall tax payment of at least 50% ( I think ). Therefore the £600M bonus payments by RBS give the Govt a boost of £300M, without any other actions on their part.[/quote]

What they don't have to pay is NI. I cut my salary by half then took the other half as a bonus to avoid paying NI for both myself and my company. It is very common practice and the biggest users of this 'loop hole' are contractors. You take a salary just above your tax allowance so you pay some tax and the rest as a monthly bonus which in total saves you around 30% NI contributions (employer and employee) on the bonus. Likewise if they get their bonus in the form of shares then there are penalties involved if they sell them immediately. I think they have to pay CGT as well as ordinary tax.

[/quote] So they don't pay NI contributions on the bonus - that's pretty academic really, the windfall profit to HMRC is still there. It is in addition to the 'normal' tax paid by employees and by RBS. The same logic applies when considering very high salaries, why cap them when HMRC get such a lot back. It's a win-win situation for the Govt, the losers are of course the shareholders. Less money to pay out in dividends.

[Quillan]

[quote user="Russethouse"]When we started this business in the 1990s we borrowed an amount to see us over the first quarter, we were quite clearly told that we had to take out the insurance as a condition of the loan even though it was clear that we could never claim because we were then going to be self employed. I'm not sure I can be bothered to go through the faff of claiming,[/quote]

If you go to the website of the institution concerned and search for PPI claim (which we did for both Barclays and Lloyds) they will normally take you to a page that allows you to download a form. The forms are actually all the same because they originate from the Ombudsman but banks etc just put their bank name on the top. You will of course need a copy of the original agreement for the information, agreement number etc. It took me about an hour to fill in the first one. Pop it in the post, recorded delivery and sit back an wait. They are supposed to come back to you in around 14 days to tell you if they will accept the claim then you wait while they work it out and make an offer. I found in reality it was more like six weeks for both banks then another six weeks to get the offer. It's worth a try and it's only an hour of work, you never know. I have to say that the interest was about a third of the value of the claim value, it surprised me how much it added up to. I though I would have been lucky to see a grand (if I was really lucky) on each card but it end up a lot more than that.

[Quillan]

[quote user="powerdesal"][quote user="Quillan"]

[quote user="powerdesal"]It's unlikely that the UK Govt will ever seriously curtail the mega-bonus payments. It's not in their best interest to do so. For every million pounds in bonus payments paid out to whoever, HMRC get an immediate windfall tax payment of at least 50% ( I think ). Therefore the £600M bonus payments by RBS give the Govt a boost of £300M, without any other actions on their part.[/quote]

What they don't have to pay is NI. I cut my salary by half then took the other half as a bonus to avoid paying NI for both myself and my company. It is very common practice and the biggest users of this 'loop hole' are contractors. You take a salary just above your tax allowance so you pay some tax and the rest as a monthly bonus which in total saves you around 30% NI contributions (employer and employee) on the bonus. Likewise if they get their bonus in the form of shares then there are penalties involved if they sell them immediately. I think they have to pay CGT as well as ordinary tax.

[/quote] So they don't pay NI contributions on the bonus - that's pretty academic really, the windfall profit to HMRC is still there. It is in addition to the 'normal' tax paid by employees and by RBS. The same logic applies when considering very high salaries, why cap them when HMRC get such a lot back. It's a win-win situation for the Govt, the losers are of course the shareholders. Less money to pay out in dividends.[/quote]

Yes but a lot of these people are actually on contract and get paid via a limited company so when you combine the two NI payments it is quite a lot. My daughter gets a bonus working for a bank, after tax she normally ends up with somewhere between a quarter and a third of the bonus in her bank account.

[Benjamin]

I've posted this before on a similar thread some time back but from firsthand family experience I can tell you that there are no longer any hedge funds based in the UK. When tax was hiked a couple of years back they all packed up and left for Switzerland or the Far East.

I wonder how much that smart ar*ssed move cost the Exchequer?

[ebaynut]

It seems crazy to me when the UK government can take so much in from bankers that they would even think of limiting their pay.

For some reason the government seem more keen in encouraging  Abdul the ex goat herder turned pizza delivery boy and his hoard of offspring from somewhere in Pi55holeistan into the country then keeping quality high earners who actually benefit the UK in a positive way.

 

[woolybanana]

It is the Europeans who are tryin to do two things: firstlly, the French who want to reduce everyone's salary to that of a semi skilled worker and SMASH THE RICH, and the Germans who wanna snitch City success to Frankfurt and think control will help. The French would like to do this too but dont have the financial infrastructure.

Someone needs to tell them that freedom brings growth. Were there ever any successful command economies. What European is gonna send a couple to Mars on his tab? Think wild, think big.

[woolybanana]

[quote user="ebaynut"]

It seems crazy to me when the UK government can take so much in from bankers that they would even think of limiting their pay.

For some reason the government seem more keen in encouraging  Abdul the ex goat herder turned pizza delivery boy and his hoard of offspring from somewhere in Pi55holeistan into the country then keeping quality high earners who actually benefit the UK in a positive way.

 

[/quote] Better the dependent you can control rather than the freebooter you cant. Where are the Bransons of the future? UK has spent its wealth on uncontrolled benefits and an NHS which is far too big, rather than using that money to invest in the future. And remember that every administrator is a lifetime burden n the taxpayer.