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What do you think?


NickP
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My perception of Fred Goodwin;  formed by information publicly available is not good. He appears; to coin an old fashioned phrase as a spiv. Having said that I'm not aware that he has broken the law, so do you think the removal of his knighthood makes him  a scapegoat for the politicians and Financial Mafia or a victim of a "kangaroo court" campaign led by the media. After all as I said earlier "I'm not aware that he has broken the law", like Lord Archer the liar; who still is I believe a member of the house of Lords? Or Lord Taylor of Warwick and Lord Hanningfield the expenses cheats who have mentioned their intention to return to the upper house. So what do you think? Or could somebody please explain to me why is there a different treatment for a convicted criminal and someone who is not?

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What these Lords say, dear me, criminals and cheats, I'd rather like them to keep their mouths shut.

Historically those that could haul themselves to the top of the pile got such rewards, how they did it, was perhaps, more often than not, done by dubious means. How many old families are 'clean and wholesome'?

As I said on another thread, I don't care about his gong going.

If someone worked on the checkout at a Supermarket and their till was short a few times, they 'd be sacked. And I do not understand why he was not. He was rewarded with lots and lots of money, pension of £700,000 a year and the rest. For losing, what to me is an unimagineable amount of money. He should have been out on his ear immediately, sacked.

I have heard several times that he is a scapegoat, but as far as I was aware he was in charge of the RBS and got a salary and the rest, in accordance with his position. The Captain. He sank the ship whilst he was at the helm. Scapegoat, no he is not that and never will be as far as I am concerned. And the blame will continue, because it should.

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From the absence of posts, I'd say that most feel pretty much like I do - they couldn't care much whether he kept his knighthood or not.

You're right - he wasn't a criminal as such, unlike others you've mentioned. He was however the head of a major business that fouled up bigtime: he's not alone in that, even before the events of the last couple of years. We can all think of a few.

Whether he retained it or not is to me, an irrelevance. He's unemployable (though he should care with his pension arrangements) and I suspect that for him the biggest loss, is the loss of power.

RBS's fall wasn't the cause of the current woes: it was just one of the domino's. I don't feel sorry for Goodwin: I just don't care.  

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Goodwin made a lot of money for RBS and it's shareholders as he has done for several other companies. The shareholders employed him because of his outstanding ability to make money for them. With his list of takeovers he made RBS the 9th biggest bank in the world. He led the RBS team who bought out ABN Hambro and this was his major downfall. ABN Hambros had an extremely large exposure to American sup-prime debts which finally bought down RBS. Labour had relaxed laws for International takeovers by banks and other financial organisations. Lord Turner in his report on the failing of RBS said "International rules for banks at the time were inadequate and insists that the takeover of ABN Hamro in the autumn of 2007, that left the bank with too low capital levels, would not have taken place under new rules put in place since the banking crisis". In total there were six contributing factors as to why RBS failed, the biggest being this ABN Hambro buyout. In summing up the report went on to say that basically the board of directors failed to use 'due diligence' and made poor decisions yet they worked withing the FSA guidelines at the time and did not decieve or do anything illegal. Basically they were just bad managers.

So given that they made bad decisions etc then to give a person, the head of the management team, a reward such as this for his "services to the banking industry"  is not really appropriate and really should never have been given in the first place. So taking it away is undoing a wrong. Does it really bother him personally, I doubt it.

The official reason for them taking it away was "The scale and severity of the impact of his actions as CEO of RBS made this an exceptional case. Both the Financial Services Authority and the Treasury Select Committee have investigated the reasons for this failure and its consequences. They are clear that the failure of RBS played an important role in the financial crisis of 2008/9 which, together with other macroeconomic factors, triggered the worst recession in the UK since the Second World War and imposed significant direct costs on British taxpayers and businesses. Fred Goodwin was the dominant decision-maker at RBS at the time. In reaching this decision, it was recognised that widespread concern about Fred Goodwin's decisions meant that the retention of a knighthood for 'services to banking' could not be sustained."

Somebody said he probably won't work again. Well he did get a job at RMJB (an international architect firm) but left in under a year and has been unemployed since.

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I watched 'The Wright Stuff' yesterday when this question came up - a former RBS employee phoned and likened the RBS take over of Nat West to the corner shop taking over Sainsbury's and said they were obliged to watch films of Martin Luther Kings 'I have a dream' speech with Fred comparing himself to Martin Luther King. When some of them commented they were told to shut up, no one dared criticise Fred!

Idun - its when the till is over that there is likely to be a problem ![;-)]

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What concerns me is not whether or not FG keeps his Honour, but the manner of its removal - which seems to me to be ad hominem.

There should be a system of review, with power to remove ANY Honour from its recipient. The standards of behaviour below which an individual will be deemed to have lost the right to the award concerned should be publicly transparent. Then an assessment can be fairly made.

Whilst he may well deserve to lose his K against such published standards they as yet do not exist and the means of achieving this particular rescinding leave me uneasy.

Pouyade
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Whilst I have no sympathy for Fred Goodwin and having had a business lunch with him once, can attest to his character of self importance, I am concerned about the anti business rhetoric being stoked by certain politicians and media for short term political gain.  The fact is that the UK desperately needs to attract inward investment and it will help no one in the longer term if the country is seen as hostile to business and anyone who has wealth, unless you are a footballer! There is already concern that the UK's more succesful banks, HSBC and Barclays, will move their head offices and business domicile to Hong Kong and New York respectively, with the resulting lose of substantial tax revenue to the UK excheqeur.
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Made a lot of money for RBS Q?

Well if he had made that much money, then that would have covered the debt and it didn't, that would have been making a LOT of money. He made a lot of money for himself though, whether the company did well, floundered or sank, that is the truth.

Sympathy for him. Never.  I do feel for the lower down staff. I see how my ex colleagues in my old bank have to work and the nonsense they now have to tell customers these days.

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He did make a lot of money for RBS, up until he got it wrong with ABN Hambro. He got carried away with his 'own success' but so did the board and the share holders. As long as he made money and the shareholders got their big dividends they were happy and f**k the punters. It's all basically down to greed.

With regards to him loosing his knighthood, the bigger question was why was he given it and after RBS had almost gone to the wall.

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He was given his knighthood in 2004 some time before RBS went into crisis. IMO it was correct that he had the knighthood removed because this may send a message to the leaders of the big banks that it's the ordinary people that are paying for the mess they have created through their greed.

Bonuses should be performance related and limited to 20% of annual salary. They should also be subject to shareholder approval

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I feel that removing his £650K a year pension would have a more immediate impact on him than removing his knighthood,  I suppose the biggest change the loss of his knighthood will make to him is that he will have to get new stationery printed, which will seriously dent his wallet, NOT !

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I think that questions need to be asked about politicians'  fitness to award knighthoods. What a laughing stock we must be, doling them out and then rescinding them. I even felt sorry for the queen, (and that doesn't happen often.)

What are the criteria for giving them anyway?

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[quote user="Frederick"]I wonder why this has all raised its head now to such an extent . Its hardly new is it so why is so much news and parliamentary time being given to it .?[/quote]

Fred Goodwin having his title taken away only just happened, so maybe that answers your question?

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[quote user="NickP"]

[quote user="Frederick"]I wonder why this has all raised its head now to such an extent . Its hardly new is it so why is so much news and parliamentary time being given to it .?[/quote]

Fred Goodwin having his title taken away only just happened, so maybe that answers your question?

[/quote]

 Now we know..... Bring up the hated bankers situation again .... get everybody talking  about their  bonuses   Strip Fred Goodwin of his gong that will  get everybody on side  then  go for public support for  the introduction of a ban on  every bonus they have connected with public money... Hence the Network Rail  boss  with his bonus on the news today   "The Bonus Culture " .. Give it a name then pursuade everybody its a thing to be condemed . . 

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A bonus should be for exceptional work, excellence that is merited perhaps over and above a salary.

The Bonus Culture, as far as I am aware is that the top dogs like to pay themselves these amounts in spite of their huge salaries, whether the company is doing well or not. And in that case, I condemn it vehemently.

I have nothing against a bonus, I have everything against these payments.

And please note, that Network Rail is to be prosecuted for the Greyrigg crash. Where they apparently they had not got enough staff to maintain those tracks correctly and yet they can pay the big boss a bonus that would employ several people...........please, that is so often the case with these companies. Must get rid of staff which cost say a few million and then give the top dog a bonus of this amount. Immoral and disgusts me to my core.

 

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[quote user="Frederick"][quote user="NickP"]

[quote user="Frederick"]I wonder why this has all raised its head now to such an extent . Its hardly new is it so why is so much news and parliamentary time being given to it .?[/quote]

Fred Goodwin having his title taken away only just happened, so maybe that answers your question?

[/quote]

 Now we know..... Bring up the hated bankers situation again .... get everybody talking  about their  bonuses   Strip Fred Goodwin of his gong that will  get everybody on side  then  go for public support for  the introduction of a ban on  every bonus they have connected with public money... Hence the Network Rail  boss  with his bonus on the news today   "The Bonus Culture " .. Give it a name then pursuade everybody its a thing to be condemed . . 
[/quote]

Bit touchy Fred? My original post made no mention of bankers at all, you brought the subject up. So in your world; if somebody does something that the public or authorities think is not right, nothing should be said publicly.  Sounds like maybe you would be happier living somewhere like North Korea. [:D]

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 No thanks .... I  just wondered  why it was RBS  Bonuses and Fred Goodwin was brought back into the limelight  when it was ...?   Nothng more than that . Now we are going to have Ministers rolled out I expect to encourage bonus payments to be removed from contracts of employment in the future ... Do you think these things just happen by accident ?  I suspect somebody in government  is rubbing his hands and saying  " I do love it when a plan comes together "

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