Originally Posted by Ancient_Mariner

Originally Posted by bernoulli

Face it, we're scum.

Speak for yourself. I happen to be a member of the bonus earning classes. A previous employer (neither buoyant nor armed with nuclear weapons I hasten to add) once offered me a handsome end of year bonus.

He dropped an Argos catalogue on my desk and invited me to choose anything I wanted up to the value of fifty quid. As Argos don't sell emasculators I opted for a cr@p, plastic suitcase instead.

Originally Posted by bernoulli

According to every piece of free-market dogma, we're non wealth-producing, uneducated, public sector vermin.

You're a real 'glass half empty' kind of guy aren't you? OK, we may be vermin. But there's different types of vermin. I see myself as high class vermin like a red squirrel: cute, loveable, sleeps all winter, I guard my nuts jealously and I'm worthy of protection.

Originally Posted by bernoulli

We should be tugging an oily forelock

Go and see your ship's barber surgeon. He should be able to sort that out but you might need to be circumcised.

You are too unkind, A_M. I quite fancy the epithet "non wealth-producing, uneducated, public sector vermin". Bernoulli has described me to a "t"!

But, like you, I jealously guard my nuts!

Lits

I know the govt is trying to create more banks or at least more bank services to create more competition on the high street. All sounds a very complicated approach. In a way I'd like to see a smaller number with decent regulation and offering good rates etc.

But then again where's the risk in that hey? The govt did promise us super casinos...tho I didn't think they'd be called Lloyds and *RBS etc!

* I can't hear this institution's acronym without thinking of a lot of fat Scotsmen in suits with IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) from worrying about money too much.

Originally Posted by Alsacien

Originally Posted by Litotes

1. There are fewer banks than a year ago.
2. There is far more money swillng around at high levels than there was a year ago - due to QE.
3. Asset prices and commodity prices are all rising sharply. Oil is up by >10% in a month, which will feed into petrol prices soon.
4. Profit levels and spreads have risen sharply as a result of the recession.
5. The big companies decided that they needed cash to clear the debts they ran up during the good times so they visited the bankers for money - and were charged a lot of money for the experience.

Result = huge profits for the big banks and record bonuses.

This is hard to believe: one year ago we were in deep doo-doo and now everything is rosy???? How does that work then?

What happens when the music stops?

Litotes

You pick a chair - quickly :D

Ok.I'll plug it in.

Unfortunatly these "masters of the universe" are not as nearly as clever as they think they are.
Creative Banking like Creative accounting looks attractive at first view but has serious consquences later.

Originally Posted by brighton hippy

Unfortunatly these "masters of the universe" are not as nearly as clever as they think they are.
Creative Banking like Creative accounting looks attractive at first view but has serious consquences later.

Unless you are a banker, in which case it only keeps getting better!!

I know one thing - listening to Radio 4 late at night about this subject - the state and bansk feel it a given )ie that we agree without any research) that they are going to spend huge amounts of money on regulation.
Nice little area to get into I would have thought!

Opening myself up, figuratively speaking, to a barrage..........but.......I run the trading floor for a non-UK global investment bank. Haven't taken a dime of gov't money, have been profitable throughout the entire "crisis" (probably the only one) and are having a record year thus far. In fact, the bank has never made a loss in its entire history.

Rhetorical question, but what % am I supposed to pay a guy who makes £50mm profit a year trading WITHIN the parameters I set him (which are relatively conservative)?

In my case, I pay a fecking stupid amount of tax (I mean a REALLY stupid amount) and I give very generously to charity (not looking for a pat on the back, just fact).

Somehow I've been demonised by the gov't/media. I'm still trying to figure out why.

The problem banks are the "high street" banks whose CEOs thought they should become investment banks with large trading divisions. The mantra being "put the lazy capital to work". Unfortunately, the "lazy capital" was your deposits and, I suggest, they did this without your permission. That needs to be addressed. Not every bank is a appallingly run as RBS/Lloyds.

As for the "wicked banks" doctrine.........I don't know of anybody who had a gun held to their head when taking out a 100% mortgage in order to invest into an obviously inflated property market. Borrowers are as responsible as banks, if not more so, for the current mess.

Taxi........

Originally Posted by Banker

Opening myself up, figuratively speaking, to a barrage..........but.......I run the trading floor for a non-UK global investment bank. Haven't taken a dime of gov't money, have been profitable throughout the entire "crisis" (probably the only one) and are having a record year thus far. In fact, the bank has never made a loss in its entire history.

Rhetorical question, but what % am I supposed to pay a guy who makes £50mm profit a year trading WITHIN the parameters I set him (which are relatively conservative)?

In my case, I pay a fecking stupid amount of tax (I mean a REALLY stupid amount) and I give very generously to charity (not looking for a pat on the back, just fact).

Somehow I've been demonised by the gov't/media. I'm still trying to figure out why.

The problem banks are the "high street" banks whose CEOs thought they should become investment banks with large trading divisions. The mantra being "put the lazy capital to work". Unfortunately, the "lazy capital" was your deposits and, I suggest, they did this without your permission. That needs to be addressed. Not every bank is a appallingly run as RBS/Lloyds.

As for the "wicked banks" doctrine.........I don't know of anybody who had a gun held to their head when taking out a 100% mortgage in order to invest into an obviously inflated property market. Borrowers are as responsible as banks, if not more so, for the current mess.

Taxi........

So you probably understand how the few honest and decent MPs feal. The problem is that too many of your mates in the business were not as careful or sensible as you and like the MPs brought you profession into disrepute. Thats life I'm afraid you chose the profession so you have to live with it's ups and downs.

Now I have no problem with payment for success, there was a time when I got commission on sales, and I observerd that whilst that target commission remaned less than 50% of basic things went well, when basic fell and commission went up that was when some were encouraged to bvend the rules and trouble started. The same clearly happened with bank bonuses. Now how you pay your people is your choice, but public perception of you will be coloured by the choices you make, your choice. As for your star trader, perhaps amoderate bonus and a longer term reward for good service with a successful operation is worth more that a higher rate from some one who may go tits up and sack you, perhaps if he is driven by the biggest bonus he is not the best man for your job in the long term.

Edited to add, Fred the Shred was every ones darling till that last deal. Had he let Barclays win how would UK banking have looked now?

So instead of getting £20m bonuses they only get £10m bonuses - it's still a sh1tload of money. Banking is and always will be very lucrative, even during supposed downturns. It's only the rest of us who get squeezed.

What annoys me is all these same banks are using the downturn as an excuse to close branches, make branch staff redundant, cut their salaries (they haven't seen bonuses for YEARS), and generally p1ss off most retail bank customers.


Grrrr.