RBS Staff Bonus?

[jules]

How dare the bosses of RBS even be thinking of giving out staff bonus's after receiving public funds to bail them out!

If the payout does go ahead, should we the customers of RBS be thinking of closing accounts and removing our funds from them to another bank? The next question is is that if this should happen, should Gordon and Bank of England bail them out again or just leave them to it?

[fastkat]

No point jules. It's not our moneyanymore. The government and the banks do what they like.

[jules]

Positive I read an item last week on a web site that advised the banks were hours from closure in october 2008. Ready to shut down ATM's and withdrawals etc.
I really do think if it was done en mass for just one bank only who misbehave - then the general public could well force any issues.

[Beachcomber]

The bailout should've had strings attached. .... No money unless you agree to our terms and conditions.

Bloody incompetent government !

[yord]

"If the payout does go ahead, should we the customers of RBS be thinking of closing accounts "

If your daft enough to have accounts and in still in stirling then you deserve to be stuffed.

[yord]

I mean FFS how much clearer do you need it be before you see

[scaredycat]

Unfortunately my pensiion isn't enough to allow me to open off-shore accounts. I s'pose I could hide it all under the mattress

[justmyopinion]

Buy a share, attend the shareholders meetings and mount a protest

[flatandy]

Feb 8, 2009 20:02:53 GMT jules said:

If the payout does go ahead, should we the customers of RBS be thinking of closing accounts and removing our funds from them to another bank?

If the payout goes ahead to anyone earning over £30,000 (those on less were nothing to do with the losses), then we, the shareholders, should sack the board.

[flatandy]

JMO - we, the taxpayers, already own 70% of the shares. The government, as the main shareholder, will find it perfectly easy to stop the bonuses being paid out.

Unfortunately, Gordon doesn't quite understand corporate repsonsibility where it's the shareholders' job to ensure decent, civilised, appropraite and reasonable behaviour. And when you own over 50% of the shares, you don't even need to vote on the matter.

For some reason, Gordon, being utterly retarded, thinks that the majority shareholder should sit on its hand doing bugger all, and just let the same board who made all the bad decisions to start off with, continue to make the same shockingly bad decisions.

Bad decisions which are designed to keep the high-earning employees at the bank. This is because it is vitally important they keep their best people. These are the best people who managed to create £10bn of debts, require a £25bn government bail out, screw the whole economy for a few years. Absolutely we must keep them.

All the more so because otherwise they're going to go to one of those other really highly paid jobs available in banking at the moment in this hugely liquid and succesful business. The myriad jobs in the vitally healthy City of London.

But, remember, it's not just the city. They're in international competition. Oh yes. So we'd better not lose these brilliant people who can lose billions and who don't understand the products they trade to all those massively succesful foreign banking sectors like the one in the US where the government has just capped salaries; or the ones in Paris or Frankfurt where the government has to bail out the banks too.

Oh yes. Absolutely, it would be an utter disaster if we didn't pay these people giant salaries, they quit the bank, and they then sat on the dole at £70 a week.

[Victor Meldrew]

news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7877161.stm

Mr Darling told BBC One's Andrew Marr Show that "no figure on bonuses has been agreed on" but said he had told RBS no-one associated with the losses should be rewarded.

"I have spoken to the chief executive of RBS, and made it quite clear - and he agrees - that no-one associated with these huge losses should be allowed to walk away with large cash bonuses," Mr Darling told the programme.

But he added: "Obviously there are contractual problems with some staff. And... if you look at your average teller, they're not terribly well paid, and no-one would quarrel with making sure they are properly rewarded."

Surely someone would have pointed out to Eyebrows that had we, the taxpayers not bailed out this bank, then all those tellers would be joining the dole queue alongside former employees of failed businesses in other industries which the Government has decided not to prop up.

We keep them in jobs which shouldn't still exist if those banks had been left to fend for themselves, and now our great finance brain tells us we should have sympathy for them getting bonuses because'they're not very well rewarded'? If ever I wanted to make a list of people I'd want to shake warmly by the throat, Darling has just pushed himself above Brown to the top of the queue.

[flatandy]

"I have spoken to the chief executive of RBS, and made it quite clear - and he agrees - that no-one associated with these huge losses should be allowed to walk away with large cash bonuses," Mr Darling told the programme.

They should walk away with any kind of any kind of bonus. Not just "large cash", but "large equity", or "small cash", or, in fact, "any kind of f**k**g bonus at all, the incompetent, grasping, economy screwing scum".

[flatandy]

Oh, and "you've made it clear"? Really? Have you told him that he's out of a job if he doesn't behave? Because, you know, you can do that when you own the company.

[limeylily]

Feb 8, 2009 20:04:49 GMT @fastkat said:

No point jules. It's not our moneyanymore. The government and the banks do what they like.

Err - not quite. The only money the government has comes from us, the UK taxpayers. Therefore we own RBS.

[Victor Meldrew]

"I have spoken to the chief executive of RBS, and made it quite clear - and he agrees - that no-one associated with these huge losses should be allowed to walk away with large cash bonuses," Mr Darling told the programme.

Not only is this yet another empty threat by a Chancellor scared of his own shadow where banks are concerned, do his comments also set a dangerous precedent with these bonuses?

What he's saying is that anyone reponsible for the losses, i.e. the market traders, should receive no bonuses, but the front line tellers should because they were not contributors to the financial disaster at the bank. OK, so let's move on five years or so. The bank is back on its feet, it's repayed, or at least gone a long way to repaying, the bail out money to the Government, and everything in the RBS garden is rosey once more. Bonus time comes around, and the traders are not happy. Why? Because they see part of the bonus pool going to the tellers and not to them. Would they be able to complain that, if the Chancellor had forced the bank to give them no bonuses when they made losses, then as they're the ones now making the huge profits, they, and only they, should be recipients of the bank's bonus pool?

I think I'd find it quite difficult to argue with such a viewpoint. The fairest way is to say the bank is in the s**t. As an organisation, all employees need to be grouped together where bonuses are concerned, and no one should get them.

[minge tightly]

Is this likely to become an even bigger issue? It bloody well should do. Fcuking cnuts

[yord]

No one should have any right to dictate what another can earn . If you dont like it then dont use them.

[minge tightly]

RBS are used by Government departments, what choice do I, or other taxpayers, have in that?

And this whole 'bonus culture' is absolute bollocks.

How many millions of employees go over and above their basic tasks, and get fcuk all bonus for it. These bankers and politicians really are too arrogant and/or retarded to see that spunking £18 billion deserves fcuk all bonus (EVA!).

A bonus for fcuking up?! Unbelievable.

[mids]

That's pretty standard Labour practice though isn't it? Mess up then get rewarded for it.

[minge tightly]

Ha yeah pretty much mids.

Fcuk up, get a bonus and another highly-paid job on the merry-go-round