Thread: Petition against RBS big bonus payments

Originally Posted by Geoffrey Collier

CB100: But the removing of his title is the issue being discussed. Would you like pension agreements, however over-generous or unjustified, being removed at the behest of any Executive? The issue is a requirement of government to justify their decisions.

I really don't care if he keeps it or loses it since titles have no interest to me. All the other titles are pointless in my view eg a CBE (commander of the british empire) - even if we had an empire it doesn't confer any money or power? And knighthoods are just the same; they don't confer any land or anything else. So what's the point?

Much more important is the money. Goodwins original pension payout was enhanced by about £8 million on a discretionary basis by the RBS Board and that increase was then rubber stamped by Lord Myners, Labour's City minister at the time. Myners could have vetoed the increase but he said afterwards he didn't realise he had the power to do it!!

So Goodwin is incompetent and Lord Myners is incompetent. Should we take back Lord Myners' peerage for being asleep at the wheel or seek to take legal action against him for neglience and seek to recover the £8million? I think I know which would upset him the most.

It is a fact that convicted criminals, who happen to be members of the House of Lords, can return to their parliamentary duties upon release from prison. An unconvicted knight can be deprived of his knighthood at the behest of a government ministers. You, apparently, would like them to have further discretionary powers to enable them to also remove his pension. If what you are saying is justifiable, it should at least be uniformly applied.

I think this issue about titles is a big smokescreen to make it look as if the government is getting tough. I notice Ed Milliband is onside with the idea too, which doesn't surprise me given how useless he is.

The really important issue is to stop the big money going to these over paid individuals and to seek recover money off them wherever possible. Meanwhile we are talking about how unfair it is to take Goodwin's knighthood from him. Well done Cameron!!

CB100: The issue is about the vilification and 'punishment' of an individual who has not been subject to the judicial process, let alone never having been found guilty of any offence.

If you take the ftse 100 as an example, around 1998 it went through the 6,000 mark for the first time then got close to 7,000 by the year 2000, then fell below the 4,000 mark twice in the period afterwards and is now below 6,000.

Fund managers get bonuses on the way up, no clawback on the way down and for investors, they haven't even got back to the same value they were at 14 years ago.

How would you "reward" fund managers for doing that to you?

Originally Posted by angelman

Ever since I was told, many years ago now, that the -18% figure showing on my investments was good, as it had beaten the benchmark of -24%, I have always thought that the system was wrong. This was especially so as interest rates were something like 7% at the time, so cash would have outperformed my investments by a huge margin. My fees were still the same, and I just couldn't see why that should be so (I was naive). Sure bankers have to eat, but when there are losses they shouldn't be paid anything like what they are, but conversely they should be recompensed higher for profit. Well actually they recompense themselves perfectly well when in profit even more so than when they make losses. What are the disincentives? I know that that is being hugely simplistic but it's just to illustrate that bankers get paid overly well whether they make a profit or a loss. The bonus will/might be a bit smaller when making losses but they still get one. When I talk about bankers, I mean the whole financial sector from stockbrokers, hedge fund managers (now these boys are really well paid), investment bankers, et al.

As an aside, this makes RBS wages look like chicken feed: Pay of Hedge Fund Managers Roared Back Last Year - NYTimes.com my bold

Yes I know what you are saying. I am simply saying there is an enormous elephant in the room that is being ignored.

And as for vilification of bankers, we need much, much more of it. Hester was all upset at the political reaction to him taking the bonus. Poor thing... Sadly he didn't have the guts to take his bonus and then resign. That would have been a much better outcome.

Originally Posted by Geoffrey Collier

CB100: The issue is about the vilification and 'punishment' of an individual who has not been subject to the judicial process, let alone never having been found guilty of any offence.