settle this debate once and for all,

'Profit' is based on several accountancy terms which are open to interpretation (spoken as an accountant)......all the trouble with the banks has been with what percentage the banks have decided are bad debts............in previous years they have been set at almost zero ....ie 0.01 % (or thereabouts... thinking all are gonna pay o/s loans)....but this year much more ie more people/businesses are gonna default on loans..........it really is a confidence thing

 

when the steelworker/ car worker/brick layer comes in to try to defer his mortgage

because he's lost his job due to the recession brought on by greedy banks. Try mentioning how unfair it is that you might not get your bonus, you might get the proverbial poke in the eye.

 

I can assure you I don't doubt your hard work and how difficult your job might be in this climate and I know none of this is the fault of people in the retail divisions, but I still don't understand why anyone would expect a bonus, bearing in mind that in November the entire business you worked for was about to go under completely without State intervention, the result of the bailout is that you still have a job. The likelihood is that more bailouts are required and therefore the business on a whole is still failing, but your job is being kept relatively secure.

I do understand that there are redundancies by the way, but not on the scale of Woolworths for example that weren't bailed out as it wasn't deemed appropriate and it was decided that nobodu should be saved.

Isn't keeping your job bonus enough?

10% bonus on salary is a large bonus by the way, in my opinion.

 

RE: But my bank counter staff pester with

They have no choice. I left banking over 8 years ago because I didn't like the relentless switch in emphasis from service to sales.</p>

The counter staff are under enormous pressure and have no choice but to throw products at their customers. And to take the abuse that comes back.</p>

And in any event the 'bonuses' are really deferred pay, they're sold as part of the package to new recruits.
</p>

 

Erm hang on a moment

The lad might get a 10% bonus but that might mean his basic pay is lower as the bank expect him to hit target. Yes, I accept that having a job with no bonus is better than no job at all, but there are very few jobs that can offer security these days - banking being one of them.

The problem with the banks is nothing to do with 95% of the staff that work for them, it is a greedy few who could make enormous sums of money through financial trickery that not even the bank's own risk management staff really understood the extent of. Just because a few of them messed up does not mean that the core mechanics of the bank's retail and commercial banking are damaged that much. People still need to pay money in and take money out, although admittedly the latter is a bit more difficult with the tightening of lending criteria.

There is another side to this - how many people got a mortgage that was essentially too much for them to afford? Quite a few I bet. Is it the bank's fault? Well for offering products that allowed people to borrow so much then yes it is. HOWEVER - maybe some of those people should have taken a step back and considered the implications of borrowing that much to begin with. The bank didn't make you buy the most expensive home - greed did. Sadly these days people are all too quick to point the finger at someone else as soon as something bad happens, there is no personal responsibility for anything any longer.

 

Woolworths wasn't saved because

1. the costs of doing so were less than the benefits of saving it
2. it was a weak and outdated business model and it failed because nobody wanted to buy the stuff it sold - Woolworths was like a brightly lit version of Arkwright's store from Open All Hours
3. it had little hope in the long term of being turned around with its current debt structure

 

some do some don/;t

RBS have a call centre down by Ventrua.

some of these bonus's are for the people down there who lease cars for RBS through their company lombard.

Why should someone who has a contractual bonus for doing a good job selling cars, suffer cos' that skinny scottish fekcwit in charge got his nose too far into the trough.


For me anyone who works in the merchant bank side of things or head office shouldn't get a bonus.

those that work in retail branches, insurance, lombard, credit cards (?) should get whatever bonus their contract permits as long as their part of the businesss was doing well.

 

You're missing the point.

Woolworths failed because it's business model didn't work. RBS, HBOS and many other banks have failed because their business model didn't work.

The result is the same thing. However, obvious reasons mean the banking sector get bailed out for the benefit of the economy, not because the banks are great, but because our economy would collapse without them.

One compared to the other is that they are 2 **** businesses that have made mistakes that have taken them out of their depth.

Who's to say that the childrens clothes section of Woolworths wasn't profitable, while the rest of the business and ongoing mistakes dragged it under.

I don't understand how anyone can morally argue that they should be entitled to a bonus, simply because the government has kept them in work.

 

go on then

have a good moan at the next person who comes in pleading poverty because they have been made redundant due to the credit crunch. I dare you.

 

RE: when the steelworker/ car worker/brick layer comes in to try to defer his mortgage

The section of the bank I work in does make a profit...............

 

you've absolutely no shame whatsoever, have you?

there are people going on to short time working, being laid off or receiving pay cuts all over the country because of the credit crunch that was absolutely no fault of their own nor their company and you are still whinging on about about your own section makes a poxy profit and how you deserve your bonus.

I'm shaking my head in disbelief.

 

RE: Erm hang on a moment

The larger and larger mortgage amounts being leant weren't actually helping people to buy bigger homes though - they are simply fuelling outrageous inflation in the housing market (combined with a general housing shortage), which in turn was giving the banks confidence to lend more silly money because they thought the assets to which their lending was tied was appreciating dependably. All the while the price of the average home has lost touch with the average salary in this country - which should be the real indication as to whether we, as a country, can afford to sustain our mortgage costs. The fact is that the housing market got completely left to do whatever it liked and people who shouldn't have been able to afford a second home were given sums of money to 'invest' in buy to let schemes and build portfolios of properties they could never realistically sustain (exploiting people who couldn't get involved or were prudent enough not to). All this has been built on a false promise of the 'economy will keep going like this forever'.

Now we're set in a position where negative equity is looming for a huge number of people. There will be massive number of reposessions, the banks are chuffed, small business are folding right and left and still, despite all this, first time buyers who are lucky to have a dependable income, still can't buy a house (because nobody has any money to lend and the prices are still silly despite them falling somewhat).

It all could have been avoided if the banks had operated with even a modicum of financial prudence, or a shred of ethical decency.

Should the bank staff get bonuses? No. They're lucky to still have their jobs and 'just following orders' further down the line doesn't wash I'm afraid. The fellows at the top should be putting their hands in their pockets and giving their ill gotten gains back. Why is that they won't be getting their houses repossessed (any of the number of homes they no doubt own outright)?

It all stinks of ****. Rant over.

 

Best post on the subject

totally agree

 

RE: i worked/ soon to have worked for rbs

if i had the choice of getting a bonus or keeping my job i know which one i would have chosen, now it looks like im getting neither!!!!!

 

Don't talk to me about losing a job or short time working................I was on strike for a complete year..........yes a complete year..........trying to protect mine and hundreds of thousands of other peoples jobs and the people who depended on those to make a living...........the government didn't bail out the mining industry at the time (nor did the Labour Party when it returned to Govt)

I could go on at length how the failure to protect the (coal) mining industry has undermined the whole economy (maybe not in the short term but certainly in the medium term - importing electricity from France for goodness sake)

One lesson that everyone should take from the collapse of the coal mining/banking industries...........look after number one.............heartless I know....but we live in a capitalist society - and that is the golden rule.

The Govt have decreed that they should out the RBS.....owning 68% of their shares - If the Govt had put only a fraction of the cash to the mining industry they have given to the banks then i would not be working for RBS.

At the end of the day I have a contract of employment with RBS - bonus et al (most banks do have such schemes - I've also worked for Barclays & Yorkshire Bank - indeed I have a contract which says 35hrs per week but regularly work far in excess of that - salaried not paid by hour) - the Govt deemed the saving of the banking industry worthy of the cash spent - as I see it the 'rogues' in this are the likes of Freddie Goodwin - who have seen no end to the boom boom boom of their industry and the Govt for bailing RBS out - I don't see a difference between a bank (RBS) or another company going under.............