So that's what the bailouts were for!

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2...bonus-payments

"Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat treasury spokesman, said: "The investment banks more than any other institutions created the culture of excessive leverage, excessive risk and excessive bonuses that led to the downfall of the financial system. Now they are cashing in and the same bonus culture has returned. The result must be that we are being pushed to the edge of another crash."

Goldman Sachs said it reviewed its bonus scheme last year and switched from a system of guaranteed rewards that were paid over three years to variable payments that tied staff to the firm. It told employees last year that profit-related bonuses would be delayed by 12 months.

Until the release of its first quarter profits in April, it seemed inconceivable that a firm owing the US government $10bn would be looking to break all-time records in 2009.

David Williams, an investment banking analyst at Fox Pitt Kelton, said: "This year is shaping up to be the best year ever for investment banks, or at least those that have emerged relatively unscathed from the credit crisis.

"These banks are intermediaries in the bond markets where governments and companies are raising billions of pounds of new money. There is also a lack of competition that means they can charge huge sums for doing business."

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Also,

They could be heroes. Instead these bankers are pariahs | Polly Toynbee | Comment is free | The Guardian

"RBS executives are spending some £300,000 on entertaining one another at Wimbledon. Reclaiming some of Sir Fred Goodwin's super-sized pension failed to distract attention from these excesses. It's not surprising Sir Fred says he needs police protection when he returns to his Edinburgh home, since the unemployed and repossessed may feel like bricking the windows of all those who helped crash the economy. Compared with what's happening in the City, MPs' expenses are chicken feed (though none have yet actually claimed for chicken feed). Fury over parliamentary petty greed has displaced what should be a spontaneous uprising against the bankers who have caused such widespread damage."

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"UKFI's [UKFI is the British gov share holding company] board is packed with former directors of failed banks. The chair worked in crashed Citigroup, another was Citi's chief UK officer, another worked at collapsed Merrill Lynch, one came from bailed-out UBS, another from near-miss Credit Suisse. Just two are from the Treasury.

At the Mansion House last week Alistair Darling gave a speech calling for bank boards to have "the right people and the right experience ... making the right call at the right time"."

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Darling can't get his own house (which he directly controls) in order and he lectures other banks,, talk about a smoke screen.

"At the Mansion House last week Alistair Darling gave a speech calling for bank boards to have "the right people and the right experience ... making the right call at the right time". Yes indeed; but that £9.6m fee will prove to be the wrong political call. "We cannot go back to business as usual" the chancellor said, but UKFI did just that, because the people he appointed know nothing else. Group-think is what he hired, and herd behaviour is what he got. Hester's salary is, they say, broadly in line with other UK bank chiefs."

We cannot go back to business as usual and he appoints a bunch of failures to enrich themselves in state owned (and saved) banks. This is sick

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Yep, these guys are a disgrace. They honestly should not have jobs.

The regulators have failed spectacularly on this and it does not look like they are going to change any rules not allowing these guys to create their off balance sheet wonders and complex instruments which they greased everyone with.

"We could and should be taxing bank profits an extra 10%, according to tax campaigner Richard Murphy, to cover the cost of that unseen insurance. Indeed we could hypothecate it to pay for training and employing the million young people who are out of work this".

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yougdan will be shocked....

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How many banks do we own today?

It's ironic that they're making money from government borrowing money to give to them and others...

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So public sector workers aren't the highest paid after all then?? Shock!



Above quote from a cd27 post at: Krugman Demanded a Housing Bubble

The bankers from the banking firms perspective deserve their bonus, they have just carried off the biggest and most profitable financial scam in history. From my perspective they deserve to be hanged but that's a different matter.