Banks are big businesses. Just because they are struggling overall doesn't mean that there aren't profitable areas where people are earning their bonuses.

That argument might work if the bonuses were paid only to those who are actually making the money, but what about the bonuses paid to senior directors, who oversee a net loss at these banks?

On a slight tangent the treasury have also sold off Northern Rock to an organisation whose parent company is doing its best to avoid paying the UK tax http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... borne.html http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard- ... x-saver.do http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2003 ... heobserver So if i follow earlier comments, we are seeing something akin to a known shoplifter called Dickie steeling goods from a shop, then selling the goods and and using some of the proceeds from that sale to pay the shopkeeper to keep quiet. The shopkeeper then goes around telling everyone what a wonderful person Dickie, and how he loves to do business with him. Dickie of course knows he is free to continue his shoplifting exploits, while using the ill gotten gains to fund a playboy lifestyle, which earns him the adoration of the ignorant masses who see only a debonair adventurer and not a robbing so and so.

On a slight tangent the treasury have also sold off Northern Rock to an organisation whose parent company is doing its best to avoid paying the UK tax http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politic ... borne.html http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standard- ... x-saver.do http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2003 ... heobserver So if i follow earlier comments, we are seeing something akin to a known shoplifter called Dickie steeling goods from a shop, then selling the goods and and using some of the proceeds from that sale to pay the shopkeeper to keep quiet. The shopkeeper then goes around telling everyone what a wonderful person Dickie, and how he loves to do business with him. Dickie of course knows he is free to continue his shoplifting exploits, while using the ill gotten gains to fund a playboy lifestyle, which earns him the adoration of the ignorant masses who see only a debonair adventurer and not a robbing so and so.

Whenever I'm in the queue at NatWest I pick up one of their leaflets promoting their 'financial advice' and laugh out loud and say mention in a loud voice that they'd be the last people any sane person would take advice from - given how they wrecked their own company and the nation's finances. The bare-faced cheek of them is staggering.

There was a time, not long ago, when Building Societies, Northern Rock included, were places where people could put their savings, nice and safe ... boring maybe ... but nice and safe.
The BS then lent those savings to people to buy houses.

But then some suit at Northern Rock saw a chance to make oodles more money by selling mortgages (and borrowing the money from other banks to cover the mortgages they were selling), then packaging the mortgage debt up and selling it off.
This was money for old rope and, as long as the money was there for borrowing, and in their keen-ness to profit even more, they ramped it up and ramped it up until, when the money supply dried up, they couldn't borrow any more, got caught in a very exposed position, and everything went t1ts up.

But despite the trail of devastation left behind, some people made a whole heap of money and lost nothing.
People with that kind of talent have to be paid a lot of money or they might go abroad ... and we wouldn't want that now would we?

These people have little talent - they're just managers.

Indeed, I think the argument about scouring the world for top talent and having to pay global rates for it falls down because the vast majority of the biggest UK listed companies (often global enterprises) have British boards. Now of course British people could be the best in the world but the evidence from other "highly competitive" fields (notably football, but also rugby, tennis, etc, etc) suggests otherwise!

There are two key elements to that change:

1) demutualisation, which saw building societies convert to ordinary limited liability companies, responsible to the share market which demanded increased and increasing profit rates (or they'd suddenly halve the value of your company by driving down the share price)

2) a legislative change which allowed building societies to become banks and indulge in the other financial 'services' that banks do - such as playing with financial derivatives, or "borrowing the money from other banks to cover the mortgages they were selling, then packaging the mortgage debt up and selling it off."