people power?

[plimsoul]

so with rage winning does it leave a spirit of hope that people can still make a difference?

yes we can draw our money out of banks that refuse to understand why excessive bonuses can be taxed...

chose how and where we spend our money.

surely this will remind people that if you want you can make a difference however much we feel we can't.

[SteveT]

That would be a good incentive not to guild the lily with bonuses.

The risk of becoming unemployed should stay their greedy hands.

[Narnia]

No it doesn't. This was a negative campaign whose only point was beating another release to a unimportant position. Who cares?

The question you should ask is not that this reminds people they can make a difference but what would people want to make a difference about?

Most people can't be bothered so long as their life is ok.

Shame that this event has been given any importance in the media. There are far more important things happening in the world.

[Jeremy]

plimsoul Wrote:

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> yes we can draw our money out of banks that refuse

> to understand why excessive bonuses can be

> taxed...

Perhaps you could explain why it's fair to impose extra taxes on somebody earning, say, 70k a year, but not on a footballer earning many times that?

[Huguenot]

I'm not sure it's about tax so much as freedom.

Large earners are already taxed more heavily than lower earners - losing as much as 60p in the pound to the government.

If you're increasing that burden (to say 80p in the pound) then essentially you're saying that it doesn't matter how successful you are beyond a certain point, you won't get to meaningfully benefit.

This is essentially a curtailment of freedom, and probably too onerous for the entrepreneurs that allow our country to flourish to be sufficiently rewarded for their ingenuity.

They'll just piss of elsewhere.

It's got nothing to do with 'fair'.

[Jeremy]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> It's got nothing to do with 'fair'.

Of course not. It's about finding scapegoats, grabbing headlines, winning votes. All aimed cynically at the average tabloid reader who considers "the banks" and their employees to be a homogeneous entity, and probably thinks that you can open a savings account with Goldman Sachs.

[Brendan]

Tw@ts why is everyone such a stupid twa@t?

[SeanMacGabhann]

Did I miss something - who has said extra taxes are to be imposed on those earning 70k? (although I wouldnt necessarily be against a point or two)

Who said footballers should be exempt?

[quote=Large earners are already taxed more heavily than lower earners - losing as much as 60p in the pound to the

government.]

Indeed. But the luxury of being a large earner is that 40% of (say 500k) still leaves a lot of moolah - a hell of a lot more than the average Joe (private OR public quids!) who has subsidised the bailouts and will take the brunt of the upcoming cuts. So if average Joe can take a real, life-changing, genuine hit, so a high earner can take a cut in a bonus, in my book

I'm not advocating a return to 80-90% tax but I would like the idea of raising tax to be possible without people crying about leaving the country all the time. Basic humility and connection to other people would stop me complaining about a bonus getting taxed considering what people on far less are about to get hit with. I wouldn't see it as punishment or a curtailment of freedom - I would still think I am one of the lucky few with a good job, a bonus and largely impervious to the cold wind blowing

Does no-one ever consider themselves spoilt anymore? I suppose they never did, hence the term spoilt

[Jeremy]

Did I miss something - who has said extra taxes are to be imposed on those earning 70k? (although I wouldnt necessarily be against a point or two)

Who said footballers should be exempt?

The O.P. implied that the bonus tax was fair. I am disputing this, as I don't like the way it has been applied across the whole financial industry - including companies who had no part in causing the financial crisis, and received no government money. As far as I know, footballers (as an example of a high earning profession) do not have to pay this tax, as they don't work for banks.

if average Joe can take a real, life-changing, genuine hit, so a high earner can take a cut in a bonus, in my book

Yes, maybe so. In which case, introduce new tax bands for higher earners. Don't tax people extra just because they work in finance.

I don't want to totally hijack the thread, but this issue really does annoy me.

[Huguenot]

Good point Jremey, and I'm probably disagreeing with myself, but the wages in football aren't kept artificially high because every time a club overbids, the taxpayer foots the bill and everyone else still gets their commission of 35 million for a latin american.

[Huguenot]

To clarify, the bankers only got their commission on their last transaction because the price was inflated by a taxpayer underwriter.

[mockney piers]

*warning, almost certainly nonsensical phlegm speckled rant warning*

What i dont get is that during my time in banking, everytime the bank I worked for effed up it's cost savig strategies and didn't make any money that year even though most desks were doing well, most of the company got it's bonuses taken away from them (ok us, I am bitter).

Now the banking industry as a whole screwed up strategy and would probably have collapsed if it wasn't for government intervention. In this country we have very specific institutions who got the strategy wrong and are now effectively public institutions (and coincidentally bought the crappy Dutch one I worked for).

Yet they are paying bonuses, whereas other public sector employees have at least a fiver year pay freeze ahead and if ireland is anything to go by pay cuts to look forward to.

If they hadn't been bailed out those bonuses wouldn't be being paid because belts would be so tight.

Is it fair that now bad debts have been effectively written off (thanks for buying that UK) that the desks are now in rude health that these effectively public sector employees benefit personally to such an extent and out of line with their more traditional public sector comrades?

[Jeremy]

As I say, plenty of companies (e.g. brokerages) didn't get a penny from the taxpayer. The government certainly wouldn't bail them out if they were in trouble (which they weren't). But now they're being penalised.

Anyway... enough of this...

[Huguenot]

I like the use of 'comrade' ;-)

[Huguenot]

Brokers were negotiating on the price of financial commodities that were underwritten on taxpayer pledges.

Brokers were earning bonuses on dead commodities. They deserve no bonus and they can blame the bankers, not HMG.

[Jeremy]

I've not heard any stories of brokers shoving CDOs down their clients throats, but I don't work for a brokerage so perhaps I'm missing something.

[Huguenot]

What were they broking?

[EDOldie]

I don't know much about football. But I understand that footballers are looking for 'net' earnings these days. I.e what they end up with after tax rather than before tax.

What is to stop your average international banker looking for the same deal?

Could the taxing of bonuses in the way suggested by the govt actually lead to the bankers being even better paid than they are. Which, all the time we hold massive stakes in the banks, would be at our expense?

As I often say you have admire these politicians with the courage of their contradictions.

[SeanMacGabhann]

How are greedy footballers and bankers the politicians culpability?

[Huguenot]

Well you can negotiate any way you want, it doesn't alter the outcome:

The tax comes from the net pool available to the employer to fund salaries. Hence HMG's suggestion is that if you reduce this pool through increased taxation the bonuses go down.

As SMG pointed out, the greed of footballers or bankers is nothing to do with HMG.

In the case of football, since HMG is not funding footballers' salaries, it has no moral high ground to intercede. However, since bankers (and brokers) bonuses are generated due to tax payer funding keeping commodities or shares artificially high, HMG does have the moral high ground to intercede.

Whether it makes practical sense is another matter entirely.

[Jeremy]

EDOldie Wrote:

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> Which, all the

> time we hold massive stakes in the banks, would be

> at our expense?

There are a lot of banks in the City other than RBS and Lloyds, you know...

[EDOldie]

Exactly the point, because of that we could lose our (please, don't laugh) very skilled bankers to other countries and other companies.

Why should unsubsidised banks compete with ours. We are clearly going to have to keep the skill level to stay competitive and because of the tax on bonuses that will cost us more. It will also cost the others more, so why not, they may think move to a less taxing regime? The top players in the city could move elsewhere following the markets. We need to stay at the top of the game or risk losing a massive amount of tax revenue, ?42 billion I believe, in the future.

[Huguenot]

There's no such thing as a bank that didn't receive support either directly or indirectly from the taxpayer.

The taxpayer kept afloat an entire system that would otherwise have folded. That this manifested itself in major shareholdings in a couple of banks is irrelevant, they were merely the first dominos to fall. The rest would have followed as night follows day.

Every bank is making profits now on the back of that investment, because it kept the entire market artificially solvent.

It would take a myopic, mighty smug and arrogant individual to deny that truth - almost like (dare I say it) a banker...

[Jeremy]

Huguenot Wrote:

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> Every bank is making profits now on the back of that investment

Gross over-simplification.

But you know best.

[SteveT]

Huguenot if you keep on telling it as it is, you had better be prepared for a temporary banishment.

We can't have the wild truthful ramblings of a failed economist speaking out to all and sundry, it's just not cricket!

I think you should apologise to admin and Dulwichmum (her geezer's a banker) immediately, with a built in proviso that

there will be no more of these 'honesty' outbreaks, as it may bring about another fiscal collapse!