Northern Rock Employees are to receive a 10% Bonus this Friday costing a total of 4.8 Million.

 

It appears this is because NR has repaid a quarter of the money they got from the Government back. They achieved this by repossessing homes and not renewing mortgages so people transferred their mortgages to other institutions, thus raising the cash.

 

Surely no bonuses should be paid until all the money has been repaid, it was our money that bailed them out in the first place, this is a nationalised bank/building society after all.

 

Brown & Darling say its a matter for Northern Rock.

 

Also even worse, found this story.... http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/busi...icle3177668.ece

 

Looks like once again the banks are taking the taxpayer for mugs.

Er, did the employees of Lehmann Brothers get a DAMN THING for their service...? Did Woolies or Adams' staff...? Seems to me all they got were P45s, so just why the hell are Northern Rock employees getting anything, especially given that the bank is still in serious trouble....? "A matter for Northern Rock" according to Broon and Darling.... LIKE FUKK it is...... <_< OUR tax money being used to bail out banks, OUR matter.... And surely that makes it a matter for our supposed "elected representatives".... <_< Typical of the craven cowardice of Broon and Darling, still sucking up to these maggots in the banking sector, when they should be coming down like a ton of bricks on them.... If they are not going to represent our interests effectively, or manage the public funds that are being poured into the bail out in an effective way, then it's time for the both of them to go..... Time for Osbourne or Cable to call for a vote of no confidence.....

Why does the Government keep doing this? They know we're financially in trouble yet they go and do this. It's ridiculous ... aren't banks one of the main issues why we are in this current economic situation ..? Yet they still don't learn. This is why our hospitals, education is in such a mess. Pfft.

Why does the Government keep doing this?

 

Because they're moral cowards, simple as, they dont have the guts to put the banks in their place, they tell us that "hard choices" have to be made, that the ordinary punter has to "tighten their belts", and then allows this disgusting display of Capitalist excess to happen <_< ... They have totally misjudged the anger and resentment that people are feeling in this country about this issue... The banking profession at the moment has about as much public respect as traffic wardens or paedophiles, and there are reasons for that.... When Broon calls the next election, I can honestly see Nu Labor being completely wiped out the same as the Tories were in '97, and this will be the issue that makes it happen... Nu Labor have already been rejected in Scotland, I can see that happening country-wide tbh....

 

 

Eugh.

 

It's definitely time to start looking a permanent emigration to avoid the f*** up that this country has become.

 

America is looking promising, as is Australia. Obv, i need to finish my degree first, so that gives Obama a chance to change the US and what ever f***twit we elect a chance to do something

Eugh.

 

It's definitely time to start looking a permanent emigration to avoid the f*** up that this country has become.

 

America is looking promising, as is Australia. Obv, i need to finish my degree first, so that gives Obama a chance to change the US and what ever f***twit we elect a chance to do something

The situation in the US is worse in my opinion. Do you think the bankers in the US didn't get bonuses?

 

http://rockthetruth.blogspot.com/2008/09/b...n-brothers.html

 

If staff in branches get bonuses I don't have any great objection. It's not their fault Northern Rock went belly-up.

 

Senior management should get nothing. It would be even better if they offered to repay some of the bonuses they were paid for making such disastrous decisions over the last few years. Don't even get me started on some of the other banks.

If staff in branches get bonuses I don't have any great objection. It's not their fault Northern Rock went belly-up.

 

Any and all bonuses should surely be linked to how the business itself is doing though dont you think....? If one looks at, for example, John Lewis, whose staff are in shares and bonus schemes, if John Lewis doesn't do well, the staff dont get much of a bonus, if any at all, ditto for the share dividends.... Northern Rock has quite clearly failed as a bank and as a business, needing public money to stop from going to the wall, therefore, because of its total failure to perform, then I simply do not believe that ANY staff should get bonuses, regardless of "fault"... It wouldn't really be the fault of Waitrose staff if Waitrose were to perform badly either, but they certainly would receive no bonus if the business was doing as badly as Northern Rock.. In fact, if John Lewis was performing as badly as Northern Rock, it would've gone the way of Woolies and Adams, there would certainly be no bail-out for Waitrose staff, never mind a tidy little bonus, they'd all be on the dole mate.... :rolleyes:

 

Harsh as it sounds, I'm of the opinion that Northern Rock staff should be grateful they still have jobs and should forget bonuses for the time being, plenty of other people don't have jobs because of this utter fukk up with the banks and Govt, and it aint none of their fault either.....

 

The greed of the banks caused this whole mess to begin with, I find it an utter insult that anyone (no matter how 'blameless') working in the financial or banking sector to be getting bonuses when tens of thousands are losing jobs because of the mistakes made by that sector.... Sorry, but it's simply not on.....

£5m bonuses at rescued banks

 

The Bosses of banks bailed out with taxpayers’ cash are to receive bonuses and shares worth up to £5m each.

 

Gordon Brown pledged last year that the “days of the big bonuses” were over as the government bailed out the crippled banking industry. Yet it has now emerged that many executives are getting the same bonus deals and free shares that were on offer before the credit crisis.

 

This weekend Lord Myners, the City minister, said some financiers had been “grossly overrewarded”. Opposition MPs, however, pointed out that Myners himself had been paid handsomely for his boardroom roles, including a directorship with a hedge fund that made money – legally – by short-selling Bradford & Bingley shares, now a nationalised bank.

 

Among the directors who have agreed new contracts to run companies propped up with public funds is Eric Daniels, who heads the new Lloyds Banking Group. The group is a merger of Lloyds TSB and HBOS, which is 43% owned by the government.

 

Daniels has agreed a new contract this month with almost the same terms he previously enjoyed as head of Lloyds TSB: a bonus worth up to 225% of his £1.03m salary and an annual allocation of free shares worth up to three times his salary.

 

Daniels will now have his bonus payable in shares rather than cash, to comply with the demands of ministers that no cash bonus be paid in the wake of the £5.5 billion state bailout. Lloyds says some other directors may be in line for bonuses this year, also in shares.

 

Defending the perks, the bank said: “Bonuses are only paid when [targets] are met. We are very confident that our executive remuneration scheme is very much in line with guidelines.”

 

At Bradford & Bingley, Richard Pym, the chief executive, is in line for a £187,000 bonus this year. About 1,100 staff will also receive a cash bonus of 9% of their salary in March, at a total cost of about £3.5m.

 

Source: Sunday Times

 

Looks like its not just Northern Rock then.

^ The greed and utter shamelessness of this lot really just knows no bounds does it.....? <_<

 

How the hell can they talk about "reaching targets" when it's a fact that the only reason they've been able to function at ALL is because of an injection of public funds.... Bradford and Bingley is another one which would've certainly gone the way of Lehmann's had it not been bailed out..... They were given taxpayers' money in order to prevent a Depression on the scale of 1930, which through their own greed and utter foolishness, was a situation that they caused themselves..... They were NOT given this money to feather their own nests..... :angry:

Wall Street’s Socialist Jet-Setters

 

The New York Times

 

By MAUREEN DOWD

Published: January 27, 2009

WASHINGTON

 

As President Obama spreads his New Testament balm over the capital, I’m longing for a bit of Old Testament wrath.

 

Couldn’t he throw down his BlackBerry tablet and smash it in anger over the feckless financiers, the gods of gold and their idols — in this case not a gilt calf but an $87,000 area rug, a cache of diamond Tiffany and Cartier watches and a French-made luxury corporate jet?

 

Now that we’re nationalizing, couldn’t we fire any obtuse bankers and auto executives who cling to perks and bonuses even as the economy is following John Thain down his antique commode?

 

How could Citigroup be so dumb as to go ahead with plans to get a new $50 million corporate jet, the exclusive Dassault Falcon 7X seating 12, after losing $28.5 billion in the past 15 months and receiving $345 billion in government investments and guarantees?

 

(Now I get why a $400 payment I recently sent to pay off my Citibank Visa was mistakenly applied to my sister-in-law’s Citibank Mastercard account.)

 

The “Citiboobs” — as The New York Post, which broke the news, calls them — watched as the car chieftains got in trouble for flying their private jets to Washington to ask for bailouts, and the A.I.G. moguls got dragged before Congress for spending their bailout on California spa treatments. But the boobs still didn’t get the message.

 

The former masters of the universe don’t seem to fully comprehend that their universe has crumbled and, thanks to them, so has ours. Real people are losing real jobs at Caterpillar, Home Depot and Sprint Nextel; these and other companies announced on Monday that they would cut more than 75,000 jobs in the U.S. and around the world, as consumer confidence and home prices swan-dived.

 

Prodded by an appalled Senator Carl Levin, Tim Geithner — even as he was being confirmed as Treasury secretary — directed Treasury officials to call the Citiboobs and tell them the new jet would not fly.

 

“They woke up pretty quickly,” says a Treasury official, adding that they protested for a bit. “Six months ago, they would have kept the plane and flown it to Washington.”

 

Senator Levin said that the financiers will not be able to change their warped mentality, but will have to be reined in by Geithner’s new leashes. “I have no confidence that they intend or desire to change,” Levin told me. “These bankers got away with murder, and it’s obscene that close to nothing is being asked of financial institutions. I get incensed at the thought that a bank that’s getting billions of dollars in taxpayer money is out there buying fancy new airplanes.”

 

New York’s attorney general, Andrew Cuomo, always gratifying on the issue of clawing back money from the greedy creeps on Wall Street, on Tuesday subpoenaed Thain, the former Merrill Lynch chief executive, over $4 billion in bonuses he handed out as the failing firm was bought by Bank of America.

 

In an interview with Maria Bartiromo on CNBC, Thain used the specious, contemptible reasoning that other executives use to rationalize why they’re keeping their bonuses as profits are plunging.

 

“If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise” and they’ll go elsewhere, he said.

 

Hello? They destroyed the franchise. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $15 billion in three months and helped usher in socialism.

 

Bartiromo also asked Thain to explain, when jobs and salaries were being cut at his firm, how he could justify spending $1 million to renovate his office. As The Daily Beast and CNBC reported, big-ticket items included curtains for $28,000, a pair of chairs for $87,000, fabric for a “Roman Shade” for $11,000, Regency chairs for $24,000, six wall sconces for $2,700, a $13,000 chandelier in the private dining room and six dining chairs for $37,000, a “custom coffee table” for $16,000, an antique commode “on legs” for $35,000, and a $1,400 “parchment waste can.”

 

Does that mean you can only throw used parchment in it or is it made of parchment? It’s psychopathic to spend a million redoing your office when the folks outside it are losing jobs, homes, pensions and savings.

 

Thain should never rise above the level of stocking the money in A.T.M.’s again. Just think: This guy could well have been Treasury secretary if John McCain had won.

 

Bartiromo pressed: What was wrong with the office of his predecessor, Stanley O’Neal?

 

“Well — his office was very different — than — the — the general décor of — Merrill’s offices,” Thain replied. “It really would have been — very difficult — for — me to use it in the form that it was in.”

 

Did it have a desk and a phone?

 

How are these ruthless, careless ghouls who murdered the economy still walking around (not to mention that sociopathic sadist Bernie Madoff?) — and not as perps?

 

Bring on the shackles. Let the show trials begin.

 

Link: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/28/opinion/...tml?_r=1&em

A 35 thousand dollar fukking toilet. Jesus fukking Christ.

“If you don’t pay your best people, you will destroy your franchise” and they’ll go elsewhere, he said.

 

Hello? They destroyed the franchise. Let’s call their bluff. Let’s see what a great job market it is for the geniuses of capitalism who lost $15 billion in three months and helped usher in socialism.

 

That just about sums up the arrogance of these w*n**rs(bankers), they make my blood boil.

 

see Obama isnt happy with the bonuses paid to US bank staff last year

Obama slams Wall Street bonuses

 

President Barack Obama says that multi-billion dollar bonuses taken by Wall Street bankers are "shameful" while taxpayers bail out their industry.

 

The president said their actions "were the height of irresponsibility".

 

He said his administration would tell bankers they needed to show some discipline and restraint.

 

Mr Obama was responding to reports that employees at financial companies in New York collected an estimated $18.4bn (£12.9bn) in bonuses last year.

 

"It is shameful, and part of what we are going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility," he added.

 

"The American people understand that we have got a big hole we have got to dig ourselves out of but they don't like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole."

 

Earlier this week, US bank Citigroup cancelled an order for a new corporate jet after President Obama questioned the wisdom of the purchase.

 

The White House asked whether buying the jet was the "best use of money at this point" for a bank that took $45bn (£31.6bn) of public money last autumn.

 

source: BBC News

That just about sums up the arrogance of these w*n**rs(bankers), they make my blood boil.

 

see Obama isnt happy with the bonuses paid to US bank staff last year

Obama slams Wall Street bonuses

 

President Barack Obama says that multi-billion dollar bonuses taken by Wall Street bankers are "shameful" while taxpayers bail out their industry.

 

The president said their actions "were the height of irresponsibility".

 

He said his administration would tell bankers they needed to show some discipline and restraint.

 

Mr Obama was responding to reports that employees at financial companies in New York collected an estimated $18.4bn (£12.9bn) in bonuses last year.

 

"It is shameful, and part of what we are going to need is for the folks on Wall Street who are asking for help to show some restraint and show some discipline and show some sense of responsibility," he added.

 

"The American people understand that we have got a big hole we have got to dig ourselves out of but they don't like the idea that people are digging a bigger hole."

 

Earlier this week, US bank Citigroup cancelled an order for a new corporate jet after President Obama questioned the wisdom of the purchase.

 

The White House asked whether buying the jet was the "best use of money at this point" for a bank that took $45bn (£31.6bn) of public money last autumn.

 

source: BBC News

 

Well, he's showing considerably more guts towards these b/astards than Broon/Darling are, Obama's clearly taking up the guantlet with these greedy c/unts. Contrast this with Broon/Darling's position which is basically shrug shoulders and say "not my problem mate"..... <_<

 

Chuck out Broon at the next election....

 

YES WE CAN.......... :lol:

 

Well, he's showing considerably more guts towards these b/astards than Broon/Darling are, Obama's clearly taking up the guantlet with these greedy c/unts. Contrast this with Broon/Darling's position which is basically shrug shoulders and say "not my problem mate"..... <_<

 

Obama's words have been deeply critical, considering he's not one for too much hyperbole (but he called them "shameful" and "the height of irresponsibility").

 

Meanwhile...

 

Rudy Giuliani (former mayor of NY and failed Republican presidential candidate) in one single interview on CNN last week, defended massive Wall Street bonuses (they stimulate the economy), condemned tax cuts for the poor (doesn't stimulate economy, it's a social welfare agenda), then pushed for further government bailouts of banks. So he supports corporate welfare but not social welfare.

 

And I'm not singling him out just because. His comments reflect the bizarre and contradictory line of thinking guiding the entire Republican party! How a party of the rich and for the rich ever convinced America they were the party of the "common man" is among the most astonishing occurrences in political history.

 

No wonder Gallup Poll just released a new political map showing only 4 states in the US remain solidly Republican (Utah, Idaho, Alaska and Wyoming).

Obama's words have been deeply critical, considering he's not one for too much hyperbole (but he called them "shameful" and "the height of irresponsibility").

 

Meanwhile...

 

Rudy Giuliani (former mayor of NY and failed Republican presidential candidate) in one single interview on CNN last week, defended massive Wall Street bonuses (they stimulate the economy), condemned tax cuts for the poor (doesn't stimulate economy, it's a social welfare agenda), then pushed for further government bailouts of banks. So he supports corporate welfare but not social welfare.

 

And I'm not singling him out just because. His comments reflect the bizarre and contradictory line of thinking guiding the entire Republican party! How a party of the rich and for the rich ever convinced America they were the party of the "common man" is among the most astonishing occurrences in political history.

 

No wonder Gallup Poll just released a new political map showing only 4 states in the US remain solidly Republican (Utah, Idaho, Alaska and Wyoming).

]

 

I'm frankly not surprised by Giuliani's comments, he's nothing more than a fascist, neo-con jerk-off who frankly should be taken out and shot..... <_<

 

I think it's blatantly obvious now to the vast majority of Americans that the Republicans and the Neo-Cons are the architects for all this sh"t that has happened in the world.... Oh, not forgetting their more-than-willing accomplices, the Nu Labor Govt of UK, of whom I am deeply ashamed of..... <_<