The Last Days of Rome?

I'm obviously missing something here.

RBS are paying bonuses worth £1.3 billion to its employees. The Chief Executive of RBS meanwhile is saying, they have lost money because they are not paying big enough bonuses. His rather patronising attitude during interviews on TV show a man who is rather tired of having to answer such petty questions from interviewers, some of who may bank with RBS, daring to ask him what is going on, on behalf of us, the shareholders.

But most worrying of all are the bloody wimps – the socialist, Labour, government of the people, advocates of a fairer Britain, those who are standing up for the underdog, I don't frankly give a monkey's, bunch of second rate, insulated, do as I say not as I do tossers that masquerade as the British Government. They put billions of our money into RBS, we own 84% of the bank, yet the government think it unnecessary to be asking just who are getting the million pound bonuses. Why are they not doing what the US government is doing and insisting we know who this mysterious bankers are? If the Labour government think this in any way enhances their credibility then I am totally mystified. And don't get me wrong, I'm absolutely certain that the Conservatives would do no better. It's just inexplicable that a so-called Socialist government can behave in such a manner.

And let's not kid ourselves shall we. Just who are these bankers going to go and work for if they don't get the level of bonuses that Britain's banks are paying?

I am becoming so disillusioned by what is going on with politics. It's not a bloody game (with particular reference to that idiot Alex Salmond and his display in Holyrood today) it affects our national state of mind. Is it any wonder that we are a nation in terminal decline. Is it just me that thinks we are living in the last days of Rome?

Money's Not Too Tight. . .

OK, let's get this straight. Fred Goodwin, I can't bring myself to call him Sir Fred, isn't contractually bound to get the £693K pension that he's been given. It was a deal agreed by the RBS Board (which indeed is our bank in which the Havers' millions are deposited) to somehow reward him for his years of service. The government knew he was getting this pension last year but said nothing. . .now there's a surprise. Meanwhile we have a new Chief Executive of RBS (I wonder what his pension arrangements are?) in the shape of Stephen Hester (salary £1.2 million and a pay-off package reported to be £4 million if he's sacked) who finds it difficult to answer the question as to why some of the people who are still on the RBS board were the same people who gave Goodwin his pension deal.

Then you have the BBC senior executives justifying the salaries they are paying to some of the presenters by saying that they would get that much in the commercial sector. No they bloody wouldn't! Has anyone noticed the dire straights that ITV and commercial radio are in?

Oh yes, and then we have the likes of Peter Mandelson, Baron Fop of Mandy who is another that seems to be given a whopping salary to be a government minister because none of our elected MPs are up to the task. So we make him a Lord, for which he gets paid handsomely by us the tax payers.

What's this all mean? It's a bloody cartel, a club in which those who are running it decide whose in it, decide what they are going to get and then police it as well. There's something very rotten in the state of Britain and it won't be long before something happens that will be related to releasing the pressure.

A Sign of the Times....

What do you say to an Investment Banker?

A 1/4 Pounder with fries Mate!

The Power of The BBC

Amidst all the hype this morning on BBC TV about the Royal Bank of Scotland probably going to lose over a billion pounds in the first six months of the year (in the event it was a mere £691M) one thing may have been overlooked. On the BBC News website they say.

"Chief executive Mr Goodwin said the losses had been a "chastening experience", and that reporting a shortfall of £691m was something he and his colleagues "regret very much".
Mr Goodwin warned that difficult conditions in financial markets "look set to be compounded by a deteriorating economic outlook".

The BBC apparently have the power to strip the bank's Chief executive of his knighthood. Sir Frederick Goodwin was knighted in the 2004 Queen's birthday honours list.

Lloyds TSB - Some Pain....

The Lloyds TSB profit announcement this morning was interesting. Their overall before tax profits have dipped from £4.25 billion last year to £4 billion this year. After tax profits are up about £400 million to £3.3 billion. It's UK retail banking's profits rose by £250 million to £1.8 billion.

All this prompted the BBC's business correspondent to report that Lloyds drop in profits was because they were "feeling the pain of the sub prime loan situation in the America". What the bank's own press release says is "Our prudent approach to risk ensured we experienced minimal impact from the US sub-prime fall-out."

Some pain!