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Barnier says bankers are guilty of ‘blackmail’
Business Digest: Threats to leave the city after new bonus caps amount to blackmail says the European Commissioner
Bankers threatening to quit the City because of new caps on pay and bonuses are guilty of "blackmail" according to a top European Union official.
Speaking to MPs on the Treasury Select committee, European Commissioner Michel Barnier said that the banks' storm of protest over guidelines would not see "a flight of talent towards Asia or elsewhere".
The former French government minister added: "I would not be overly impressed by the blackmail exerted in which this kind of risk [of leaving London] is mentioned.
Mr Barnier was defending guidelines issued last week that would limit cash bonuses at banks to as little as 20 per cent of total pay.
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Maybe the DPP should be looking at the law and seeing whether there is a criminal case to bring about against them - treason, good starter. - criminal menaces or gangsterism.
Then lets see why they think they can justify salaries higher than medical doctors with years of training and expertise, and, introduce tax regimes just for them that adjust their salaries accordingly.
Barclays, great place to start. They do not even handle their correspondence in this country, it is shipped off to India. This allows them to hold onto to peoples money for months and months and offer no compensation for their errors. We can tax them really hard given the jobs they moved out of the British economy, more importantly, moved and did not pass on any "advantage" to the customer in terms of interest rate reduction or service improvement.
I know we need banks but this bonus culture is madness. Put simply, do your job well and you should be paid your agreed salary.Any bonus should be given in the form of increased salary for the next year.Keep working hard and see your salary increase. If you don't impress your boss then no salary increase for you next year.The fact that someone can get a bonus that is larger than their salary is for the birds.Now is the time to legislate for this, and if they want to head off to Asia good luck to them but they will come back in the end.
Good riddance to them - the air would smell cleaner without these thieves and their spiv money. We're told they contribute Billions to our economy but the moral cost is too high; they've turned us into a nation of "gamblers by default"