Has The G20 Bankers Bonus Horse Bolted?

So, in the news today are the world finance ministers from the world’s most powerful economies who have agreed a series of measures to try to regulate the global banking system.

They are looking to implement a system that rewards long term performance, as opposed to the current ‘get a big fat wedge upfront and another big fat wedge later when you have bankrupted the country’- system. But, they still didn’t agree how MUCH they should be paid.
Carrots are allowed then, just gotta figure out how dirty and how big.

The G20 countries agreed on measures requiring banks to disclose the pay and bonuses of their highest-paid employees and to allow bonuses to be “clawed back” if decisions which seemed successful later go wrong?!? ( Insert your own expletive here ****) This is probably unworkable in reality as as the top banking staff are transient in their workplaces. Staff can be transferred around any part of the world for top jobs, many also leave after a few years. So how would a ‘claw back’ system really work then? Just how exactly do they plan to claw money back if the person has moved on or even out of banking? It’s plainly ridiculous and has a very hollow ring to it.

Apparently “all bankers should take note that they owed their salvation to action by taxpayers.”- Like we had a choice! A similar choice as to the voting in of the current PM.
Another fine quote from the meeting: “However, we still face significant challenges ahead. Unemployment is unacceptably high. Conditions for a sustained recovery led by private demand are not yet established.”

Surprised? er… no. Only that they have admitted it.

Some of us have been saying this for months ( although not the green shoot brigade-who have a vested interest in the economy and housing market recovery being swift.) It amazes me that they can finally come out and admit such a statement when all we have heard for the last few months is “we are back from the abyss”, “the recession is halted” and, “we have hit the bottom of the market.”

The big fat bonuses are not the only problem, it was banks being allowed to invent a system of ‘virtual money’ and then being allowed to lend the same ‘virtual money’ many times over-with no rules or checks in place to govern them. Worldwide. Bonuses are, and were, a small part of the whole picture. Smells like the old nanny called scapegoat.
The whole thing feels more like locking the stable door after the horse has bolted. Too little too late. The banks have way to much authority with no real check on how they do business- making it up as they go along. Lord knows, the current government have a real joy in setting and tinkering with laws to make us all poorer via extortionate tax demands, yet, as always, those that cause the mess get a say in how it’s dealt with rather than those effected by it.

All that came out of the talks was an ‘agreement,’ and, there will be no concrete proposals until 2011. Great.That was another worthwhile foreign jolly then.

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