Bank Bonus

Now why is this Man Stephen Hester getting a huge Bonus after all the dreadfull carry on with The Banks. He gets a Massive Wage as it is....so why the Blazes should he get almost a Million Pounds for just doing his very well paid Job....Makes me Savage.

Re: Bank Bonus

Me too he already earns £1.2m anyway

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I think when a woman from the bank was interviewed she said something about not wanting to lose him and it wasn't a lot of money anyway - and only 60% of what he could claim.

The Bank of Scotland is (I think) 80% owned by the country (i.e. us as taxpayers) so its our fault for paying him this much then is it? He probably owns the other 20% of it

What a crazy World we live in.

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Crazy. My company pays out bonuses in March based on profits. Its nice to have but its not guaranteed and is at the discretion of the boss. Its private sector so its different and nice for staff to feel appreciated. The banks should not be paid those sort of bonuses in the current economy when banks have been bailed out by the government.

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I bet Stephen Hester's ears are burning I have been hearing about him and his bonus on the radio since 7am.

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It's not just the bankers though is it? Every civil servant and his dog seem to get a bonus nowadays just for turning up, and even then they have to pay millions to "consultants" to do the job for them.

How did we get here? Our civil service used to be the envy of the world but now it's just a laughing stock .

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Barry its not only senior civil servants that receive bonuses and large pensions. It all started in the Private sector don't forget - Banks were private companies before they ran into trouble and 'we' had to bail them out. Gordon Brown was wrong, he should have 'nationalised' all the banks we bailed out 100% (without compensation) and retained them as nationalised industries.

Furthermore, and CEO of any company who receives a bonus of more than 5 x above average earnings should expect to pay 95% income tax on it!!

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I think maybe you have seen the answer as to how we got here with public services Barry. Where they used to do much of their work "in house" and the costs to provide a service did not include a healthy profit, many services are now contracted out to private organisations, who won't/can't do it without making a profit. They have shareholders etc. etc. I have never understood how that can be cheaper than providing "in house" - To use a simple analogy I think it is like comparing home cooking and eating out - which costs more and gives less value ?

Bonuses are something else, I don't think they should be paid to public servants (but if not will those public servants be lost to private industry and be paid the bonuses). I can understand that in a private organisation bonuses have to be paid to retain talented people, but there should be limits. I think the government has boxed itself into a corner with the banks. They can't let them fail so they need to attract and keep the best people in the top jobs, but on the other hand in RBS's case they were bailed out and rescued from their own incompetence in the market. That money to save them was and still is public money and the Government (appointed by us) in reality owns the major part of it, although they don't appear to be able to exercise any control of what they own.

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Couldn't agree more! If this greedy fat cat had any sort of conscience he would sell these shares (his £963,000 bonus) and give all the money to shelter or another charity.

But no, he can get it, even if he dosent deserve it, and the governments 82% share holding voted against it - so that's all right then.

The state should buy the remainder of RBS a mere 18% with it's shares now half the price we paid for the 82% we own, and stop all bonuses!

But nothing will be done. Conservatives blame Labour, Labour blame Conservatives and the greedy fill their boots!

We need a top rate of income tax of 95% now!

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Ha Ha I thought this one might come up on OFF but White Raven, Dog Lover, Aerolor, Meg, Uncle Joe I have to ask you why all five of you (and millions of other tax payers) pleaded with Mr. Hestor to take the job, he did NOT send his CV to Gordon Brown, he did NOT apply for the job, he did not WANT the job so why Uncle Joe (as you are presumeably a tax payer), why in heavens name did you ask him to take the job and what terms he would require and then agree to those terms, why why WHY.

More than three years after RBS was about to go belly up and still people don't realise that if someone had not been willing to take on the job there would have been a run on the bank, followed by similar 'runs' on all the other banks, and that would have been followed by complete and total anarchy, and we were very close to that scenario so rather than critiscise Mr. Hestor we should be extremely grateful to him because if he had not turned around RBS, if it had gone bust then so would every other bank in UK and only the quick (and those with inside knowledge would have got their money out in time) whereas myself, all the OFF members, and pretty much everyone in UK would now have no savings whatsoever and the UK would be like Greece.

White Raven, Dog Lover, Aerolor, Meg, Uncle Joe I have to ask you, do you have any experience of when a bank goes bust, did any of you have to que outside Northern Rock when it looked like they were not going to be able to pay out, believe me RBS going bust would have been a million times worse and triggered all banks going bust, how would you feel now if you had no money and the country was run under communism and you had to que at the shops to buy basic essentials like the people here were doing only a few years back.

Personally, if Gordon Brown and all the other government ministers and civil servants had pleaded with me to take the RBS job I would have demanded a salary of ten million pounds and a bonus of fifty million per year and a pension payment of a hundred million pounds and all of it payable in advance