From Reuters:
In a crammed room that spectators had to queue to enter, American Bob Diamond -- one of Europe's highest-paid executives -- declined to say if he would waive his bonus for a third year and would not say how much Barclays would lend to businesses.
"There was a period of remorse and apology for banks and I think that period needs to be over. We need our banks willing to take risks ... so we can create jobs," Diamond told the cross-party Treasury Select Committee during 2-1/2 hours of questioning.
Love means never having to say you're sorry, and don't we all love the bankers? Which means that the poor dears never had to say they were sorry for their big bonuses from taxpayers' money in the first place. But they did! And now, enough is enough. The time is well past for bank executives to stop apologizing for taking bailouts from taxpayers' money and using it to pay themselves big bonuses.
Pay was the hot topic, as expected. Britain is heading toward a "car crash" on the issue, according to Jesse Norman, a Conservative Member of Parliament and member of the Committee, who said the public resents seeing a UK bank bonus pool expected to reach 7 billion pounds ($11 billion) for 2010.
Can it be true that the public resents the bonuses?
Ah, I see that Bob Diamond is American. Hmmm. Does it matter? Methinks bankers are the same all over. Of course, I could be wrong.
Mark Steel in his piece in the Independent says it far better than I ever could. If you see similarities between Mark's words and mine, bear in mind that I wrote my post before I read Mark's column. Honest.
Photo from the Daily Mail. As you can see, Diamond's hands are empty.
Thanks to Cathy for the links.
ooo Mimi, my favourite bit of the whole thing was that John Mann, MP for Bassetlaw, asked Diamond: "Why is it easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven?" To which Diamond had no answer at all. He was completely stumped.
ReplyDeleteI do love Mark Steel.
Cathy, if I had read Mark before I wrote my post, I probably wouldn't have bothered.
ReplyDeleteWow.
ReplyDeleteSo the poor dears have been bullied and hurt oh! so! badly! yet they are willing, over and over, to forgive us and keep taking our money.
Honestly, I cannot fathom a mind so selfish, so lacking in self-reflection, so bloated with self-entitlement. What is wrong with these people?
Like the Tea Partiers, these people - bankers, financiers - can be seen as a (inter?)national security threat, having brought us to the point of economic near-collapse, and yet they seem to think they've done absolutely nothing wrong, and, in fact, are heroes. What in the world are you paying for that makes a however-many-billion dollar bonus a necessity, let alone a just reward?
In the Great Depression, Woody Guthrie wrote a song called "Jesus Christ." In it he attributed the death of Jesus to "the bankers and the preachers."
ReplyDeleteOrmonde, check it out. Just for you.
ReplyDelete