Tonight:
9°c
Every conversation about the recession I have with friends these days ends up with someone expressing not just helpless fury against the bankers who have damaged the world's financial system so much in such a short time but a vehement wish to see them made to pay for what they have done.
At the moment, as we all know, they are actually continuing to award one another bonuses, even in banks propped up with taxpayers' money. Public indignation will surely soon put a stop to that. And, of course, more and more bankers are being made redundant.
But so far not a single banker has been forced to pay back a penny of the money they made by doing everybody so much harm. At Davos, the chairman of the FSA, Adair Turner, has been acknowledging that the "remuneration packages" offered to bankers were wrong. They incentivised risk-taking and thus built up the "toxic waste", in the form of securitised credit instruments, now crippling the whole system.
But from him there has been no hint at all that perhaps some reparations should be made by key individuals. That has been left to the punchy chief executive of Unipart, John Neill. This week, he suggested that the bankers who were involved in developing these "toxic" products, causing such damage to the global economy, should indeed be punished.
In any other business, if you are found to have sold toxic products, you go to jail. Why should bankers be different? For this, he was roundly applauded.
So it is not just saloon bar sages now saying this. As the news gets ever worse - with the IMF now saying our economy will be hit the worst, shrinking 2.8 per cent this year - this call for justice can only become more emphatic.
Sir Fred Goodwin presided over the near-total destruction of Royal Bank of Scotland, necessitating a £20 billion taxpayer bail-out so far. For this, he was paid £38.8 million and knighted.
Many lesser bankers too remain in possession of fortunes obtained, as we now know, not just under false pretences but at the cost of ruining lives.
Clawing the money back won't help our financial plight now but it might be a good thing in other ways, simple justice being one. For, as unemployment spreads, there is going to be more and more anger, perhaps even civil unrest, which can only be inflamed by those who brought us to this pass remaining enriched and even ennobled themselves.
And how can they themselves live with what they have done? I wonder. In Hamlet, the King, Claudius, knows it is meaningless to repent while still possessed of the effects for which he did the murder. "May one be pardon'd and retain th'offence?" Our bankers seem to think so.
Skip Kate if you want a hot date
In the US, Revolutionary Road has not been doing brilliantly at the box office, despite its nominations. It's not just because anyone who has read Richard Yates's novel finds the movie predictable, being so dimly faithful to the book (apart from wisely leaving out the dreadful symbolism of hubby endlessly trying to lay a stone path in his front garden). It's that Revolutionary Road is the greatest anti-date movie of all time.
Didn't the producers ever think about that? Its relentless presentation of a couple tearing each other to pieces would kill any nascent romance stone dead. And for couples who have made the mistake of getting married, watching this horror is even worse. Any divorce lawyer who set up a little booth in the foyer to catch audiences coming out would do storming business, I reckon.
Pink power, Iceland-style
Last month, Sir Ian McKellen caused a stir by telling an interviewer that “Britain has already had one or two gay Prime Ministers”. Perhaps a catty allusion to Edward Heath's girth? Now Iceland, plunging in all other respects, has appointed the world's first openly gay prime minister, Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir, a former air hostess.
The time has come, perhaps. Some commentators believe that Keynesianism, with its carefree attitude to saddling future generations with debt, could only ever have been propounded by a childless gay man — one who famously said “in the long run we are all dead”. Perhaps in the current climate we need more gay leaders, to shape up to putting millstones around our children's necks for years to come? If so, Sigurdardóttir is no good. Lesbian she may be but with her partner she has three children. Presumably each one of them, like every man, woman and child in Iceland, owes £116,000.
Reader views (8)
me too
- Sarah, Dunstable
Of course, Suzannah below is living in an absolute dream world. There were no complaints from you when house prices were doubling and you could remortgage and then remortgage again. We have all benefitted massively from the wealth creation that has gone on over the last two decades. The sooner joe public realises that this is a problem created by greed on a much wider scale than the banking industry the better. I am not suggesting that rewarding banking heads is the right thng to do clearly. But laying the blame at the door of the banker massively oversimplifies the issues and you fall right into the trap that this government wants you to fall into. They have done a great job at convincing you its not your fault. Time to wake up.
- Jon, London
Talk about looking for a scapegoat!! I agree with Damian, nobody knew these things were toxic, not bankers, not anybody else. You talk as if they did know and decided to get us all. They should be fired for poor foresight, but that's it -- it's not like they were plotting behind closed walls and knew this was going to happen but they were so evil they didn't care!!
- Adrian Franco, London, UK
I have never been on a demonstration or protest in my life, but even to me, it seems odd that there has been no march or public protest against the greed and incompetence of the bankers. If one was organised, I would be there in a shot.
- Callum, London
Perhaps this spineless Government should take a leaf out of the German Government's book, they're going after the German bankers who helped create this mess. And right so. Hold those unscrupulous scum to account.
- Simon Caleb, London, England
Mark is right. The rage against "banks" appears to be based upon an assumed foresight that did not exist. It is all very well to talk about selling "toxic" products, but these products were highly regulated, and everyone enjoyed the benefits when times were good (governments, customers, shareholders and indeed bankers). Who told us three years ago that these products were "toxic"? No public figure that I can remember. The nearest really were sound commentators like your former financial writer Christopher Fildes who always came closest of any commentator to understanding what underpinned the City and finance. I suggest a good re-reading of many of his columns from the 70s onwards for a balanced and sane view...
- Damian Hockney, London, UK
So by your logic Susannah the shareholders should return their dividends, the government the taxes received on corporate profits and the mortgage borrowers who received lower rates due to the newly liquid market in securitized debt.....? There have been mistakes made, but the problem is how they are being dealt with. For political reasons the Government is not taking effective action. If banks need public money to survive then they should have to cede management control as the taxpayer becomes the shareholder and stock should be worthless. That's how capitalism works.
- Mark, London
Yes, the top bankers & financiers who've made their own fortunes out of these 'toxic debts' should be tried in criminal courts & stripped of their assets. It might make the rest of ordinary wage-earners feel slightly less powerless.
And stop offering these ludicrous CEO massive salaries- it's wrong to say that you have to pay huge salaries/bonuses to get the best brains- look at university academic staff & those of in education/related services. We work for peanuts but do it because we love the challlenge/stimulus of our work.
- Susannah, Colchester
