London is now the worst place in the world to do business, say top bankers

[BrilloPad]

But why would they move out of London if costs of bankers employed in UK gets reduced? They are here for a reason and having lower labour costs only would keep them here for longer.

Now the other question is whether all those UK bankers move out to US and other places to get higher salaries, my guess is that probably not.

Quite a few hedge funds have moved to Switzerland. And even a few bankers have moved abroad. Do you want the rest to go? There are some who assume they will stay come what may - its a dangerous game of poker to play.

[KimberleyChris]

What is wrong with bankers being paid huge bonuses?

Nothing at all...for top bankers.

But there are no top bankers, just rubbish ones and mediocre ones, hence the state we are in now.

The rubbish ones screwed up, and the mediocre ones failed to blow the whistle when the writing was on the wall for all to see.

How are they getting these top jobs in Switzerland? What the hell must they have left off their CVs?

[AtW]

Quite a few hedge funds have moved to Switzerland.

That's because of too high corp tax which should be reduced to increase UK's competitiveness.

[Doggy Styles]

AtW, you are treating 'bankers' as light bulbs. If some leave the UK so what, just plug in another one.

You don't seem to have grasped that a company is only as good as the people in it. And that everybody wants to be well rewarded for their work.

Like any other sector there are good bankers and bad bankers. The trouble is, it is the good ones and the good companies who will find the opportunities abroad.

We would be left with the duffers, and our financial services industry would suffer. That might please some people, but it is the UK's most profitable sector and we would be mad to decimate it, especially without something sustainable in another sector to replace it. The deficit is big enough as it is, don't you think?

Learn from history. The Labour party took a similar view to high earners in the 1960s and 1970s and hit them, which was disastrous.

[AtW]

Learn from history. The Labour party took a similar view to high earners in the 1960s and 1970s and hit them, which was disastrous.

I do not actually advocate higher taxes, on the contract I think taxes such as employer NI should be completely removed and 50% rate scrapped, hell I am all for flat rate tax system of say 30% regardless how much is earned (but harsh penalties for cheats).

The issue with banker bonuses is that no other industry takes so much money from shareholders who are the real owners and for some reason bankers don't apply cost reductions to themselves, nevermind massive bonuses for taking crazy risks to get short term profits or just being paid a shredload in cash for just doing their jobs.

[Paddy]

Perhaps these cu^t bankers should go and work in China

Chinese Fund Managers Sentenced to Death after Cheating Investors out of 1 Billion USD

Chinese Fund Managers Sentenced to Death after Cheating Investors out of 1 Billion USD | Thom Hartmann - News & info from the #1 progressive radio show

[KimberleyChris]

Another side is that the bankers are not actually 'doing good business' to start with.

They appear to have 'sat on' the money they were given to use for credit and credit guarantees, and gone back to an older 'you can't have a loan unless you can prove you don't need it' mentality.

I have a relative who runs a small-to-medium specialist stainless-steel fabrication company in the West Midlands. He cannot tender for jobs above a certain size any more. Although his company has a good past credit rating, the bank will not now extend money to finance the design and build stages or the raw materials/bought-in items etc..

He could tackle much bigger jobs, and the skilled welders etc that he had to lay-off last year would all come marching up the road with their sleeves rolled up on Monday morning if he called them. But he knows that he is wasting his time asking for optimistic 'milestone' payments from the customer, when foreign companies seem to be able to access unlimited credit from their home Governments...a lot of it originating from the UK and EU foreign aid budgets in the first place.

[bobspud]

It can be wrong is large bonuses paid for normal course of work - if they can't keep bank profitable they should lose jobs, essentially getting a big bonus as part of turning up for work is taking money from shareholders pockets.

But when the people deal with billions in turnover, I would rather they were given enough remuneration to prevent them finding ways to dip into the till instead.

As a shareholder would you rather find out your team cost a fortune and didn't need to steal or the offshore cheap indians were selling your customers bank details (just like the fraud trial at Santander & Cater Allen private bank)?

http://www.thisisnottingham.co.uk/Co...ail/story.html

[Doggy Styles]

I do not actually advocate higher taxes, on the contract I think taxes such as employer NI should be completely removed and 50% rate scrapped, hell I am all for flat rate tax system of say 30% regardless how much is earned (but harsh penalties for cheats).

The issue with banker bonuses is that no other industry takes so much money from shareholders who are the real owners and for some reason bankers don't apply cost reductions to themselves, nevermind massive bonuses for taking crazy risks to get short term profits or just being paid a shredload in cash for just doing their jobs.

That is a really communist way of looking at it.

They are remunerated for massive responsibility. Some make big mistakes and their contracts should reflect that, but that is where the issue is.

[scooterscot]

Everbody goes to work for personal enrichment.

What do we call it then when one can claim benefits, have babies stay at home play the wii all day without working and I might not even be british?

I'd be utterly bored if I did not work.