UKUncut vs RBS / Natwest bank this Saturday..

[green]

In 2008 Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS, which owns Natwest) suffered the biggest loss in British corporate history - more than £24bn, forcing it to announce 9,000 job cuts. Despite this, former Chief Executive Sir Fred Goodwin - who had presided over the calamity - received a £342,000 a year pension, causing widespread public anger.

 

Under the reign of Goodwin RBS had pursued an aggressive expansion strategy. But in 2007, the bank overstretched itself with the disastrous acquisition of Dutch bank ABN Amro, leading a year later to a massive public bail-out of £20 billion. Taxpayers now have an 84% shareholding in RBS.

 

Last year, RBS won government approval to pay its top investment bankers £1.3 billion in bonuses - despite announcing losses amounting to an extraordinary £1.93 billion. The Evening Standard described how the 2010 bonus pot was ‘distributed among 22,000 high-performing deal-makers - an average of £59,090 each’ with some ‘getting awards that run into the millions’.

 

RBS is this year expected to unveil a £613 million loss. However, The Sunday Telegraph disclosed in January that Stephen Hester, RBS’s chief executive, ‘is on course to be paid a bonus of £2.44 million’. Bank sources were reported as confirming that the amount ‘will be paid in shares, which Hester can cash in after three years’. Hester has argued that his bank has to pay out bonuses at market rates to keep top performers because without them taxpayers will lose out.

 

However, as David Cameron pointed out before becoming Prime Minister, the UK’s bonus culture ‘encouraged short-term risk-taking instead of rewarding the long-term interests of shareholders and the public.’ Cameron therefore argued that ‘where the taxpayer owns a large stake in a bank, we are saying that no employee should be paid a bonus of over £2,000.’

 

As George Monbiot has explained, the government may claim they want to ‘tame the banks’, but in reality, they have been protecting them all along - not least by trying (and failing) to kill tougher European rules on bankers' bonuses. If the government won’t tame RBS and end the bonus culture, it’s up to us to act. It’s time to take back the banks so they serve everyone, not just the super-rich. After all, without us, they wouldn’t exist!

 

See you on the streets

[Tony Erikson]

RBS lost as you say 29 billion in 2008. In 2009 it lost 3 billion I believe and 2010 it lost 1 Billion.

 

You could argue that the bankers are getting the bonus because over 2 years they made 28 Billion. Anybody can see that they've put some hard work in. They have a 5 year strategy and we're on year 3. Why not let them try and earn the taxpayer a tiny profit? Would you prefer that all bankers didn't get bonuses and left the country with their banks and their money?

 

Why not stop acting like a mardy child and let the big boys do the job. By the way, I'm in town on Saturday and I may want to use RBS. Anyone in my way will be reported to the police for obstructing a public right of way.

[Tony Erikson]

Oh and what industry do you propose should take the place of the banking sector once they've all buggered off?

[Guest sibon]

Oh and what industry do you propose should take the place of the banking sector once they've all buggered off?

 

Where are they going to bugger off to? Is there a tax haven that welcomes failed investment bankers?

 

They will go absolutely nowhere. We really should stop being scared of this nonsensical argument.

Edited February 24, 2011 by sibon

[ECCOnoob]

failed investment bankers??

 

Really. Look im no fan of them but come on.... they are still getting paid huge salaries with thousands of pounds of bonuses. Hardly failed. In fact over the past 6 months the share index has actually crept back up... albeit slowly.

 

Currently the new money is in Asia. Lots of big firms and investment banks will happily go over there if they get pushed out and we will be left with what? Shutting up all the banks is not going to do anyone any favours.

 

What needs changing is the government's lack of supervision and regulation which was wonderfully done by the labour party. You lot standing in the cold outside the local RBS is going to do nothing to help change that. Lobby your MP, get a petition raised, put pressure on your local MPs during people forums etc.... nobody seems to be doing that. Its all about shouting and screaming on the high street and it just aint working.

 

Its like being in the 80s again.

Edited February 24, 2011 by ECCOnoob

[green]

RBS lost as you say 29 billion in 2008. In 2009 it lost 3 billion I believe and 2010 it lost 1 Billion.

 

You could argue that the bankers are getting the bonus because over 2 years they made 28 Billion. Anybody can see that they've put some hard work in. They have a 5 year strategy and we're on year 3. Why not let them try and earn the taxpayer a tiny profit? Would you prefer that all bankers didn't get bonuses and left the country with their banks and their money?

 

Why not stop acting like a mardy child and let the big boys do the job. By the way, I'm in town on Saturday and I may want to use RBS. Anyone in my way will be reported to the police for obstructing a public right of way.

 

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/feb/26/rbs-record-loss Theres your link for there losses.

 

Imagine if we had put all those billions into our future engineers... Then we would have an industry we could be proud of in a few years

[green]

Oh and what industry do you propose should take the place of the banking sector once they've all buggered off?

 

Where do you think they will bugger off to? Most of their telephone services are in India, they are closing more and more branches because people are utilising the internet...

 

Dont believe there propaganda...any jobs they could have moved abroad...they have long done it.

[GreenManWalk]

Tony - you'll be disappointed RBS is shut on saturday in Sheffield

[Andy]

Hester didn't screw RBS up. He took over after the damage had been done, and his task was to try and turn it back into a profitable bank so that the taxpayer could recoup their investment.

 

Mr Hester is a very able banker and could easily find work elsewhere. If we want good people running the state owned banks, we need to pay competitive wages. The alternative is to have people who will work for peanuts but aren't very good at their job. That means the losses will be bigger, and it will take longer for RBS to become a business which the government can sell back to private shareholders.

 

The fact that Hester's bonus is being paid in shares simply gives him another incentive to drive up the bank's share price. This is nothing but good news for the government who as you point out own 84% of the bank.

[tonestapler]

Hester didn't screw up RBS. That was down to Fred Goodwin. However, RBS are still in the red to the tune of £1.13bn. They have not paid back the money that you and I gave them for the bailout. Therefore, as RBS isn't in profit the money for the bonus pot must be coming from somewhere. So as stakeholders, we should surely have some say in how money is shared out at RBS. But we don't because that is still down to the board and shareholders.

 

The UK banking sector would not exist in any workable or competitive form at all if hadn't been for our bailout money. They owe the UK public a huge debt of gratitude; we're not seeing much gratitude when the banks continue to pay out excessive bonuses on top of seven figure salaries for their chiefs (over at Barclays even the shareholders are angry as the size of their bonus pot exceeds the dividend payout this year). Meanwhile, the public who have helped them out suffer drastic drops in public service provision and the threat of redundancy and economic hardship to pay for a situation that wasn't their fault and whose culprits they have helped out with public money that most people could well afford not to lose in that way.

 

Tony Erikson suggests that UKUncut are acting like 'mardy' children. Well, maybe they are; I think they're probably justified in being just a little angry, when we see a botched Strategic Defence Review putting servicemen's lives at risk, Home Office reductions in police numbers when relations between police and many communities are at a very low point, huge cuts to front line council service delivery such as respite care causing a knock effect in the shape of hospital bed blocking plus a plethora of other examples. A huge amount of pain could be spared if the government put in place banking regulation with teeth instead of the almost universally panned Project Merlin. And these are only the start of the government's planned cuts.

 

But I feel the banks have also acted like spoilt brats who want the rules of the party games constantly changed so that they can win all the prizes all the time. After all, they've had things their own way for such a long time.

 

This issue is always going to divide opinion. The arguments have been repeated ad nauseum. I think it's clear that many if not most people are angry with the bankers and find their actions reprehensible and are loathe to support them. There are those who disagree with that view. What remains is that UKUncut have a right to peaceful protest, which they will use. If those with an opposing argument wish to put as much voluntary time and effort into mobilising similar action then that would also be good.