Tuesday 17 February 2009

Tomorrow Never Knows Feature on Sky News Business Homepage!

The sixth feature is now live on the Business homepage of Sky News - this week we look at the banks and the bonuses they offer to their staff..

"We've been watching the four former bankers Lord Stevenson (HBOS), Andy Hornby (HBOS), Sir Fred Goodwin (RBS) and Sir Tom McKillop (RBS) make an apology of sorts in front of the Treasury Select Committee.

It did nothing to stem the anger that many people feel towards the banking sector. The whole episode has ignited a new wave of resentment towards these people who've managed to lose so much money though bad investment and greed.

RBS made a loss of £28bn last year, and were bailed out by taxpayers to the tune of £20bn, but incredibly they would still like to reward those bankers and traders who made this loss with a pot of £1bn in bonuses! Can you imagine running a business on a much smaller scale with this logic, and do you think the bank would allow you to do it? Of course not!

Someone somewhere needs to point out to these organisations that the loss of a contractual bonus is not a hard thing to swallow in times of recession. They should take note from all the workers, who have legally binding contracts too, but who have forgone basic wages just to keep their businesses going. Manufacturing industries have reduced their employees working hours just to keep afloat, even the global accountancy firm KPMG this week asked its 11,000 British staff if they would switch to a four-day week or take a long break to help avoid redundancies.

In the music industry, we're watching businesses that are profitable and sustainable go to the edge of bankruptcy simply down to cash flow. These hard working individuals have been paying their way for years, have already been hit by illegal downloading and the decline of CD sales, and do not have the Government to bail them out."

Read the full feature here - its a bit angry this week admittedly.