I don’t think that. I own shares in a number of Vanguard^®‘s funds, but it’s clear that’s what the banks, and the bankers think about their shareholders.

We know that the UK is allocating a special levy on bonus funds for financial institutions, which will shrink the size of the bonuses that bankers get. The banker’s solutions is to increase the size of the pools to maintain the same outrageous bonus levels.

The way that these bonuses are supposed to work is that you allocate a certain percentage of profits in a publicly held firm to a bonus pool, based on the needs of the firm, things like profits, the need for cash on hand, and things like dividends for the shareholders, who are, after the people who own the f%$#ing company.

Well, that’s not how the bankers think, so when that pool gets taxed, you just take it out of the hides of the shareholders, and financial reserves, etc.

This is way beyond mismanagement. This is theft, just like what Conrad Black went to jail for, and it should be treated as such:

Bonuses are supposed to be determined by the amount of money available after you settle accounts for the year. If you decide it by starting from how much you want to pay for yourself, you are doing what Conrad Black did, and he’s now in prison:”

Several of the big US banks, and some UK banks, conceded in private that they were nervous of cutting the bonuses of City staff, partly for fear of causing internal friction, and partly to avoid having top staff picked off by bolder rivals or hedge funds

Disgraceful. Particularly when these guys were the ones who f%$#ed up our system in the first place.

Banking is not a meritocracy, not that it was ever much of one, it’s a kakistocracy.