Scapegoating

So they have got rid of the speaker.

Yes, he should have gone but my feeling is that MPs bayed for his blood as a diversionary tactic. I believe they think that by piling the blame on the Speaker, it will be diverted from them. But the fact is that anyone who defrauded the taxpayer of money needs to be dealt with within the parameters of the law. It remains to be seen if this will happen.

Watched ‘Dispatches’ on channel four last night. It was on British bankers. It seems that in spite of the crash, they are still earning unbelievable salaries, bonuses and pensions in spite of there being no wealth created from which these salaries etc. can come from.

That my friend, is the crux of the matter.

A person should be able to earn, yes earn their living and if able, to earn a pretty hefty one. If wealth was created by these banks, then the bankers, along with the employees of those banks, and shareholders, should benefit. What seemed to have happened and amazingly seems to still be happening, is that bankers are not earning anything – they are just taking large sums regardless of the performance of their banks, in many cases while they have been responsible for the dismal performance of their banks. Some of the figures quoted on ‘Dispatches’ last night were astronomical sums being paid to replacement bankers of banks now controlled by the taxpayers i.e. people who were put in place after the robber barons were booted out by the government!

Non-executive members of the banks who were supposed to be the internal watchdogs, and the official watchdogs didn’t do anything. The government didn’t – it has now been revealed that they were basically doing the same thing but with tax payers money.

It is a colossal mess and a disgrace.

One of the men on last night’s programme used to work at one of the banks that the governments now control. His pension after 30 years amounts to £14 per week. That former CEO’s pension (which he can get from age 51) amounts to £5,800 per week according to the programme. If this is true this is heartbreakingly wrong.

I believe that you must be rewarded in proportion to your contribution but are you convinced that the CEO’s contribution was that much more valuable than the middle manager? Especially when the bank went pretty much bust?

There is a serious class problem in the UK and it is not the one the working class are always on about. It is one in which a certain echelon of society, in their heart of heart believes that people like them deserve to be given vast sums of money for doing precious little and for contributing precious little in the way of ideas and innovation while those that do the work and add the value should be satisfied with nothing. It has little to do with the background you were born into. I know people with that attitude who were born into working class backgrounds. Additionally this greedy class believes that those who are educated and use that education and have morals and are willing to work hard, owe it to them to give their services for very very little and dare you not ask to be remunerated in keeping with your obvious contribution – it makes them apoplectic and it makes you mysteriously redundant.

There is going to be trouble because lessons have not been learned.