His turning down of nearly £1m. What a joke.
I think it is incredulous what has happened here. Here is a man, who took on what must be the most hated job in Britain, and did a good job. He is no doubt getting paid substantially less than he could be probably anywhere else in the world, and the media get all up in arms about the only real incentive for him to actually do a better job, FOR THIS COUNTRY.
What happens when he quits? Who will take the role? Certainly not the best person for the job, as the best person for the job won't want it now. He will take the job somewhere else, where he will get paid WHAT HE IS WORTH, and not be lambasted for accepting a bonus he has earned.
The bonus was to be paid in shares, not cash, so the better a job he does, the more the share value would rise, thus paying the bonus HIMSELF, through his own work. NOT out the taxpayers pocket. The better HE does, the more money HE makes himself.
So are pre-tax profits of £1.2bn, instead of losses, not justification for a £1m bonus? I think so. Sounds like a bargain for the UK if you ask me. Never mind the £15bn of "liquid" assets.
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What has he actually done for RBS?
I think it is incredulous what has happened here. Here is a man, who took on what must be the most hated job in Britain, and did a good job. He is no doubt getting paid substantially less than he could be probably anywhere else in the world, and the media get all up in arms about the only real incentive for him to actually do a better job, FOR THIS COUNTRY.
What happens when he quits? Who will take the role? Certainly not the best person for the job, as the best person for the job won't want it now. He will take the job somewhere else, where he will get paid WHAT HE IS WORTH, and not be lambasted for accepting a bonus he has earned.
The bonus was to be paid in shares, not cash, so the better a job he does, the more the share value would rise, thus paying the bonus HIMSELF, through his own work. NOT out the taxpayers pocket. The better HE does, the more money HE makes himself.
So are pre-tax profits of £1.2bn, instead of losses, not justification for a £1m bonus? I think so. Sounds like a bargain for the UK if you ask me. Never mind the £15bn of "liquid" assets.
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What has he actually done for RBS?
- The bank is now making money. For the first nine months of 2011, RBS made pre-tax profits of £1.2bn.
- The bank says that all of its core businesses are now profitable, other than its Northern Irish unit, Ulster Bank.
- RBS's ratio of assets - loans and investments - to its loss-absorbing equity capital is a fraction more than 20 times, down from 50 times in the autumn of 2008 when it was rescued. (According to the BBC's business editor Robert Peston, in 2008 a fall in the value of its assets of just 2% was enough to sink it. Today, its assets would have to be written down by 5%.)
- RBS's balance sheet has been reduced by more than £600bn since 2008.
- RBS has lent more than £68bn to UK companies in the nine months to September 2011, including over 40p in every £1 lent to small businesses in the UK compared with a much lower customer market share.
- The bank's ratio of the loans it has made to deposits is 112%, down from 154% more than three years ago.
- It has increased its portfolio of liquid assets (which it assets that can supposedly be turned into cash in a crisis) from £155bn to £170bn.