Awol

AWOL if someone is a poor worker or the company performs badly do their basic salaries drop ?

If someone is a poor worker they get sacked mate, so yes there is a disincentive to fail.

The problem is quite simple, where Bonus's become the norm they are no longer a bonus.

In the banking sector especially they have become the norm. The package should be more like a sales plan and commission paid on certain targets being reached. These targets are measurable and changeable. Typically they will work on a hockey stick scale where they rise as you get closer to 100%

The down side, if you can call it that, is typically base salary goes down which incentivises you to work to achieving target. If you reach 100% one year next year your target is adapted accordingly in the following to a higher ceiling points

What we are seeing here is a mix of base salary and commission (they call it bonus) and the rest of the real world dont work like that

Exactly, but bonuses per se are no bad thing at all. No way could I get the same level of work out of my people if there wasn't a tangible financial reward over and above their basic salary to aim for. Why should they?

my company made 200m profit last year, I got no bounus's, I see no justification for them in any business at all, they do not encourage hard work but just greed, I would reckon the majority of the working population don;t get bonus's

So if I work hard, put in extra hours etc to meet my targets and get my bonus am I just being greedy?

It sounds like this is maybe a wee bit of jealousy on your part and you actually resent people doing well for themselves. Please correct me if I'm wrong though..

Ian I don't disagree with you that banks have screwed up but as Tony said to blanket them all as removed words is very silly. To then advocate even more tax on a select group (which i assume is completely illegal anyway) seems like an equally barking proposition to me. That is unless you mean that all bonuses paid to the work force of UK Plc should be subject to higher tax?

frankly a governemnt policy should be to tax all bounses at 80% ...

.

Why not 100%? Nothing like 'incentivising' people..

Why?

Because it is? Care to share some sort of contribution to this thread?

Right, and more ridiculous than accusing Gringo of points scoring when he was in fact raising questions that - for supporters of Gordon Brown - were difficult to wriggle away from?

"Ridculous post Jon" isn't really very constructive, Ian.

Point scoring Gringo?

Eh? :? People are allowed to criticise the abortion currently in power in this country I believe - for now at least.

Never mind though those nice chaps in the banking and counting world will still keep making a few quid and the "oiks" will be put into their place, eh?

Also no need to make personal cheap shots is there??

Several alternative proposals to borrowing this country into 30 years of debt have been put forward, for example direct lending by the BoE to business to keep SME's that are otherwise sound, running. Fact is no one is saying this a UK only problem, but pointing out that Brown's assertion we are best placed to recover being in direct contradiction of the IMF and other international bodies is fair cop.

Here's another one:

"British jobs for British workers". Oops.

Elect VT!!

V for Vendetta. Bring it on.

I didn't threaten you with violence Clarry. I think our opinion of each other is mutual but a coward I am not.

Edit: nevermind

My apologies. I have a problem with ex-pats slagging the place off. My Dad included.

I'm not an ex-pat yet and having fought for my country I feel I've earned the right to pass comment on it, whether you agree or not.

I'm out.

probably the same will happen again

I didn't threaten you with violence Clarry. I think our opinion of each other is mutual but a coward I am not.

Edit: nevermind

Anyone else taken proactive steps incase the worst happens to them?

Yes, In April i'm moving to the Middle East for the next five to ten years. Hopefully after that my own country will be in some sort of order and if not I'll be joining Mr Rogers in NZ.

Coward.

Really? Maybe wanting to have a family in a safe environment is actually sensible and not cowardice, however I'll be in London soon so feel free to PM me if you'd like to discuss this in person. Or are you another very brave internet warrior Clarry?

Anyone else taken proactive steps incase the worst happens to them?

Yes, In April i'm moving to the Middle East for the next five to ten years. Hopefully after that my own country will be in some sort of order and if not I'll be joining Mr Rogers in NZ.

Sounds very attractive, how did you get involved in that? Job offer?

Yep, fortunately for me my company are taking a kicking in the current UK market and my Director has agreed that an office out here (Oman) will give us a lifeboat over the next few years. I volunteered to get it up and running. It's fair to say the locals have greatly changed my views on many things and reference Rob's thread, you don't get people getting kicked to death out here.

Good luck though mate, I hope the worst doesn't happen.

Anyone else taken proactive steps incase the worst happens to them?

Yes, In April i'm moving to the Middle East for the next five to ten years. Hopefully after that my own country will be in some sort of order and if not I'll be joining Mr Rogers in NZ.

less and less regulation only breeds complancey and contempt

Indeed. Who removed the perfectly fine regulatory powers from the BoE, created the FSA and then refused to give it any teeth? Answers on a P45 to clueless of Downing Street please..

Last Valentines day I kissed her first.

Gordon Brown brings Britain to the edge of bankruptcy

Iain Martin says the Prime Minister hasn't 'saved the world' and now faces disgrace in the history books

They don't know what they're doing, do they? With every step taken by the Government as it tries frantically to prop up the British banking system, this central truth becomes ever more obvious.

Yesterday marked a new low for all involved, even by the standards of this crisis. Britons woke to news of the enormity of the fresh horrors in store. Despite all the sophistry and outdated boom-era terminology from experts, I think a far greater number of people than is imagined grasp at root what is happening here.

The country stands on the precipice. We are at risk of utter humiliation, of London becoming a Reykjavik on Thames and Britain going under. Thanks to the arrogance, hubristic strutting and serial incompetence of the Government and a group of bankers, the possibility of national bankruptcy is not unrealistic.

The political impact will be seismic; anger will rage. The haunted looks on the faces of those in supporting roles, such as the Chancellor, suggest they have worked out that a tragedy is unfolding here. Gordon Brown is engaged no longer in a standard battle for re-election; instead he is fighting to avoid going down in history disgraced completely.

This catastrophe happened on his watch, no matter how much he now opportunistically beats up on bankers. He turned on the fountain of cheap money and encouraged the country to swim in it. House prices rose, debt went through the roof and the illusion won elections. Throughout, Brown boasted of the beauty of his regulatory structure, when those in charge of it were failing to ask the most basic questions of financial institutions. The same bankers Brown now claims to be angry with, he once wooed, travelling to the City to give speeches praising their "financial innovation".

Does the Prime Minister realise the likely implications when the country joins the dots? He has never been wild on shouldering blame, so I doubt it. But Brown is a historian. He should know that when a nation has put all its chips on red and the ball lands on black, the person who made the call is responsible. Neville Chamberlain discovered this in May 1940 with the German invasion of France.

We're some way from a similar event. But do not underestimate the gravity of the emergency and potential for disgrace.

The Government's bail-out of the banks in October with £37 billion of taxpayers' money was supposed to have "saved the world", according to the PM, but now it is clear that it has not even saved the banks. Our money kept the show on the road for only three months.

As the Liberal Democrats' Treasury spokesman Vince Cable asks: where has the £37 billion gone? The answer, as Cable knows, is that it has disappeared down the plug hole.

It is finally dawning on the Government that the liabilities of the British banks grew to be so vast in the boom years that they now eclipse the entire economy. Unfortunately, the Treasury is pledged to honour those

liabilities because it has guaranteed not to let a British bank go down. RBS has liabilities of £1.8 trillion, three times annual UK government spending, against assets of £1.9 trillion. But after the events of the past year, I wager most taxpayers will believe the true picture is worse.

Meanwhile, the assets are falling in value. This matters, because post-nationalisation these liabilities are now yours and

mine.

And they come piled on top of the rocketing national debt, charitably put at £630 billion, or 43 per cent of GDP. The true figure is much higher because the Government has used off-balance sheet accounting to hide commitments such as PFI projects.

Add to that record consumer indebtedness and Britain becomes extremely vulnerable. The markets have worked this out ahead of the politicians, as usual, and are wondering what to do next. If they decide our nation is a basket case, they will make it so.

The PM and the Chancellor , both looking a year older every day, tell us that for their next trick they will buy more bank shares, create a giant insurance scheme for bad debt, pledge to honour liabilities without limit, cross their fingers and hope it all works. The phrase "bottomless pit" springs to mind for a reason: that is what they have designed.

In this gloom, the Prime Minister has but one slender hope: that somehow, by force of personality, the new President Obama engineers a rapid American recovery restoring global confidence, energising the markets and making us all forget this bad dream.

Obama is talented but he is not a magician. Instead, Gordon Brown's nightmare, in which we are all trapped, is going to get much worse.

..I predict a riot..

Born in Sutton, moved away at 16 to work and came home about four years ago.

Remember guys, anything over 5'7 is tall to us girls.

I thought 6'0 was supposed to be the average?

:winkold:

Hell I'm 5'3, EVERYONE is tall...

eh... he's talking about a different average than this thread I believe

Not unless he's confusing symbols...

Come on lads, it's sweet that she didn't get it.

Remember guys, anything over 5'7 is tall to us girls.

I thought 6'0 was supposed to be the average?

:winkold:

A huge 5'10.

Ian surely the thing that is "wrong, wrong, wrong" with that objective is that it seeks to reintroduce the economic conditions that put us into this hole in the first place. That being massively excessive personal and government debt and an inflated housing market that distorted the entire economy? Richard's comment seems absolutely sensible to me.

The problem is Jon (and Richard) though you have to move to a more stable point than we are now. I don't think you are saying that all of the "rules" that were in place should now be dropped are you?

What rules, Gordon's "Golden rules"? :winkold: I didn't know there were any rules left to be honest!

I don't think we are moving to a stable position, we are in the shit and the pound is going to continue falling for a while yet imo. When the actual scale of our indebtedness is realised (ie, someone sits down with a calculator and works out how much PFI is going to cost) combined with a shrinking economy, international investors deciding they've had enough and the suspension of foreign credit lines etc, it's quite likely it will all collide next year and make the impact of a bad global recession on the UK worse than most.

The alternatives are what exactly in a simplistic form?

Well I don't think Labour have handled the part nationalisation of banks very well because they've poured our cash in but don't have the power to force them to lend it back to us as business loans etc. The only thing that will work now imo is full nationalisation to free up the flow of credit and prevent many otherwise sound small businesses from going under because they cannot get a good line of credit with the bank.

When the recession is over and investors have got good money again then float them one at a time and put all proceeds back into the Treasury. It might take 15 years to renationalise them all but it would get us out of corner right now and minimise the damage. It would also make foreign investment think twice about going elsewhere and even encourage new investment in. UK plc is hurting but isn't about to go bust so the money would be safe enough to restore confidence all round.

Ian surely the thing that is "wrong, wrong, wrong" with that objective is that it seeks to reintroduce the economic conditions that put us into this hole in the first place. That being massively excessive personal and government debt and an inflated housing market that distorted the entire economy? Richard's comment seems absolutely sensible to me.

Moyles= Oxygen thief