[daniel_williams]

Class Strawman, DanGrover

This house is of the opinion that the so-called "bonus culture" did neither cause nor contribute to the current financial problems. The systematic media and governmental smear campaign against the rich in the banking sector is fuelling a class witch-hunt which is damaging a vast majority of the very talented of various institutions for the crimes - and that word is used in a purely metaphorical sense - of a small minority. This house deems the constant references to 'bonuses' to be some bizarre offshoot of Godwin's Law, whereby it's an unequivocal, undeniable and unarguable evil, and anything related to it can be deduced to be the same.

If you want to make these (namely the part-nationalised ones) companies crash and burn by forcing out all the good staff, you'll be wasting all the money that we've invested in it, and DeSantis won't be the last to go.

[CyclopsRock]

Here we go!

Now... tell me why I'm wrong. I dares ya.

[lotsofsnails]

awwww, those poor bankers, isn't life hard

[CyclopsRock]

(Original post by lotsofsnails)
awwww, those poor bankers, isn't life hard

I think you've somewhat missed the point. AIG is a perfect example, and although it's not British, it's exemplar of what's happening here. The people who caused the mess have long since left or been fired - why would a company want to keep them on? The people being bemoaned by the government and the media are the ones sticking around to try and pick up the pieces - they're the ones getting the 90% bonus tax in the US, they're the ones getting hate mail, they're the ones losing their jobs, and yet they've done no more wrong than you or I. The fact you aren't outraged that innocent people are being treated in this way purely because they're rich is a perfect example of the pathetic class warfare being perpetuated here.

[lotsofsnails]

Well hopefully it means the banks will be discouraged from making the same mistakes again that they did in the past.

[CyclopsRock]

(Original post by lotsofsnails)
Well hopefully it means the banks will be discouraged from making the same mistakes again that they did in the past.

You're not making any sense. The people responsible have been sacked. The ones continuing to be vilified are innocent. Losing billions of pounds and being half nationalised will "discourse the banks from making the same mistakes again" - individuals and small groups being trashed in the press and even by our own government will merely make intelligent and effective members of the banking industry quit and take their expertise elsewhere - then we'll have invested billions into banks where their best staff are leaving. Well brilliant, that was a great investment of money.

[Melancholy]

The vandelism of "Fred the Shredder's" home merely symbolises the discontentment with the wider system which they perceive to be unfair, it would seem:

"Fred Goodwin's house in Edinburgh was attacked this morning. We are angry that rich people, like him, are paying themselves a huge amount of money and living in luxury, while ordinary people are made unemployed, destitute and homeless. Bank bosses should be jailed. This is just the beginning."

As such, it was inappropriate to attack the individuals involved rather than the system as a whole, regardless of what political stance you take. The encouragement of the recent enterprise of shaming, humiliating, and provoking hostility against individuals, rather than the system, is wholly unjustified. One may say that the encouragement of a class system is equally unjustified, and I might retort that they may be right on that point to some extent (mainly by citing a small moral obligation to essential services by noting that the means of productions, all things material and all property were originally unowned - they were taken without justification at a time when the fruits of the earth belonged to nobody or everybody, but not exclusively to one person). Essentially, those who work hard should have the liberty to be paid accordingly, but moral obligations to "society" certainly exist.

[Overground]

I quite like this. You can call it 'Goodwin's Law'. As a conversation on the economic downturn continues in length, the probability of someone blaming 'greedy bankers' approaches one.

[Bagration]

(Original post by Overground)
I quite like this. You can call it 'Goodwin's Law'. As a conversation on the economic downturn continues in length, the probability of someone blaming 'greedy bankers' approaches one.

That is incredible

[Alasdair]

While I do think that 'greedy bankers' aren't the only, or even neccesarily the main cause of the financial crisis, and that it's society's easy way of blaming a certain group of people for the problems systemic in capitalism, I don't agree that it didn't contribute to the crisis.

The short-term nature of bonuses was such that many people in these financial firms didn't have to think about the long-term impact of their deals, which did contribute to the crisis.

[Bagration]

(Original post by Alasdair)
The short-term nature of bonuses was such that many people in these financial firms didn't have to think about the long-term impact of their deals, which did contribute to the crisis.

The same argument is true for interest rates but is vastly more relevant. It was BofE interest rates that removed the risk, not high bonuses, which is a different matter altogether.

[Alasdair]

(Original post by Bagration)
The same argument is true for interest rates but is vastly more relevant. It was BofE interest rates that removed the risk, not high bonuses, which is a different matter altogether.

Well, no, the risk was never really removed, but it was hidden behind securitisation, tranching, incorrect credit ratings, bad risk management, and a sort of general societal delusion towards credit risk.

It's pretty clear though that bonuses were paid based on that years deals, rather than their future profitability. Which led to them making high-value deals without any real thought to the future risk.

[UniOfLife]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rXmvh...eature=related

00:13-00:16

[lotsofsnails]

(Original post by CyclopsRock)
You're not making any sense. The people responsible have been sacked. The ones continuing to be vilified are innocent. Losing billions of pounds and being half nationalised will "discourse the banks from making the same mistakes again" - individuals and small groups being trashed in the press and even by our own government will merely make intelligent and effective members of the banking industry quit and take their expertise elsewhere - then we'll have invested billions into banks where their best staff are leaving. Well brilliant, that was a great investment of money.

But surely, the people who replace the ones who have been sacked will be more careful in future?

[SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian]

(Original post by lotsofsnails)
But surely, the people who replace the ones who have been sacked will be more careful in future?

Is it me being barmy here, or are you genuinely not understanding what's being said here? How is what you've just said even relevant to this Motion, or what we were talking about?

[lotsofsnails]

(Original post by DanGrover)
Is it me being barmy here, or are you genuinely not understanding what's being said here? How is what you've just said even relevant to this Motion, or what we were talking about?

well you're complaining about an atmosphere of rich people/bonuses being hated, i just don't see it as that much of a problem.

[SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian]

(Original post by lotsofsnails)
well you're complaining about an atmosphere of rich people/bonuses being hated, i just don't see it as that much of a problem.

And what's that got to do with the above?! I've already addressed this - the people now being condemned ("bankers and their bonuses!" - go watch any episode of Question Time and get your stopwatch out, time how long it takes for a panel member or audience member to say that) and yet these people who still have their jobs are the ones who didn't do anything wrong. In no other sphere of the world would you have such a nonchalantly ignorant stance towards innocent people being villified - but hey, these people are rich, so it's OK, right? **** them, they have money, they deserve our hate.

Ridiculous hypocrisy.

[Ed.]

In all honesty, yes, the people not getting bonuses now probably aren't to blame in any way for the crash, but heck if only for a few years I think it is very important to show the general public that the vast sums of money being spent on the banks isn't just being given away. I would argue in the short term it is a valuable PR exercise.

[CyclopsRock]

(Original post by Ed.)
In all honesty, yes, the people not getting bonuses now probably aren't to blame in any way for the crash, but heck if only for a few years I think it is very important to show the general public that the vast sums of money being spent on the banks isn't just being given away. I would argue in the short term it is a valuable PR exercise.

But it's not like the government giving charity to Africa is good PR for Britain in the international community - the only people for whom this "good PR" benefits is the Labour party when it comes to trying to get re-elected. The downside of the manouvre is that it has the potential to push a lot of good people out of the industry and into another where they aren't villified, leaving the country with a very real, tangible white elephant that's just caused a massive, massive ammount of financial loss for the people. I don't really think Labour's poll results going up a percentage point or two is worth that.

[SuperhansFavouriteAlsatian]

(Original post by wes)
*shrugs* The millions of euros of bonus that these guys are taking could have paid the wages of the hundreds of staff being laid off...

Such as whom?