I see today that yet another “top” banker is about to resign or be pushed following record losses for the bank he runs. Citigroup chairman Chuck Prince has earned £27 million during his last four years at the bank, where he has presided over losses of £3.3 billion and a 57% slide in profits.
He joins former Merrill Lynch boss, Stan O’Neal, who last week was asked to leave but given a £181 million golden goodbye. In common with Prince, O’Neal was responsible for record losses at his bank. A staggering $2.3 billion during just one quarter, and a total of $8.4 billion. For working so hard, O’Neal earned $48 million in 2006. Yet when he announced he was leaving the bank’s share price actually went up.
So let’s imagine you’re working at a nursery and you lose 57% of the children in your care. Do you think you would be sent home, told you have been very silly and given some more children to take home with you? Or you sell cars for a living but decide to give away half the cars in your forecourt to random passers-by?
These men are over-paid failures who have lost millions for their banks. But no one blames them for it. Why is this?
Copyright: Helena Frith Powell 2007
You ask a serious question. I am not equipped to offer a serious answer. But I can provide further questions: How can the chief of a police force found guilty of 19 system failures resulting in the death of an innocent man refuse to even give up his annual bonus? How can a prime minister who committed crimes against humanity by waging aggressive war be making millions on the lecture circuit when he should be in the penitentiary? How can editors print such drivel as the torrent of Maddy stories, each meaning less than the one before, not to speak of drivel from the likes of Jeremy Clarkson? Face it, nobody is responsible for anything anymore.
All good questions. But more crucially, why is grey back in fashion?
Hx
Grey is always in fashion. I love it. Antracite double breasted suit with a black pocket handkercheif, black shirt and a silver bracelet. Very smooth…. And I’m a bloke.
G
It is always the large companies in America that can buy their way out of any ordeal. If fact a Wall Street saying goes that all companies have skeletons in their closets, those that survive are those that can cover them with $$$$$$. If the performance of these men was in a low tier company, they would both be facing life in prison, because of the Federal sentencing guidelines, which you don’t want to get me started on!!!!!!!!!!! HA, HA, HA