Prince Andrew defends Bankers Bonuses

So, a privileged member of the Royal Family (and no I am in no way a Republican) is defending the bonuses for bankers by calling them minute in the scheme of things!

Minute - since when was £105,000 minute?

Come on HRH, get with the programme, that would take the average person 10 years to accrue if they didn't spend their salary on anything else, but because you work for somewhere like Goldman Sachs you get £105,000+ on top just because...well if you are one of the 31,000 people working at Goldman Sachs, that is the average bonus payment due to you.

Banks are predicting paying out £6billion of bonuses in 2009, compared to just £4billion in 2008. In other words people in the banking industry have not learnt anything in the last year, despite banks going to the wall, despite banks increasing charges to ordinary account holders like me, despite part nationalisation of the banks and despite tens of thousands of people across the UK being made redundant by the banks, they are actually going to increase the bonuses they payout, so less staff, and less branches yet £2billion more in bonuses.

Pigs in troughs is what springs to mind and Prince Andrew is obviously not in touch with the real world.

In fact, on Wednesday a White House spokesperson has said of bonuses: "Pay on Wall Street can't return to the speculative era that we saw last, specifically right before the economic collapse..." and added "Pay has to be based on a reasonable assumption of risk, not speculation."

The Liberal Democrats Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Vince Cable MP said: “People will be rightly furious to see Goldman Sachs paying out bumper bonuses just 12 months after it was bailed out by the US government.

“It is farcical that so soon after the reckless greed of bankers brought the world economy to its knees, we are seeing a return to business as usual.

“There is a fundamental problem that the banks which made it through the credit crunch can now operate in a near monopoly, with government backing, and reap massive profits.

“Bankers should spare a thought for taxpayers who bailed the system out, some of whom no longer have jobs.”

Vince as usual is absolutely spot on with this and Prince Andrew should keep his nose out of this one and leave it to those who know what they are actually talking about such as Vince Cable and rich people defending even richer people is hardly a great shock!