Follow up on bonus'

Oliver Kamm, who writes a very good blog at The Times has a good post on the issue of bankers bonuses. He suggests that like asset managers, bankers should be paid on a risk adjusted basis.

So if a banker takes a big risk which pays off then he would get paid less than a banker who took less risk but made the same amount of cash. What confuses me is who actually is a banker? Do they mean traders, do they mean M&A advisors? I dont think that the journalists commenting on the crisis actually know themselves.

Which brings me to my favorite journalist de jour, Robert Pestilence, Tosser.

I am sick of his alarmist views been taken so seriously. Fed up. Granted he does a good job of making something complex understood by the masses (in my previous post I mention I dont think that its difficult to learn finance, no one is born a lawyer in the same way no one is born a financier) but in doing so Mr Pestilence diverts the uninformed reader down a very partial view. The Daily Mail does the same thing, they just dont have a clue.

Take for example Mr Pestilence's post on his blog a couple of days ago talking about the Barclays results check out update 2, he gives the alarming impression that something is amiss with Barclays derivative book but then explains it’s because they are reporting a gross not a net position. Which is something different entirely, basically what Barlcays have done is this, I owe Bill Gates $100bn but Melinda Gates owes me $98bn, I have a gross exposure of $198bn alot of money, but I actually only owe $2bn, alot of money still but 1% of what the gross number is, so from a risk perspective you have a totally different view.

If people are claiming that we the people can sack the bankers because we the people own the banks then why on earth cant we sack this idiot? I pay my license fee, I pay his wages. If I had my way he'd be hung drawn and quartered!