OK Keith...
"Your article (Barclays to reveal pay rates - with up to 600 staff earning over £1m, 26 February) repeats the ludicrous perception of the Financial Services Authority as stated in its remuneration code that there are employees of banks who are responsible for taking risks. Bankers are not responsible for taking risks (unless they are members of a partnership) - they create them, and then generally seem to benefit, often excessively, if such risks turn out to be profitable. This is not capitalism (where the profits generated by the use of capital accrue to the owners of such capital, ie shareholders), but (bloated) "executivism".
As a member of a remuneration committee of a small authorised institution, I have found myself a lone voice in opposition to a new medium-term bonus plan for "senior executives" that is based upon their benefiting from just such strategies, with of course those employees not in such lofty positions (but whose efforts are required to achieve success) receiving only (modest) annual bonuses. Apparently the former group needs incentives and rewards, but the other does not. My citing my personal memories, and for the last 30 years close experience, of every banking crisis since the early 1970s was not sufficient to persuade my fellow directors of the dangers and inappropriateness of such a plan.
Name and address supplied
http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2013/mar/03/bankers-bonuses-healthy-losses
Use the above link to access the article referred to.