Bankers Bonus'

Recently the limelight has been focused on bankers bonus'. After the failure of many of the banks and the subsequent money from the "bail-outs" the banks have been under great scrutiny. This has shown the amount of money that the banks are paying out in bonus' annually to their staff, people see the size of the bonus bill and are outraged by its size especially as they are loosing their jobs and struggling to pay their bills, added to this that the banks have "failed" it seems these people are being "rewarded for failure".

However I believe a number of points need to be made when people consider their view on these bonus'.  Firstly the practice of having a small (relatively) and a large bonus in banking has been going on for years. A fair point to make here is that they haven't been loosing our money for years! Secondly we have to be careful not to pigeon hole all "bankers" together, do we consider everyone who works for a bank a "banker", and therefore no bankers should be given a bonus this year! Should the person who is behind the counter who counts your cash, or the receptionist at the bank headquarters or those that are just processing data not get a bonus. After all they haven't lost any money. 

Thirdly, if we say okay those people that are just doing "normal" jobs i.e. those that aren't making decisions about money, those that aren't investing the money, do we want all "banker" (people who ARE making decisions about out money or are investing it) not to have bonus'. Royal Bank or Scotland, a bank now owned over 70% by the tax payers, employes 177 000 people, of which only 500 made losses, leaving well over 176 000 people who made a profit, should these not get bonus'?

At a time when people are loosing their jobs and struggling to pay their bills it is no wonder that they are annoyed by this issue of bankers' bonus's and it's understandable. However the banking and financing industry is one that drives our economy, if we start dropping the wages payed then these talented people (and the are there just a number of them in the city are not talented and have made grave mistakes) will just go else where. Should failure be rewarded? No of course not, those five hundred people I mentioned who made a lose in RBS, shouldn't be aloud anywhere near bonus's, in fact they should be fired. Should the bosses of these banks, who gave such an un-heartfelt apology to the House of Commons, be given bonus's, no of course not, they sanctioned these actions. However should the hundreds of thousands of other people who work in the bank get bonus's? Well if they brought in a profit, whether it be just the cashier in the local high street bank or the investment banker who brought in £100 million profit, then why not?