As a man of the media I always cringe slightly when a "media storm" begins.
Unless you are one or are married to one, you're unlikely to like fat cats. It's no big deal. Why the surprise?
The storm surrounding ex-RBS chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin's massive pension feeds off this hatred.
I don't think Sir Fred deserves his pension. But rather than saying "that's disgusting" or "grotesque" when hearing he's earning £13.3k per week, we need to answer some pretty tough questions...
- How much of Fred's pension was related to his performance?
- How can the government, which structured the way the City regulates itself, not take more of the blame? Will Tony Blair and Gordon Brown be taking some kind of financial hit? Lord Myners?
- How can somethins as complicated as a credit crunch and the ensuing have such a definite causal link to something that someone did and therefore failed to do well?
- If the bank went bust what would have happened to his pension?
Clearly Lord Myners appears to have messed up in succeeding to stop Sir Fred leaving RBS without any severence pay, but failing to remove the discretionary element of his pension.
It's tempting to start punishing everyone associated with the banking crisis but where do you stop? Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Margaret Thatcher, John Maynard Keynes?
If we're punishing bank workers by withholding bonuses that take their pay from £14k to £15.5k, then why don't we try attribute financial punishment on just about anyone we vaguely think might be to blame.
