undyingking | Bonus ball

There's been a lot of talk in the press lately about whether we should have got our bonuses, given the financial difficulty the bank's been in, and the part-nationalization. I think most of it is people not really knowing what they're talking about, to be frank.

I'm awarded that bonus based on my own performance, and actually I performed pretty well, thank you. I made the bank money consistently. It's not my fault if overall the business lost money, is it? Why should I have to suffer just because a bunch of extreme factors elsewhere in the world poisoned our assets? I earned every penny of that bonus, and no-one can say different.

In any case, to even call it a bonus is misleading. In reality it's an agreed part of my overall remuneration package, and of course it's a lot more significant than my basic is. How could anyone survive in London on their basic? It's just not do-able: you couldn't get anyone to work in the City at all if they weren't guaranteed a decent bonus. And the UK needs the City to be strong and to continue to employ the best and the brightest: that's obvious.

The other thing of course is that to recover the overall economy, we need people to be spending. If people like me had their package cut so severely, we wouldn't be able to spend the money that's going to keep other people in jobs. Service and consumer goods industries depend on there being some people around who can buy things from them. My bonus means I can buy more, therefore it's good for the economy. Simple!