Bankers got carte blanche on pay and a free pass on lending. We got six pages of nothing

[cory777]

Source: Guardian

It took almost as much strife, bickering, bluff and bluster as a strategic nuclear disarmament treaty. But the outcome of four months of secret-squirrel discussions between Britain's banks and the government, Project Merlin, was a hopeless pamphlet of platitudes.

In a flimsy six-page document presented by George Osborne to the House of Commons, the so-called "big four" – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds and RBS – plus Spanish-owned Santander declared that they "understand the public mood and have responded". How they must have sniggered when they penned that.

Banking, at its core, is the art of negotiation, and outgoing Barclays boss John Varley, who led talks for the City, comprehensively outwitted the Treasury mandarins across the table. Let's remember what the public wanted: an increase in capital loans to small and medium-sized businesses to help them out of the recession, and a shrinkage in corpulent, telephone-number-sized City bonuses.

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Meanwhile, the Square Mile has given up virtually nothing on bonuses, which are likely to top £6bn this year, except to say that they will be lower than last year – which was already inevitable, since a slowdown in deals has cut investment banking profits. They've promised that a "significant proportion" of payouts will be in shares, which was already required under European guidelines, and they'll disclose how much their top five executives are earning – although "executives" are defined to exclude big-earning traders. Even the City's house newspaper, the Financial Times, said the banks had offered "remarkably little", swallowing only a relatively paltry £800m increase in tax.

Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/feb/13/bank-bonus-deal-project-merlin-george-osborne

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[msongs]

1. nothing? Ha! you got stuck with the bill nt

[russspeakeasy]

2. Actually, my grandkids got stuck with the bill.

[Sherman A1]

3. Precisely

They get the mine and we get the shaft.....