Rant 28 - 28/1/12 Subject: Fat Cat Bonuses

Rant number 28


There has been plenty of talk about this subject over the last couple of days, and it makes my blood boil (and pretty much everyone I knows blood boil for that matter.)

Fat cat bonuses.

Essentially taking someone that gets paid a fuck load of money to start with (generally over a million pounds per annum) and giving them the same amount of money in bonuses each year.

When it comes down to it, this is always going to be quite annoying to us on the bottom couple of rungs of the ladder, particularly as their bonuses come to around 90% of their overinflated salaries(and the day when I receive a 90% bonus for my wage is the day when Lucifer invests in some ice skates to get to work.)

But they do have a difficult job to do don't they? and all the rest of us apparently don't...

Because - the crux of the matter is that, you just don't get into these type of jobs without being the right type of person, born in the right background, educated at the right university and with just the right contacts.

Those with ensure that their sons and daughters have too. Its an old rule that will stand for as long as society continues.

This aside, it just seems odd that the buggers who got us into recession - seem to be completely recession proof.

Now this weeks particular issue - puts me in a particularly bad mood.

Stephen Hester.

Stephen Hester is currently the Chief Executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland: A bank of which you - the taxpayer - own around 82%.

Stephen's wage is a generous 1.2million pounds - enough to get by I think.

Despite this, the bank in question (the one you are all shareholders in remember) have decided to award him a bonus of £963,000 pounds for doing his job so well.

The thing is, as I see it - his reward for doing his job very well, is surely his seven figure salary to start with? There are people out there would would not earn that kind of money in 100 years of working. With the bonus as well, most of us wouldn't manage it in a 100 years either.

So how is that fair?

Many people are struggling. We are in a recession after all - but people are being given more money than you are likely to ever see every year - extra.

Remember once again - that this is the bank we had to bail out!

The government of course are not going to intervene. As I said - the rich look after the rich - doing the right thing would be horribly frowned upon.

At least, by all reports Stephen was good as his job to deserve his ridiculous bonus.

Often, bonuses are unconditional - regardless of performance in order to retain valuable staff.

Come again? I don't quite understand that!

Surely, if someone loses the company money, he deserves kicking out the door - not rewarding.

The whole thing makes me so angry!

Rant over.

Rant 4 - 4/1/12 Subject: The injustice of justice

Rant Number 4

I didn't have to think a great deal about todays rant. 

It came to me early this morning whilst I was practicing my early morning ritual.

After rising from the bed and fetching my clothes, I like to watch the news and find out what's going on with the world, the weather and the traffic.

Rarely does the news at this time of day move me terribly. In my half awake state - it is hard to rouse me from my stupor, and the news at this time is generally by necessity quite light.

Not so this morning

Stephen Lawrence was a name that was thrown around a lot when I was a child, on the news, in newspapers and in the conversations of everyone around me.

An unlucky boy walked along the wrong street at the wrong time, met 5 deplorable pieces of human filth and was stabbed to death and left to die. This was not a unique case in a time when racial tension was rife however, the way that the police dealt with the initial investigation (badly) and the dignity with which Stephen's parents tried to salvage some good from this tragic loss - to publicise a more equal britain made this case unique.

19 years have passed by now and finally, evidence has been produced in order to punish two of these five appalling and disgusting individuals.

A time for justice then surely?

Not quite

My anger you see is not only directed today at these two scum, but at the authorities insistence on finding ways to lessen the punishments handed down to them.

You see, despite the fact that these men are 35 & 36 respectively (bear in mind my friends that this is at the very least 17 years more than poor Stephen ever got) and that 18 years have passed now since that tragic day back in 1993 - they are to be tried as minors - meaning that a cushier sentence can and 'must' be handed out. As such only a sentence of 14 & 15 years respectively has been given to these persons. 

The judge's hands were of course 'tied' by legal president and red tape, as even Stephen's poor mother admitted. 

Which makes it all OK doesn't it?

NO!

At the very least, surely additional charges for wasting policing time, perverting the course of justice or something could have been added, or an exception made in light of the situation?

I am disgusted that something more can not be done. 15 years is not enough after leaving that poor family without any form of closure for all this time.

The Lawrence's sentence really is for life - a loss that is like a raw wound every time this story surfaces.

More should be done, more could be done - but nothing more will be done.

The whole thing makes me livid.

Rant over.