£693,000 a year is what Sir Fred Goodwin is getting from his RBS pension.* That works out at a shade over £13,300 each week. By comparison, Blackpool Council has just advertised for an administrator to work in their social services department (a pretty important role to my mind given how often it turns out administration has gone wrong when a tragic case comes to light). It will be paying around the same with only two small differences. What Sir Fred gets each week, the administrator gets a year – and Sir Fred doesn’t have to do anything for his money.
* By the way, am I the only one to suspect that, given he’s had other jobs in his life, quite possibly his full pension arrangements come to rather more than even that figure?
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13 Comments
The gap between rich and poor is an indictment on our society. But it’s a bit late for the government to recognise that – and picking up Goodwin seems to be unfair: http://blog.matthewcain.co.uk/government-bullying-fred-the-shred/
Well, until very recently we were told that people like Sir Fred need to be paid lots and lots of money, enough to buy a nice big house every year, because they’re very clever, or they work very hard, or they “create wealth” or whatever. Anyone who questioned these assumptions would be dismissed as some sort of nasty socialist who wanted to return to the 1970s when dead bodies lay about the streets etc etc.
I do not notice any politicians stepping forward to say “When I said things like ‘we’re relaxed about people getting filthy rich’ I was wrong, and I apologise”.
Whilst i accept it is fashionabel to attack people who make money – can i point out something.
We all have credit cards, Mortgages, Over Drafts, car loans, Pensions, investments etc etc. When the economic system is successful the complaint are minor – yet blaming one man because ‘Pop’ Eocnomics identifeis him as resonsible is silly.
The rating of comapnies, assessment of risk, capital inflows and return expectations are all protfolios that CEO’s dont have direct resposnbility. Yes thye are somewhat responsible – becasue they are CEO but his pension is based upon his activities over the last decade (if not longer). I dont see us docking trade union members pesnions for the industrial strife of the 1970’s, so why assume that because ‘he has money he is evil’
We all benefited from the boom, we will all suffer from the bust – questioning how the system works or how it went wrong is fine. But simply vilifiying people wont create solutions.
The man should keep his bloody pension – and if people dont like it, dont bank with his bank.
I think we half-agree Matthew: it was certainly odd looking at the news this morning and seeing one politician demand that a retired employee be stripped of his retirement terms and another demanding more powers for the Bank of England to regulate. One was a Conservative and the other Labour, but they weren’t the way round you’d have expected a couple of years ago…
But on your point, I think the answer is to criticise more of them, rather than to criticise none.
Did I miss the post last year when you calculated how many public jobs could be paid for by the billions of pounds of corporation tax the banks were paying on their profits?
Of course the taxes paid by banks making short-term profits do not make up for the long-term costs to the country of the incompetence of banking leaders.
And the taxes paid by banks also need to contribute to the costs borne by the country of providing the education, healthcare, welfare, defence and regulation which they need to have supplied for their employees and customers.
Well said, Ben. Although it is always amusing to see Politics Of Envy writ large, in any practical way reducing his pension will not add one penny to anyone else’s income, savings, whatever. This particular alligator is dead; it’s time to get back to draining the swamp.
The issues here are things like:
1) To what extent are jobs with pay like this really open to anyone, and to what extent are they a “closed shop” where you have to be in a certain clique to have them?
2) To what extent is what they reward really “wealth creation” and to what extent is it people in the closed shop being able to tap off wealth that they in their fortunate position just sit on the pipelines of as it flows?
3) To what extent is the wealth these people have really causing zero-harm to anyone else as the “you are just envious” line suggests? I mean such things as that it is often used to buy extensive housing, and housing is limited, it cannot be created to demand.
4) To what extent is the wealth created really benefiting this country, and to what extent is it having a long-term negative effect?
5) To what extent does the very high payments given for jobs like this distort the economy, leading to a loss of the best minds for other sectors?
6) To what extent are the rewards structures for these jobs creating a perverse incentive whose effects we are now seeing?
7) To what extent should the effect of mistakes made by people in these jobs be shared out so that others do not suffer for them?
OK Ben I will be off to the Co-op Bank as soon as I can.
It is no good continually moaning at these profligate banks, and then continuing to give them your custom. Anon above is right; there are alternatives offering full banking facilities inc the Coop, building societies, Tridos etc.
Yes:
Myners messed up, with Brown’s agreement. This whole thing is a massive smokescreen. Of course the pension is stupidly big. It should never have been agreed to.
Fred took the deal on the table and went quietly. He signed a contract that was approved by the Govt minister in order to go.
Asking him to go back on that contract now is one thing. For the Govt to use this as a smokescreen for the other issues it’s covering are another entirely.
Myners, and probably Brown, should go. That’s the issue. Trying to overturn a contract is to completely go against the rule of law.
No thanks.
To answer the question, £693,000 a year is exactly £11,000 a year less than what Mr Goodwin is actually getting (IIRC).