imi Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7917361.stm Whats the deal with the above story? Whats with all this discussion of change of law, etc in order to stop him from keeping his pension? Whats with all this coverage on mere change compared to the larger Sh..t that we find ourselves in with businesses closing on a daily basis and the UK being 1.5 trillion pounds in debt? Perhaps I am missing something here....discuss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TLicense Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 I don't think he should have to give it back. Who ever authorised it to start with should be dragged in and be forced to explain why they thought it was acceptable. Who determines what is too much? What do people on here think is an acceptable amount? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnny g Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 I don't think he should have to give it back. Who ever authorised it to start with should be dragged in and be forced to explain why they thought it was acceptable. Who determines what is too much? What do people on here think is an acceptable amount? I agree there. It's also going to set a precedent, if they allow a change in the law - everyone will be examined and you'll see pensions change and offer the same, but in different ways. If you were on a £700k pension, would you give it up? I wouldn't. He's had a contract of employment, which is he's honoured - so why should he give it back? The Government are only saying all this purely because the banking industry are in the s**t and are seen as THE public enemy and are in the public eye at the moment. It's been sensationalised to the n'th degree. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RiceRocket Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 I wonder what his pension pot would've been if he had made £24bn profit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
colsoop Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 Because they are trying to divert attention away from their original mistake with the original documents. The fact that the mans pension was there in plain old english and the powers that be who viewed it decided that was ok but now its in the p[ublic domain and there is a massive outcry the government feels compelled to act Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
The Restorer Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 Wasn't he pushed out of RBS losing quite a bit of salary and dividends in the process. The only thing he managed to hold on to was his pension and imo he should be allowed to keep it. It is shit of the government to put all this pressue on just one person. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snake Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 Brown will still get a good pension what ever happens so all is well. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TLicense Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 I wonder what his pension pot would've been if he had made £24bn profit Quite! In 2007 they posted £9bn in profit. The year before they posted £7bn. OK they've made significant losses in 2008, but I now they've off-loaded their toxic debt, I imagine they'll either make only a small lose or a profit for this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 And it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in. Er, excuse me? So by that logic we should all dust off our pitch forks ?!? Considering what Gordon Brown did in '97 I find all this rather amusing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevie_b Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 I don't think we know all the facts about this. I've read somewhere that Goodwin relinquished the last xx months of his salary as some kind of goodwill gesture in recognition of his bank going t*ts-up. According to Goodwin, he asked the government if he needed to do any more in terms of gestures. The government allegedly said "no", believing that his pension was legally binding and couldn't be taken from him. It later turns out that his pension could have been taken from him, but by that stage he had already taken early retirement IIRC. This version of events seems to indicate the the govt were incompetent when they were evaluating whether Goodwin's pension could be taken from him or not. If Goodwin is drawing his pension already (having taken early retirement), I find it hard to imagine what the govt can legally do about it. I thought that once you start to draw the thing, it's pretty much protected. No doubt the govt will come across yet again as pious pr*cks: a mixture of "holier than thou" and "Disgusted of Westminster". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lbm Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 I guess if you run a bank well and you make billions for it, award yourself a few million. If you run a bank badly and lose billions- award yourself a few million. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guigsy Posted March 1, 2009 Share Posted March 1, 2009 What sickens me is that people on pensions who have worked hard all there lives probably down pits, mines, making steal etc are probably struggleing to pay heating bills during the winter. Yet this guy... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TLicense Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 What sickens me is that people on pensions who have worked hard all there lives probably down pits, mines, making steal etc are probably struggleing to pay heating bills during the winter. Yet this guy... I'm not sure where you were going with that? Are you saying that he just didn't deserve it on the basis that other people who chose other career paths are struggling? I've not looked far enough back to be able to say for sure, but I imagine he made more money for the bank than he lost. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JustGav Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 If they are going to take his pension, shouldn't they take a portion of EVERYONES pension at the bank who played a part in the losses.... this would include all the actuaries, cashiers, analysts.....that would make it more fair then wouldn't it? It sets a bad precedent if the government can just willy nilly pick which contracts they want to honour... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
keener Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 The guy has a legally binding contract that has been examined and holds up. I think it's totally obscene - don't get me wrong - and I wish there was a way of not allowing him to take it (and probably many other fat bankers who will not only 'retire' but take up another very well paid job somewhere else). However, as previously stated, whoever set up the contract needs examining first. If I was in Fred the Shred's position I'd probably say 'stuff off, it's in my contract too' - fair play for him negotiating such a good contract in the first place. Again I stress I think it's indefensible now though. The government, and by government I mean Harriet Harman on Sunday a.m. tv, now saying it's morally wrong and wrong in the eyes of the public and that's where the government steps in, is just plain stupid. If she's saying that legally binding contracts can be looked at by the government and potentially changed if they don't like them a very dangerous precedent will be set. I wonder if she took careful legal advice before making that statement? Can open - worms everywhere!!! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soop Dogg Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 And it might be enforceable in a court of law, this contract, but it is not enforceable in the court of public opinion and that is where the government steps in. I wonder what the 'Court of Public Opinion' would say about her claiming that her family house in Gloucs. is actually her 2nd home so that she can claim £116K/year for it whilst claiming her main place of residence is at her sisters house in London? I reckon she's worse that Mr Goodwin! (Just my opinion, of course) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Scoboblio Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 IMO it hangs on what would've happened to his pension if the governent hadn't bailed them out, and the bank fell. There's a lot of pitch fork waving from people who simply don't like the idea that someone's got more money than them, and will relish any opportunity to have it taken away from him. BUT... if he would've lost his pension if it wasn't for the intervention from the taxpayer, I'd find it hard to feel sympathy for the guy because he's crafted his own downfall. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevie_b Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 I wonder what the 'Court of Public Opinion' would say about her claiming that her family house in Gloucs. is actually her 2nd home so that she can claim £116K/year for it whilst claiming her main place of residence is at her sisters house in London? I reckon she's worse that Mr Goodwin! (Just my opinion, of course) That quote from Harriet Harman is completely mad: she was stupid to say that IMO. The law is the law, and the govt shouldn't be above it, no matter what public opinion says. The fact that things could be decided according to what the populus thinks, given the apparent capacity of most people to think clearly, quite frankly worries me. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matt H Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Wow, personally, i don't want the guy taking a pension pot of £16m home while the country suffers because of his lavish lending methods. But i quess a proportion of his pension comes from the idiots on here that think it's acceptable so if you want to pay him for his mistakes then that's your choice. There is only one executive of the banks that deserves his lavish pension and that's because he runs the only bank that didn't lend irresponsibly.... the other bank leaders thought he was an idiot Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
penguin Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Wow, personally, i don't want the guy taking a pension pot of £16m home while the country suffers because of his lavish lending methods. But i quess a proportion of his pension comes from the idiots on here that think it's acceptable so if you want to pay him for his mistakes then that's your choice. There is only one executive of the banks that deserves his lavish pension and that's because he runs the only bank that didn't lend irresponsibly.... the other bank leaders thought he was an idiot but then if you take the guys pension (regardless of his success/failure) after it's been contractually accepted, will that not set in motion another axe against the average worker? lets not blame just this one guy, he is the decision maker at the top - decisions based on advice and statistics from minions beneath him. Directors tend never to get involved in day to day operations. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
stevie_b Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Wow, personally, i don't want the guy taking a pension pot of £16m home while the country suffers because of his lavish lending methods. But i quess a proportion of his pension comes from the idiots on here that think it's acceptable so if you want to pay him for his mistakes then that's your choice. But if he's entitled to it by law, then there's not much anyone can do about it. I don't like it any more than anyone else does, I think it stinks, but as has been mentioned in this thread already, the person to blame would either be the RBS lawyers who allowed the contract to say "Sir Fred will receive a massive pension, irrespective of how the company performs" (if that is indeed what the contract said), or the govt lawyers who allegedly mistakenly thought it was legally binding when actually it wasn't. You can't take away pensions because "it's just not right, goddammit". You need something a little more concrete than that. And I don't think Harman's "court of public opinion" cuts it, even though I agree with the sentiment. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RedM Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 What we need is a good old celebrity swearing scandal or a 'celebrity insults old man, the PM, truckers' type debacle to take our collective minds off of this. That way he can keep his pension, the Govt won't have to do anything and we can all be morally outraged about something else for a bit. Maybe if Saint Jade hurries up and snuffs it we'll all be told that we're too upset to worry about a piffling pension. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Soop Dogg Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 But if he's entitled to it by law, then there's not much anyone can do about it. I don't like it any more than anyone else does, I think it stinks, but as has been mentioned in this thread already, the person to blame would either be the RBS lawyers who allowed the contract to say "Sir Fred will receive a massive pension, irrespective of how the company performs" (if that is indeed what the contract said), or the govt lawyers who allegedly mistakenly thought it was legally binding when actually it wasn't. You can't take away pensions because "it's just not right, goddammit". You need something a little more concrete than that. And I don't think Harman's "court of public opinion" cuts it, even though I agree with the sentiment. What the govt are now talking about is changing laws retrospectively to try to turn around an event that has already happened so that the outcome is what they wanted in the first place. I think that if they succeed with this, it sets a VERY dangerous precedent about which we should all be worried. I don't like the principal of this bloke getting such a huge payout following failure of the bank, so to refer to 'all the idiots on here that think it's acceptable' is perhaps misrepresenting what many are really trying to say. What I do think is that the measures should have been put in place to ensure that a director residing over such a spectacular failure should not be rewarded and that those measures are made clear and unambiguous from the start. The real idiots that I have seen in the last week are those in government who have tried to bully this bloke into giving back the money, using nothing more that threats that they'll do this, that and the other when in fact they may well have no legal ground on which they can compel him to do so. After the way the PM and his cronies have behaved over this, the more egg that ends up on the governments face over this, the louder I'll laugh! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marbleapple Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 What we need is a good old celebrity swearing scandal or a 'celebrity insults old man, the PM, truckers' type debacle to take our collective minds off of this. That way he can keep his pension, the Govt won't have to do anything and we can all be morally outraged about something else for a bit. Maybe if Saint Jade hurries up and snuffs it we'll all be told that we're too upset to worry about a piffling pension. Brilliant, witty and 100% accurate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TLicense Posted March 2, 2009 Share Posted March 2, 2009 Wow, personally, i don't want the guy taking a pension pot of £16m home while the country suffers because of his lavish lending methods. But i quess a proportion of his pension comes from the idiots on here that think it's acceptable so if you want to pay him for his mistakes then that's your choice. There is only one executive of the banks that deserves his lavish pension and that's because he runs the only bank that didn't lend irresponsibly.... the other bank leaders thought he was an idiot The other portion will come from the idiots who can't see the bigger picture. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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