UNISONActive is an unofficial blog produced by UNISON activists for UNISON activists. Bringing news, briefings and events from a progressive left perspective.

Saturday 21 November 2009

To hell in a handcart, via bankers bonuses!‏

Earthly bodies are moving into alignment as the general election draws nearer, the CBI yesterday backed the Tory plan to cut jobs and services in the public sector to pay back government debt. The CBI's backing for Tory economic strategy reflects a reversal in allegiances since last year, when leading business groups lined up with the government against the Tories in advocating a cut in VAT to help people buy more so stimulating the economy.

Now the CBI wants the next government to “grasp the nettle” and make public sector workers pay with their jobs and living standards. They seem to have overlooked that fact that making public sector workers redundant will increase unemployment and make the recession worse.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/0ec8e13e-d54e-11de-81ee-00144feabdc0.html

Surely people haven't forgot that the main reason the government has borrowed was to fund the finance sector and stop the big banks collapsing? A government that borrowed from our pension funds, around 40% of government debt is owed to UK pension funds, to bail put the banks should increase taxes for the banks profits and take the executive bonuses away to repay us back.

And that’s exactly what the SEIU President Andy Stern is arguing over the Goldman Sachs bonuses. At a rally held outside the investment bank offices he called for the executives to repay their $16.7billion bonuses for the sake of the American economy.

“Goldman Sachs seems to salute no flag but their own corporate logo,” said Stern, the president of the 2.1 million-member Service Employees International Union.

The combined bonuses that Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and JP Morgan Chase & Co. are set to hand out will be a record this year. The three biggest banks to exit the government-funded Troubled Asset Relief Program will distribute US$29.7 billion in bonuses, according to analysts' estimates.

Stern said Goldman's executives are “gorging themselves” on bonuses made possible by tax money from working Americans.
http://www.chinapost.com.tw/business/americas/2009/11/18/233270/Goldman-Sachs.htm -

The story is the same in the UK of course. The greatest con trick in history is being played out before our eyes, the banks bought the economy down by excessive lending, we bailed out the banks, now they start the same game again, but walk away with billions in bonuses at the expense of our jobs. All so the government can pay back our pension funds that lent them money in the first place.