the corner office

The current outrage about bonuses is standard banker-bashing fare, but the media is also being a bit disingenuous.

On the one hand, of course it would be unfair if people directly responsible for huge bank losses got big bonuses. And the government has every right to add whatever conditions it wants to the bail-outs it's giving.

However, when you get past the headlines to the details, many of the bonuses now being paid are to executives and staff in divisions of banks which were actually generating profits, profits which are offsetting the losses being incurred by toxic divisions. Cutting bonuses to the people responsible for those profits would very likely cause them to leave, leaving the bank worse off than before.

So while some of the bonuses may be unwarranted (and the government has every right to step in and block them at banks it's bailing out), to talk about evil fatcat bankers being rewarded for failure is an oversimplification.

Of course the Browns and Darlings and Camerons and Osbornes of the world know this, so their righteous indignation is simply populist posturing. A pox on all of them.

Most ironic of all though, is that the reason the 'bonus culture' is ostensibly so bad is because it encourages bankers to gamble large sums of money and take extraordinary risks, since they have everything to gain if it pays off and very little to lose if it doesn't.

Yet doesn't that perfectly describe the government's bailouts and stimulus packages?

(and for the record, I think that negative bonuses and incentivisation towards long-term profitability are good things, that should have happened a long time ago. But it's up to shareholders to demand it, not the government).