Its remuneration Jim ... but not as we know it

Bonus+bankers = bonkers

Information researched by some of my masters degree students has revealed an even more astonishing picture of rapacity among senior staff working for large banks than I had previously recognised.

Three Masters students -- Emma Rickards, David Whincup and Yvonne Frimpong -- trawled through recent newspaper reports to gather evidence about the bonus culture for an assignment I had set.

What they found was that bonuses paid to staff greatly out-weighed the pre-tax profits declared by some companies In three of the companies the bonus payments that managers awarded themselves were over three times the amounts that were declared as pre-tax profits.

In other words the amount paid to shareholders through dividends and to the state through taxes were one quarter collectively of what they managers appropriated for their cut. So much for the principal and agent theory. So much for the primacy of shareholders. So much shareholder value-added. So much for shareholders being the owners of a business.