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GUARDIAN Mon, 23 Jan 2012 06:58:00 GMT
• Labour leader steps up attack on excessive bank bonuses
• Rachel Reeves wants bonuses taxed to fund jobs for the young
Labour will seek to put the government under greater pressure to tackle bankers' "excessive" bonuses today by calling for the money to be diverted to help unemployed young people.
The party hopes to seize on the controversy of reports that the RBS chief executive Stephen Hester is to receive up to a £1.6m bonus from the government-controlled bank in the same week that a record high of 1.04 million jobless young people was announced.
On Sunday, Ed Miliband called for Hester to be stripped of his bonus altogether. "Taxpayers are still footing the bill for what's happening at the Royal Bank of Scotland," the Labour leader told BBC Radio 5 Live's Pienaar's Politics.
"If responsibility means anything, I don't think he should be getting his bonus. And the prime minister, if he's true to his word, would exercise his responsibility to do something about that."
Rachel Reeves, the shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, speaking before a Labour-led Commons debate this afternoon, said that David Cameron's promises to rein in excessive bonuses have been "just warm words" because multi-million-pound bonuses are to be paid out even at banks where the share price has almost halved.
"There are now a record number of young people out of work, with the number of young people on the dole for more than six months doubling since this time last year," she said.
Ministers should be "compelled" to rethink their economic plans, she said, calling on the coalition to repeat Labour's tax on bank bonuses to fund 100,000 jobs for young people.
"We need a change of course from this government, whose failing economic plan is leading to £158bn more borrowing than planned," she added.
Nick Clegg, the deputy prime minister, also called for an end to big bonus payouts for Hester and other RBS executives, but remained sceptical about reports that the RBS boss was in line for an award of £1.5m. Various figures in excess of £1m were being bandied about yesterday.
"You are asking me about a hypothetical outcome that I don't believe will arise," he told BBC1's The Andrew Marr Show.
He said the government's ability to influence bonus payments at RBS – which is 83%-owned by the government – was "constrained" as a result of contractual arrangements entered into by the last Labour government.
However, he made it clear that ministers expected the overall bonus pool at the bank to be "considerably lower" than it was last year. "We have been very, very clear that in RBS – and, for that matter, in other banks – the bonus pool has got to be considerably lower than it was last year," he said.
"The Bank of England, the Financial Services Authority, are saying exactly the same thing because any money that is spare should, where possible, be used to repair the banks' balance sheets."
Clegg stressed no decisions had been taken yet on the bonuses at RBS. "There has been no agreement yet. There is an arm's-length body, the UKFI (UK Financial Investments), that represents our interests in these decisions and they haven't yet arrived at a decision on the RBS bonuses," he said.
Ed Miliband
Nick Clegg
Executive pay and bonuses
Stephen Hester
Banking
Royal Bank of Scotland
Rajeev Syal
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GUARDIAN Sat, 07 Jan 2012 22:42:04 GMT
Accountants question transparency of financial records kept by former PM's complex web of companies
Unemployment is rising and companies are going to the wall as the economic turmoil continues to inflict damage across the globe. But one organisation is thriving. Records recently filed at Companies House show Tony Blair Inc is going from strength to strength. They reveal that income channelled through a complex network of firms and partnerships controlled by Blair rose more than 40% last year to more than £12m. Of this, almost £10m was paid for "management services". The money was transferred via a network of firms and financial vehicles.
Accountancy experts are questioning the arcane nature of the network's finances, which makes it difficult to trace where its money is coming from, or where it is being spent.
Accounts for Windrush Ventures, an obscure company that operates under the trading name "the Office of Tony Blair", suggest 2011 has been a successful year for the former prime minister. Windrush saw its turnover rise to just over £12m, up from £8.5m in 2010. Pre-tax profits rose from £729,000 to £1.1m.
The accounts reveal that the company received "remuneration of £9,837,000 in connection with management services" from a limited liability partnership ultimately controlled by Blair. In the previous year Windrush Ventures Limited received £5.2m in remuneration for providing management services. Exactly what sort of management services are provided, and how the company derives its income, are impossible to determine as the accounts do not go into detail. Blair is legitimately taking advantage of laws allowing him to limit what his companies and partnerships must disclose. "It is baffling; these accounts make remarkably little sense," said accountancy expert Richard Murphy of Tax Research UK, a firm that scrutinises company finances. "This limited disclosure is not within the spirit of the law. "
Public documents have disclosed that a related financial vehicle, Windrush Ventures No3 LP, received almost $2.5m (£1.6m) from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation in 2008 to fund projects aimed at poverty relief in Sierra Leone. A Sainsbury family charity, the Gatsby Foundation, gave £992,000 in 2010 for charitable projects in Rwanda.
A spokesman for Blair explained the grants were in relation to his Africa Governance Initiative, now registered as a separate, independent charity. He declined to comment on how much, if any, of Windrush's income was derived from private business activities advising heads of state and global corporations. In the past year Blair has advised Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kazakhstan's president, who is reportedly keen to win the Nobel Peace Prize. It also emerged that in 2008 Blair wrote to the then Libyan leader, Colonel Gaddafi, discussing potential African infrastructure investments he should consider. In both cases, his spokesman denied Blair was personally profiting from the discussions.
Blair has been criticised for the way his private and philanthropic activities have appeared to merge. In his role as the Quartet's representative to the Middle East he helped persuade Israel to open up radio frequencies so a telecoms company, Wataniya Mobile, could operate in the West Bank. He also championed the development of a gas field off the coast of Gaza, operated by British Gas.
Both Wataniya Mobile and British Gas are major clients of JP Morgan, the US investment bank that pays Blair £2m a year for his role as a senior adviser. Blair said he had been unaware that both companies were clients of the bank and his spokesman stressed the deals were vital in bringing prosperity to the region.
Windrush Ventures Ltd spent almost £3m on staff, rent and other services but had total administration costs of almost £11m. "Just what is this company doing?" Murphy asked. "You would expect total costs to be around double the costs of employing staff. But in this case total administrative costs are £10.9m. That's a.....
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REUTERS Mon, 21 Nov 2011 17:19:00 GMT
In this panel discussion from The Finance Crisis: Lessons Learned from Canada and the Way Forward, the conversation, moderated by Roger Martin, Dean of the Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, focuses on Canada's performance during the financial crisis and what regulators can take away from its success. Panelists: Michael Horgan, Deputy Minister of Finance of Canada, Sarah Dahlgren, Executive Vice President, Financial Institution Supervision Group, Federal Reserve/NY, Mark Wiseman, Executive Vice-President, Investments, Canada Pension Plan Investment Board and Clay Lowery, former Assistant Secretary for International Affairs, U.S. Treasury.
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 Geithner Plan II - "The biggest travesty of capitalism"
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More on the Geithner Plan. The problem of banks buying the assets from themselves.
The biggest travesty of capitalism with the tax payers being shafted AGAIN.
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I liked this scene from "Der Untergang" so much that I decided to use it again. As if the Aurelian debacle wasn't bad enough, now it's September, 2008 and the sell off in precious metals has...
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Peter Schiff June 26 2008 Fox Business News - Cavuto
YOUTUBE 30-June-2008
A VERY interesting discussion on the US government's manipulation of statistics, the state of the US economy, the level of the markets and how the main stream media takes the side of the...
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