Banker’s bonuses, 12.05pm Jeremy Vine, BBC Radio 2, Today
December 7th, 2009
You can hear Jeremy Vine, Mike Warburton and me discussing the subject live at 12.05
Which means I’d better scarper to Cambridge studio now.
UPDATE:
Available to listen to here (12.05, about 6 minutes into the programme) http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00p6tdq/Jeremy_Vine_07_12_2009/
You did really well Richard. I doubt there will be many sympathisers with Mike Warburton’s position outside the banking sector itself. He was effectively arguing that the UK should tax bankers as lightly as possible when times are good and then give them as much money as possible to bail them out when times are bad. One doesn’t need to be an economic genius to work out that this creates an incentive for bankers to gamble as recklessly as possible in the knowledge that the taxpayer will always bail them out. It’s a crazy approach - and I think the UK public understands that at a fundamental level.