Fred Goodwin's pension

[Alan Stubbs]

Sir Fred Goodwin seems to be coming in for a lot of flak for taking his enhanced pension on full.

Is it a good or a bad thing? He showed little or no appreciation of public awareness in his CEO role.

 

Consider this...

 

He waived his right's to a full year's salary last October and took an agreed enhanced penion at the age of 50 (which was current practice at the time).

This was agreed by a Treasury minister, who now says that he didn't realise at the time, that the agreement to pay the enhanced pension rights was 'optional',

or that the differential between a year's salary and his boosted pension rights - to be paid immediately, would be worth so much more than a year's salary.

 

Since the Government were hell-bent on getting a nominal scalp for the calamity of RBS, he was always going to get it with both barrels - there was allegedly

personal animus between Goodwin and the Treasury minister which wouldn't have helped.

 

Irrespective of how clumsily (or perhaps they just lied) the Government handled it, who is to blame for the pension issue? Sir Fred for being sharp enough to

realise how much better off he would be or the Government for being too damned stupid to do due diligence and trying to pressurise him by publishing details

of his pension?

 

I think Goodwin should be stripped of his knighthood - but unless the lawyers can find and prove malfeasance, I can't see any reason why someone, no matter

how loathsome they may be, should be pressured to waive legitimately agreed rights just to save the Government's face.

 

Goodwin has paid for his failure by his public humilation and loss of his post, but I notice not one poltician has fallen on his sword.

 

But you don't expect them to nowadays, do you?

Edited February 28, 2009 by Alan Stubbs

[corydoras]

I think Goodwin should be stripped of his knighthood - but unless the lawyers can find and prove malfeasance, I can't see any reason why someone, no matter

how loathsome they may be, should be pressured to waive legitimately agreed rights just to save the Government's face.

I'm not defending the man, not for one minute, but from a legal point of view, I think that it will be impossible to strip him of his pension. He is 49 or thereabouts, the same age as me. I wish I had had his job, I am sure I could of made just as big a hash at it as he has and I'd settle for a poxy £300,000 PA

[Elton]

There's a certain irony in Brown, and his 'team', claiming that somebody shouldn't be paid because they were crap in their job.

[GlennB]

I wish I had had his job, I am sure I could of made just as big a hash at it as he has and I'd settle for a poxy £300,000 PA

 

That's where you're wrong, Cory. You could have sat in an office surfing the 'net or playing PC games all day long and made less of a hash of it.

 

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I still see business bods defending an ongoing system of grotesque bonuses on the grounds that "if we don't pay up, the expertise will just go elsewhere".

[ColinW]

Compare this greedy, immoral man to Zhang Shuhong, CEO of a Chinese toy factory, who committed suicide when it was found his company had used lead based paint on some of its products.

I think it says a lot about our government that they can't "sort out" one greedy banker. The Russians would have stuck a poisoned umbrella in his leg by now.

[greg long]

That's where you're wrong, Cory. You could have sat in an office surfing the 'net or playing PC games all day long and made less of a hash of it.

 

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I still see business bods defending an ongoing system of grotesque bonuses on the grounds that "if we don't pay up, the expertise will just go elsewhere".

 

Pay them nowt....with a bit of luck they will go elsewhere, with expertise like this who needs imbeciles.

[corydoras]

That's where you're wrong, Cory. You could have sat in an office surfing the 'net or playing PC games all day long and made less of a hash of it.

 

I don't know whether to laugh or cry when I still see business bods defending an ongoing system of grotesque bonuses on the grounds that "if we don't pay up, the expertise will just go elsewhere".

I hate to argue from authority but I spent 5 years working for a major investment bank, so I have an inkling of what the man was paid to do. I might even have made a better job than him. I certainly wouldn't have bought shares or any other instruments in ABN Amro for a start.

[Alan Stubbs]

What was really irking me was the politicians whingeing about a guy who accepted what they offered!

 

The fact that the guy destroyed a company because of his overweening ego and, IMHO, didn't deserve a pension at all, let alone to take it at 50 in full, simply isn't the point. Lord Myners agreed to the early payment of his pension and then said he was unaware that it was optional. So much for competence or due diligence it would appear.

 

Lord Myners, it seems has a bit of a track record here.... There were a pair of Turner watercolours stolen and the Government (i.e. Lord Myners in his role at the time) agreed to pay a fee of £3m to a solicitor acting for the thieves.

The money was handed over and the paintings returned.

 

You have to believe this, because this is what the politician said that Britain did not pay a ransom to retrieve the paintings.

Look, I know it was a coincidence that the paintings were returned after the money was handed over to agents working with the criminals, but yu just have to believe it.

Politicians simply don't lie, it is the truth, I tell you, no ransom was handed over. Lord Myners said so.

Edited February 28, 2009 by Alan Stubbs

[Vagabond]

There's a certain irony in Brown, and his 'team', claiming that somebody shouldn't be paid because they were crap in their job.

 

 

Not only that, but Brown actually encouraged the type of "investment" that has brought the Royal Bank of Scotland to its knees. He told regulators (the FSA) to lay off criticising the banks' "lending spree"

 

Why ? because Income Tax on all those fat-cat bonuses added up to a huge windfall for the Inland Revenue. That's on top of selling our gold reserves at the bottom of the market, and thieving 5 Billion pounds every year from the pension funds.

 

Adds up to legalised embezzlement.

 

Fred is being pilloried for losing 24 billion

 

Gordon has saddled the nation with a TWO TRILLION pound debt - that is nearly 100 times as great as Fred's disaster.

 

That's over £30,000 pounds for everyone in the country (and your future pension will be peanuts, unless your name is Gordon Brown)

 

Its not Fred's pension we should be after, its Gordon's.

[hembo]

Youtube Video ->Original Video

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIpiDETsncI Edited March 1, 2009 by hembo