At Barclays, chief executive John Varley earned £3m last year. But that package was eclipsed by that of Bob Diamond, who runs the City arm of the bank. His basic pay for 2007 was £250,000, but his total pay including bonuses and shares was £21m, and in January he got a cheque from another incentive scheme for £14.8m. Diamond's pay is only known because he recently joined the board, but there are others earning huge rewards who stay hidden - such as Roger Jenkins, who runs Barclays' Middle East operations and is said to have earned at least £40m last year.And this is what Tesco's would look like, if they remunerated their workers in the same way:
The pay packets the government now wants to restrict are far from rare. An estimated 4,000 City workers last year got bonuses of £1m or more and total bonuses were more than double that as thousands more banked bumper payouts.
The salary structures in investment banks look less like those of other businesses and more like those of Premier League football clubs, where most of the cash coming in goes straight into players' pockets, with the biggest stars getting the largest slice. Around 50% of bank revenues are paid out in salaries and bonuses. If Tesco did the same, its 430,000 staff would each earn more than £100,000.Investment banks and their practices have brought us to our knees. It's not enough to assert:
The government may have no concrete plans about how it will rein in the pay of bank bosses - and curbing the cash paid out to those below the most senior levels will be even more challenging.We need those plans and we need them fast. These examples of bad capitalism are a toxic waste we need to dispose of - as soon as we possibly can.
Unless, of course, we do, after all, want to learn from their example - and apply it to the wider population.
How does a minimum wage of a hundred grand sound then?
Very nicely indeed, my friend.
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