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Listed below are comments made by magnetic_monopole between Sunday, 22nd November 2009 and Wednesday, 16th December 2009.

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Bonus tax: Innocents punished? 10:57am on 16 Dec 2009 @ 243. At 10:15am on 16 Dec 2009, Daniel wrote:

... "...note that banks are ruthless and often let people go - of my graduate starting year of 40 only five people still had a job after three years..."

Maybe many of those forty found they were not motivated by this particular career because they realised it was trivial, unsatisfying and morally dubious - and they didn't like the company they were keeping?
Bonus tax: Innocents punished? 10:07am on 16 Dec 2009 @ 131. At 9:36pm on 14 Dec 2009, Objective wrote:

... "I pose to most here, if being in a trader is so easy, why don't you get off your computers and get a job there?"

Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Richard Trevithick, Michael Faraday, Charles Darwin, Florence Nightingale, James Clerk Maxwell, Paul Dirac, Robert Watson-Watt, Reginald Mitchell, Frank Whittle, Alan Turing, Francis Crick, Rosalind Franklin, Tim Berners-Lee ...

So if these people are so clever, how come they weren't stockbrokers, eh?
Bonus tax: Innocents punished? 00:23am on 16 Dec 2009 @ 131. At 9:36pm on 14 Dec 2009, Objective wrote:

... "I pose to most here, if being a trader is so easy, why don't you get off your computers and get a job there?"

Because:

1) We are people who actually place some credence in moral values and their importance to the health of the wider society

2) We would find the nature of the work to be trivial and unsatisfying

3) We are not dazed by the glitter of money

3) We have skills and abilities which are far better employed elsewhere, building enduring shared wealth, health, knowledge and strong communities
Bonus tax: Innocents punished? 00:12am on 16 Dec 2009 @131. At 9:36pm on 14 Dec 2009, Objective wrote:

... "I care little for moral benefit, or moral cost. The cost of a life is fundamentally the net present value of expected earnings, furthermore expenditure in this country. The monetary benefit of one nurse in comparison to that of one trader is the difference between a lake and an ocean. Monetary values are what the world runs on, not "morality". "Don't hate the player, hate the game".

Bach, Mozart - they died as paupers yet their names live forever.

Can anyone name any famous 17th or 18th Century bankers? . . . . . no, I didn't think so . . .
Bonus tax: Innocents punished? 00:06am on 16 Dec 2009 235. At 6:49pm on 15 Dec 2009, Bill Gallagher wrote:

"Maybe some people missed my earlier comment if the constant to and fro re the tax proposals simply continues - removing the UK passport of those who do not pay UK income tax on all their earnings will make bankers and "hedgies" think twice about leaving the UK and maybe just accept the tax regime like the rest of us. This really could work - any thoughts?"

Bill, this is an excellent proposal, as a UK taxpayer and voter I would fully support this. This is in fact the clearest and best idea I have heard in a long time for concentrating people's minds on their rights versus their responsibilities - i.e. if you value the rights you have as a UK citizen then you must contribute your fair share in order to retain and enjoy those rights.
Bonus tax: Innocents punished? 1:02pm on 15 Dec 2009 To quote Robert Peston - "Tullett is a broker which matches buyers and sellers of financial products."

Yes I'm sure they do this very efficiently via the old boy network, and no doubt they are very efficient at creaming off a tasty old slice of the pie for themselves in the process.

I believe that businesses of this nature will soon be superseded by the power of online networking sites - like an "eBay of finance" if you will, thereby somewhat democratising the process and cutting out the middlemen into the bargain.
Bonus tax: Innocents punished? 12:42pm on 15 Dec 2009 The point is that we need to "de-incentivise" our entire financial sector so that people are attracted to careers in genuinely wealth-creating occupations rather than money manipulation in The City. Punitive taxes across the board on this damaging habit are part of the necessary de-incentivisation process, much like taxing the atraction out of cigarettes and alcohol.

Will the last bankers to leave Britain kindly leave the lights on in your offices - there are people with real skills just waiting to step in to them and put them to better use.
RBS board to quit if chancellor vetoes £1.5bn in bonuses 1:53pm on 03 Dec 2009 As a taxpayer and therefore part of the majority shareholding in RBS, I insist that you, Lord Myners, should remove Stephen Hester and the rest of the RBS board from their posts forthwith on grounds of gross misconduct.

You have talked the talk of toughness on irresponsible bankers Lord Myners, now let us see you walk the walk.

Following the removal of the RBS board, you should then resign your own post Lord Myners as a matter of principle, accepting that you made a serious error of judgement in allowing the appointment of Mr Hester in the first place, a man who clearly has no intention of implementing the necessary reforms in banking practices.

Your government Lord Myners will be removed by the electorate at the next opportunity for its mismanagement of the economy over more than a decade, however at least you have the chance to be remembered as a public servant of some honesty and integrity if you follow though the above actions.
Bad in Japan 5:10pm on 02 Dec 2009 The fact is that in Britain and the rest of the developed world we are going to gradually have to come to terms with the fact that our living standards are going to level out with the rest of the world. We are no longer going to enjoy stratospherically greater material wealth than the majority of people on the planet.

Well, we've had it pretty good for what, the last 500 years or so - that's not a bad old run is it really?
Three-way on the MPC 10:08pm on 22 Nov 2009 So maybe it's time to actually give some serious consideration to doing things differently, here's a link to a fascinating article by Andrew Simms in The Guardian:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/nov/17/questions-new-world

In it he considers some intriguing and highly pertinent questions such as:

"Why does Britain import the same number of chocolate waffles as it exports?"

"Why do modern Britons work harder than medieval peasants?"

"Why do fewer people vote when there is a Wal-Mart nearby?"

"Why are Cuban mechanics the best in the world?"

"Why did an apparently poor Pacific island hit the top of the Happy Planet Index?"

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