British bank bosses - are they above the law?

So today while eating my lunch I put the television on. The lunchtime news was showing, and I sat there listening to a piece saying that the British government are asking ex-Royal Bank of Scotland boss Sir Fred Goodwin to give up his £650,000 a year pension after he helped steer the bank to generate the biggest corporate loss in UK history (£34.2bn).

BBC news article

I know that if my business trades while insolvent, then I am breaking the law. RBS haven't just sneaked slightly into their overdraft by the look of that figure.

Now, I appreciate that a pension is a contractual obligation, so he can't be forced to give it up, but somebody please tell me why he isn't being charged as a criminal for the bank's current state.

I'd like to hear everyone's own theories on this. I can't help but feel he's a pawn in a much larger power struggle, and that the super-banks will consume all competition in time, creating an ultimate financial power.

Let's have your comments...!

It just shows how the rich ARE now above the law, and not just in the UK. They can't be made to act decently and hand the money back, or accept fault for the losses. No the blame will be taken by the mid to low level staff in terms of redundancies, wage cuts, and the customers in decreasing interests levels for savers, and increased levels for borrowers. God help those of us feeling the squeeze, there is bailout coming from the government for the person in the street, all we will get are the nasty letters, threats, and court proceedings.

Look where the bailout money has gone. None of it has gone to increase liquidity in the money markets, it's vanished into hospitality for executives, bonuses for executives, pensions for executives.

I think this is part of a larger strategy, to create civil unrest, and then start culling the population. The wealthy will be guarded and insulated from the rest of society while the money runs out, then the power is switched off, two days later you have riots, and then the cull begins. People rounded up into camps from the countryside and the cities walled in. The troops used to do the dirty work will do it out of fear, threats to families if they don't do as they are told, and promises of food and life if they do as they are told.

I used to think I was overly paranoid when all I thought the powerful and wealthy did was to hide the existence of UFO's, it turns out I was never ever paranoid enough.

To use the word Elite I think is wrong, that implies they are better than us, it's proven they are not superior in any way whatsoever other than bank balance, we need a new term to describe their contempt, greed, racism, covetousness, etc for the rest of us.

I know almost all Americans hate socialism, communism, and so on, but don't you think, with the abuse of power we're all suffering at this very moment, that those on the left may have had a point after all? The trouble is things deteriorate very quickly once a politically left leaning government gets elected or takes power.

Perhaps the real question is 'are they above a fist in the face'?

If the Police statement released earlier this week is anything to go by, bankers such as this are going to be "targets" during anticipated civil disturbances later on this year.

Perhaps these fat cats should start spending some of their bonuses and pensions on extra-security and self-defence lessons.

Perhaps the real question is 'are they above a fist in the face'?

I would love to see the elite get a fistful of public opinion

I too would love to know why it seems that not a single person has been in any way held criminally liable for this catalogue of astonishing incompetancies, whilst I have suffered night after night of sleepless nights worrying if I had covered every detail when winding up my poxy £200k t/o ltd company which itself was a victim of these 'merchant bankers'!

You can bet your @rse if I had made the simplest of mistakes they would have been all over me like a rash.

I may soon have to change my ATS mood from cynical to Seriously P1ssed Off.

UK business will just keep paying and paying and paying.

Working harder to keep above debt, then having more taken from us. This really is the beginning of the end for either the monetry system, or those that run it.

I hope the public can find a way to turn this problem around without relying on those that have created this situation, then remove them from future ruling.