Match a bonus
Banker quotes Marx/Mike Licht/flickr
I’ve got a great new scheme to help bankers as their bonuses loom and they realise that they’ve exhausted the possibilities offered by the Financial Times’s How to Spend it supplement. This new scheme is a brilliant investment opportunity – in the future of our country. Yet it could still leave a lot of change over for those hell-bent on going shopping.
All they have to do is match the amount of their bonus, or a handy fraction of it, to the cost of a service a local authority or charity is having to cut and give them the money! It’s a bit like bingo, with bankers instead of Mecca giving out the prizes. The benefits far outweigh the drawbacks, as I think you’ll agree from the following analysis of the pros and cons.
Pros
£ In twenty years’ time there will be lots of people who would otherwise have had communications/ mobility/health problems who could be gainfully employed rather than reliant on the state.
£ Bankers still get all the kudos of getting and being seen to get a bonus, and the frisson of speculation about the size of theirs compared to everyone else’s.
£ The scheme neatly detours the dread spectre of taxation as the mechanism of redistribution, as, unlike the Scandis, we do not seem to take this to our national bosom, whether we’re in the supertax bracket or not.
£ Last, and by no means least, they will have improved the lives of a lot of people in a very direct and tangible way.
Cons
£ They might not be able to afford that second yacht.
£ There is a reputational risk of being seen as a lovable old softie!
You may have spotted that there is a rather glaring objection to the scheme that can be summed up in one word: sustainability. What happens in subsequent years, should a given banker fail to receive a bonus? Well, this is where the move to give bankers part of their bonus as shares provides a solution, as if these are handed over to the local authorities, charities, etc. they will have them in perpetuity – a welcome additional source of income, despite a degree of fluctuation.
So let me appeal to all you bankers out there, Billy Graham style: who will come on down and pledge their bonuses to the following services?
£ BUDGET BUY! Just £170k could save Stoke-on-Trent’s lollipop ladies and gents from proposed redundancy and ensure the safety of children at 40 schools (you could be preventing huge surgical and orthopaedic costs, not to mention a whole lot of grief and pain).
£ Just £217,386 to North Ayrshire Council could restore speech and language therapy services to 400 children for two years.
£ For those in the CEO bracket: £700k would restore Derbyshire’s mobile library services.
With a live audience, it could make for great Saturday night TV.
And if we can get this under way, overpaid footballers next?