The wrecking of Barclays is organised looting by those at the very top
The way Barclays has been debased to enrich a few hundred of its elite employees is also the story of Britain in recent decades
Barclays' top 238 employees took a total of £1.01bn home last year – or £4.27m each.
…And for the records, lest we forget:
And a few months ago, David Cameron attacked what he called the "dangerous rhetoric … that people in business are out for themselves. We've got to fight this mood with all we've got." And he singled out Barclays for praise for running a large work-experience scheme. The very next week, his Treasury minister demanded the bank close tax-avoidance schemes worth more than £500m
“You'd have learned precious little from watching Bob Diamond in parliament last week – apart, that is, from his love for his former employer. If pressed, you or I might admit to tolerating our jobs, to getting on with colleagues or, at the very least, to taking full advantage of the company stationery supplies. For the multimillionaire banker, however, this would be mere watery equivocation. The firm that had forced him out just the day before was "an amazing place", packed with "wonderful people". And, he told MPs over and over: "I love Barclays."Sadly, no one asked the obvious follow-up: if that's how you treat organisations you admire, what on earth becomes of the ones you dislike? Because since arriving in 1996, Diamond has debased what was a venerable, Quaker-founded high-street institution into something else entirely: a financially precarious outfit with a reputation for dodging taxes and fixing interest rates…
…In fact, the biggest winners from the metamorphosis of Barclays have been Diamond and his investment bankers who – even this year, amid global financial turmoil – took home multimillion-pound bonuses…
…Except the fat cats are very small in number. Barclays has around 140,000 staff – and most of them never see the sort of huge payouts that you usually read about. You probably knew that, but what you might not have realised is just how small a group actually gets the rewards. But look at the last company report: 238 employees are identified as "code staff", 90% of them from BarCap. The code staff took a total of £1.01bn home, or £4.27m each. Compare that with the mere £113m the bank paid in corporation tax in 2009…
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The wrecking of Barclays is organised looting by those at the very top
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/jul/09/wrecking-of-barclays-organised-looting/print