Snouts in the troughs

I'm sure I'm not the only conservative disgusted by this.

BANKERS at four City firms have collected bonuses of more than £6.4billion this year, despite the worst financial crisis since 1929, it emerged yesterday.

While the rest of the country struggles under the ravages of the recession, London-based traders at Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch and Dresdner Kleinwort have been notified of their bumper payouts.

As someone who supports a capitalist economy I recognise that it is right to reward employees who perform well, but this smacks of greed and ignorance of the worst kind. I suspect that at the heart of it is a culture of "making hay while the sun shines".

In other words, rather than moderate the outrageous behaviour of the last ten years which has seen the banking system pushed to the brink of collapse, those at the top of the industry are getting themselves one last good snort around the trough before the regulators come in to spoil their fun.

Millions of people are going to suffer appalling hardship over the coming months and years primarily because of the appalling mismanagement of the banking industry and this government, but the really annoying thing is that none of those who are actually responsible for getting us into this mess will be among them.