DO BANKERS REALLY DESERVE THEIR HIGH REWARDS?

Right wing politicians and the press are quick to  accuse anyone criticising the high earner with the label of jealousy, ignorance and envy. They are adamant that in 21st century Britain, only  those who are prepared to work harder or are more talented could receive higher rewards. 

However, if this was true then the question would be how could an average salary of a senior banker be as much as ten times more than a nurse? Do they really work ten times harder or are they ten times more talented?

 It’s difficult to justify their high salary with the number of hours they work. Many nurses do more hours and are arguably doing a more difficult and worthwile  job. So it must be because of their talent that these bankers earn such high rewards.

Given the fact however that bankers’ many mistakes resulted in one of the biggest financial crises  known to man kind, it's difficult to argue that bankers are more talented or deserve their higher rewards. Below is a good example of bankers’ inability to control costs and squandering of other people's money.

One of the UK’s leading banks lent £2.5 million to the owner of two small hotels in the south of England. They then decided to call in their loan and put these two hotels into administration. Our "talented bankers" - without any negotiation or bargaining - decided to appoint a large expensive team to sell these two hotels.

 Recently, the hotels were sold for  £1,015,000. After the deduction of absorbent administrator's fees, the agent's commission and other expenses, the bank received £36,000. This equates to less than 2% of the original loan amount. 

In most other industries the people responsible for this fiasco would lose their jobs. In banking, they probably get promoted. After all, these bankers have shown results by successfully removing two non-performing hotels from their books. 

The fact that the bank lost so much money and paid fees that in any stretch of the imagination was not appropriate, does not seem that important. It's not worth getting upset over.   

The reality is that there are many in the banking and other industries that do not deserve their high rewards but continue to make easy and excessive money. Whilst in the same country  an increasing number of hard working, talented people such as nurses, police officers and teachers struggle to have a decent standard of living.To many the idea of fairness and the notion that in 21st century Britain only those who are prepared to work harder or are more talented could receive higher rewards is nothing but a fairytale.

Mamad Kashani Akhavan