Pots, kettles

From the BBC:

"One hundred public figures have joined a pressure group's campaign for a High Pay Commission to curb "excessive" pay, amid concern over high City salaries.

Politicians, as well as unions and academics, are backing the centre-left Compass group's campaign for steps such as maximum wage ratios and bonus taxes. Chancellor Alistair Darling said he was ready to curb bonuses if necessary.

Media reports suggested Barclays was seeking to hire five JP Morgan bankers with bonus deals totalling £30m. Seperately, the Times on Monday said Barclays paid million of pounds to its head of Barclaycard, Anthony Jenkins, for a role that never came to fruition. Barclays declined to comment on both reports.

Barclays has not benefitted unduly from the taxpayer-funded bail-outs, so I'd suggest that their pay structures are none of the government's business. As to the bonuses paid by government-backed banks, I'd suggest that the problem is the government backing, not the bonuses.

The group urging for control over pay issued a joint statement, which said the "unjust rewards" of a few hundred "masters of the universe" exacerbated the risks to which the British economy was exposed. The campaign's backers include Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable and Labour MP Jon Cruddas, who argue that high levels of pay and bonuses led to the financial crisis.

The campaign compared the wage levels of the highly-remunerated to those of employees who worked a 40-hour week earning the minimum wage. It argued someone earning the minimum wage would have to work for about 226 years to receive the same annual pay as a FTSE 100 boss.

Tee hee! And how many years does that person have to work to earn as much as MPs can claim each year as Second Home Allowance? About two?

If we are to focus on those people who earn high salaries at the taxpayer's expense, shouldn't we be looking at MPs, all the heads of quangos, Town Hall fat cats and organisations like the BBC?