Northern Rock - Pay staff a bonus with public cash.

Pic from tractorstats

Well it has not taken them long, like everyone else on the public sector they see no need to be prudent with other peoples money.

A tale of public sector waste from The Daily Mail

Nationalised Northern Rock is paying its staff a 10 per cent bonus - funded by the taxpayer, it emerged today.

The state-run bank will hand out £8.8million in total to its 4,000 staff after they met targets on repaying the bank's £26billion loan from the Government.

They returned a quarter of the money by December 31.

The average bonus appeared to be £2,000 but senior bankers were expected to get much bigger sums in line with their salaries.

The once-beleaguered bank has now paid back half of it's loan and sights are now set on the new bonus - a further ten per cent - once three-quarters is repaid.

Lib-Dem Treasury spokesman Vince Cable said: 'This seems an extraordinary action from a state-owned bank which still owes billions to taxpayers.

'When millions of people are facing pay cuts, or worse unemployment, this seems extremely crass.'

The Newcastle-based lender announced the bonus on the day unemployment soared by nearly 80,000.

It was bailed out by the Treasury last year with a £27billion loan. It pledged to repay the cash as soon as possible and to date has handed back £15billion.

Before anyone starts on about how they are a private sector company, yes I am aware of that and I also aware that had they not recieved our cash they would have crashed. They screwed up their business in the first place then went cap in hand to the one eyed dole office Gordon Brown who lent them our money. 

They should not have any bonuses until each and every penny has been repaid to the public, until they show they have improved their business model and can turn a profit without public assistance.

Some advice for them from Cicero:

The budget should be balanced, the Treasury should be refilled, public debt should be reduced, the arrogance of officialdom should be tempered and controlled, and the assistance to foreign lands should be curtailed lest Rome become bankrupt. People must again learn to work, instead of living on public assistance.

Cicero - 55 BC - First posted that here as a message to cyclops.

Also  Apologies to Cicero for the rewording

How long, O Cyclops, will you abuse our patience? How long is that madness of yours still to mock us? When is there to be an end of that unbridled audacity of yours?

Lastly this bit of advice on Peter & Cyclops.

The man who backbites an absent friend, nay, who does not stand up for him when another blames him, the man who angles for bursts of laughter and for the repute of a wit, who can invent what he never saw, who cannot keep a secret - that man is black at heart: mark and avoid him.

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