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Okay, that would be a banker. Not bankers.
For everyone else, the salary is quite high, even if you're not the head of a department, but not in the millions.
My guess would be that for some jobs, the existing supply of workers is simply not sufficient. Regardless of how much you pay one worker, that worker can only do the job of, well, one worker.
Suppose I'm hiring people to play professional baseball for me, but I can only find three people... at least six short of the bare minimum I need to form a team. Paying those three more isn't going to magically generate the needed six players. Now if it's a market situation (eg: they could choose to play for another team) then I'm certainly going to have to pay them well, certainly better than other teams offer to, if I want them to play for me, but if I want a full team, I'll have to import six more players from somewhere, yes?
Fine, taking Snert's argument that bankers have no responsibility to the public since they operate for private interests, let's take into consideration what role banking and credit plays in our economy.
Investments are made based on credit that is issued. Houses are bought, purchases are made, businesses are started, operated and expanded on credit. Jobs are created, labour and physical resources are spent based on how this credit is allocated. Banks along side government and private wealth are central in deciding who gets money and how it is spent. In a very real way banks are responsible for every bad investment that they back.
Additionally predatory lending to those with medium low incomes, total lack of access to credit for those with even lower incomes and favourable lending terms to those that already have wealth reinforces preexisting divisions between the rich and the poor.
Given the power that banks have one would very much like to see what could happen if lending were done with social interests at heart, so investments could be made for the public good. As much as I have a soft spot for private enterprise, I agree with the assertion that society would best served if banks were publicly owned.
Sounds like they play a very important role and create a lot of value
Credit Unions are publicly owned, in a sense, yes? Owned by their members?
They could choose to lend money to those of limited income, and they could choose to offer the same interest rates regardless of income, couldn't they? Heck, shouldn't they?
I'll admit I'm far more familiar with conventional banks than with credit unions, so I'm not sure as to the extent in which they operate differently. However, according to OSFI Canadian banks have assets totaling $2.9 trillion while credit unions $19.6 billion. I'm not sure to which extent if any that there are credit unions not registered with OSFI. My understanding is that it may be possible if the credit union operates in only one province. Nonetheless it looks like banks are more than a hundred times larger than credit unions. That being said I think that banks have a much greater power to waste resources or promote useful investment in comparison to credit unions.
So George Bailey's father was the first banker to foist subprime loans on people who really couldn't afford them? :)
I have a lot to say about It's a Wonderful Life, so don't get me started--but did you ever notice that the fantasy America George's angel shows him--the one where Mr. Potter was able to muscle out the small-time banks, thus creating a den of sin and excess where working people lose their homes and livelihood--is a lot more like the "real" America we all live in? Which is the fantasy, and which the dream? The opening shot which declares "YOU ARE NOW IN BEDFORD FALLS" should read instead "CECI N'EST PAS BEDFORD FALLS."
Um no. Mr. Bailey's loans actually helped people at the expense of personal profit, sub-prime loans were predatory in nature and never designed to do so. Thus highlighting some of the problems associated with for profit banking.
Well, you would like to "import" humans like they were t-shirts. Thanks to years of fighting for collective bargaining and free agency owners like you have to bargain in good faith with the players, which means you can't exploit the players. That still leaves plenty of people you can exploit, like minor league players, assistant coaches, concession workers, stadium workers, etc., etc. When these people own their own labor and the products of their own labor (as the big players do now) then they will own the profits from their labor. Or as Steinbrenner would say, "Apres moi, le deluge." Too bad they did away with the guillotine.
Do the investors who invest union pensions create or destroy value? What's your thinking on them, Tommy? Are they also parasitic speculators?
They can be. Depends on what they invest in, and what value that investment creates. If an investment creates jobs, creates something tangeable, great! If it's just investing in something speculative, that is, driving up the price of something without adding any tangeable value, then it's parasitic.
As we've seen so dramatically lately, Banks and other financial companies have some pretty wide lattitude, some fairly significant priveleges granted from government that can't honestly be described in a normal employer/employee relationship that you described.
We give banks unfettered access to the halls of power. While we all have freedom of expression, their voices drown out ours to the point where it could fairly be said that they deprive us of our freedom of expression.
They get from us the laws they want when they want them, how they want them. The trade on that, if there should be one in the first place, is that their actions guide the economy and we all benifit.
Look around you.
Seems to me they are not living up to their part of the bargain at the moment.
Now, it could be argued that Canadian banks were much better stewards than their British or American counterparts. But that's not for lack of trying on their part, and if the near collapse of the last year hadn't intervened, they would have been going down the same sub prime path thanks to the deregulation that their employee, Jimmy Flaherty always talked about.
Even today, the banks and lending institutions want to continue to lend people money who shouldn't have money loaned to them in the first place.
Meanwhile, back at the hospital, the white collar types who thought that just anybody can clean a hospital are trying to figure out if there is any connection between contracting out to cheap janitorial services, and post operative infections.
Well, not if they want to stay in business. Credit unions are non-profit and are protected by the FDIC. They don't pay income taxes (although the members do on share profits.) There have been few credit union failures in the latest crisis. However, I think they are getting stimulus money. A local credit union near me is paying 5.25 on a checking account. Within five miles of me there are at least 5 credit unions. Credit unions are a good deal which is why the big banks hate them.