Stop the bonuses

Bankers are still insisting on their obscenely enormous bonuses – even those in banks bailed out by the taxpayer and now partially or wholly owned by us (Business, 11 January).

It makes the blood boil to see banks paying out billions to employees while their customers have seen their income from savings accounts and investment bonds plummet to almost zero. Because of these smug recipients of bonuses, my wife and I alone have lost hundreds of pounds in income in the past months, yet we are expected to subsidise the same banks and bankers through future raised taxes.

Legislation should bar any banker in a failed bank from receiving bonuses until the money borrowed from the government has been repaid. Bonuses of all bankers – and civil servants – should be the subject of a government inquiry and regulation.

GEORGE K McMILLAN

Mount Tabor Avenue

Perth