Bits & bobs

1. Saturday's FT editorial here about the return of bonuses in the banking industry is worth a read. It's very sceptical that this has much to do with the value of what is being provided by those getting the rewards, and the key point is that basically shareholders are being (willingly?) taken for a ride.

2. But then over on the Torygraph we read about how the ABI (yep, them again - where are the NAPF and the IMA?) is warning companies to be sensible about pay of face opposition.

3. A quick snippet from a book that I ordered at the end of last year that I'm yet to start, but which looks well interesting - The Ownership of Enterprise. It takes a look at why different forms of ownership appear in different industries, so quite a lot in there about employee ownership.

In firms that are incorporated... formal control generally involves only the right to elect the firm's board of directors and to vote on a relatively small set of fundamental issues, such as merger or dissolution of the firm. Moreover, in large business corporations the shareholders, who have formal control, are often too numerous and too dispersed to exercise even these limited voting rights very meaningfully, with the result that corporate managers have substantial autonomy.

Err... that's all you really need to know to get started in the ownership debate right now, isn't it?