Bloggers down....

Have Charlie and Duncan hung up their keyboards?

Sorry, NAPF!

In last night's post I contrasted the ABI's recent missive to the FTSE350 with the apparent silence on the part of the NAPF and the IMA. It turns out that (not for the first time) I shouted into the internet too quickly, and that the NAPF had actually also written to the FTSE350 with its own concerns about remuneration back in November. So there you are.

Hat-tip: Cheapside House Command Bunker

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?

Labour Against The Machine vs Dave Cowell-eron

In one corner a left-wing outfit led by a frontman (allegedly) prone to expletive-laden outbursts, achieved mainstream popularity in the 1990s, but their support has faded away since.

In the other corner a highly-polished newcomer. He certainly looks and sounds the part, but his lyrics don't seem to actually mean anything, and you feel like it's a synthetic product somehow.

I'm with Cheryl Cole this time.

What a 'no frills' council looks like

Here & here.

Retirement NEST-egg

Not sure I like the new name for Personal Accounts (itself the new name for the National Pension Saving Scheme), which is the National Employment Savings Trust (NEST). Presumably it's from the school of marketing that says you must have an acronym that means something. Anything.

If you really are interested in such things PADA has a doc on its website explaining why it went with NEST. It's here (PDF).

Person on the internetz is WRONG

Both ConservativeHome and Iain Dale had an emotional spasm at the end of December because of a Tweet by Sunny Hundal celebrating Rush Limbaugh's hospitalisation. Iain said:

I think this demonstrates a key difference between elements of the left and the rest of us. I can think of no left wing hate figure whose hospitalisation or death I would celebrate, either openly or secretly.

The funny thing is, I seemed to remember Iain Dale Twittering a comment from his partner about how the demonstrators at a G20 demo should be shot. He denied this, but look what I found in his Twitter archive today:

Just give the Police guns, and shoot the lot of them. That was my partners reaction to the riots in the City. Quite liberal of him really...
1:12 PM Apr 1st, 2009 from Twadget

And this was at the demo where Ian Tomlinson died unfortunately. Obviously it's a jokey comment, and it's not aimed at a specific lefty, but isn't the sentiment openly seeking the hospitlisation or death of people whose politics you don't like? Does it become OK if it is jokey? Or not about a specific person? If so why so?

Now personally I think we are all old enough to deal with offensive blogs, Tweets etc, and especially those who link to Guido shurely? But what's sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Bit hypocritical innit?