Lunchtime Links: Only 3.3m people in the UK earn more than 1k a week
If you're worried about getting by on the diminishing cash component of your bonus (unless you happen to be at BofA Merrill), here's a sobering thought from today's much vaunted report on the 'anatomy of income inequality' in the UK: only 5% of Britons earn more than 50k a year. Gross.
Median total income for an employee was 364 a week between 2005 and 2008. As a follow up to the recent Office of National Statistics study on the same subject, median net household wealth is 204k; 10% of households have more than 853k (see below).
Into this morass of inequality, Mervyn King has strolled. The governor of the Bank of England, who himself earns around 300k in salary, topped up by a generous final salary pension scheme, suggested yesterday that pay for bankers should be on a par with other professions. This has been taken to mean doctors, who can now earn more than 200 per hour for working evenings and weekends.
Mervyn King isn't into the Tobin tax. (Telegraph)
If international agreement on appropriate structural reforms cannot be reached, Mervyn King and Paul Tucker want the UK to take unilateral action [and reimpose Glass Steagall]. (Pestowire)
Trichet comes out in support of the Volcker plan if it's implemented internationally
Josef Ackermann declined to give evidence to the Select Committee on banking reform. (The Times)
Josef Ackermann has nothing to fear from Volcker. (Bloomberg)
Michael Geoghegan says HSBC has nothing to fear from Volcker. (AFP)
Goldman and Morgan Stanley could make $22bn and $12bn billion respectively by selling businesses if Volcker goes through. (Wall Street Journal)
Bob Diamond says smaller, narrower, bankers would be "harmful." (Guardian)
The uncertainty injected into the financial system, at a time when predictability has returned, could be the biggest cost of all. (Financial Times)
Citigroup is, in effect, paying its employees $1.45 for every dollar the company took in last year. BofA is spending 88 cents; Morgan Stanley's spending 94 cents. (NY Times)
Off to the Skull & Bones VIP party at the Felsenbar for dancing with @Nouriel, @Bono and @BillGates. I'll be in my Blahnik crampons, natch. (DavosDeville)
UK economy grows 15p (Daily Mash)
