Late Lunchtime Links: Time for everyone to restrict themselves voluntarily to 300k?

There are plenty of people working in the City who don't earn six figures. The CEBR's various bonus prognostications suggest the mean bonus for a 'City employee' this year is likely to be 21k. And recruitment firm Morgan McKinley's monthly employment monitors generally put the average City salary somewhere in the region of 50k.

Needless to say, however, distribution is everything. Our own salary survey showed that while the mean front office bonus was 254k for 2009, the median was just 50k. Clearly, some of those at the top of the tree are receiving a lot.

These may be the people that Mervyn King had in mind when he turned down a 100k salary increase in 2008 on the grounds that it was "inappropriate." Now King's voluntarily agreed to have his total compensation frozen at 305k until 2012.

King is a civil servant, so his self-imposed restraint is unlikely to be particularly inspirational for bankers in the private sector. However, it's a tactic worth noting: no one's complaining that King's earning a lot more than the Prime Minister, nor are they threatening to levy a special tax to moderate his compensation. Bankers may yet wish they were in the same position.

Mervyn King is living proof that it's possible to survive on 300k. (Evening Standard)

There are 200 people at the FSA earning more than 144k. (Citywire)

The FSA will be stripped of most of its powers later this month. (Guardian)

The EU wants to 'significantly reduce' the overall volume of derivatives traded and to eliminate purely speculative trading in commodities and agricultural products. (Finextra)

There is a mass exodus of bankers from Citigroup in London and the US. (WSJ)

Hotshot traders are leaving banks and setting up hedge funds. (WSJ)

If the UK sells RBS and Lloyds quickly, it could save its AAA rating. (Telegraph)

Had JPMorgan gone bankrupt between November 2002 and July 2009, clients would probably have lost their money. (WSJ)

"You began to hear of analysts, even whole groups of analysts, at Moody's who had lost their jobs because they were doing their jobs, identifying risks and describing them accurately." (Huffington Post)

MBA students want an international career most of all. (Independent)