Crack Up

Well, this kid one of the many reasons I get up in the morning. How can his face not put you in a good mood? Eitan at the cusp of understanding adult humor with all its sarcasim, subtly and sexual innuendo (when Sonnet not around). He just loves the fact that I try on older jokes with him, even if he doesn't get them completely. So here we are at the train station and I don't really recall what I said, only that we both were cracking up about it. He's a good kid, all I ever could have wished for.

There has been quite a halibahoo over Barclays and their bonusing, which is baaaccck. The bank's first-half earnings rose 10% as profit from investment banking doubled. Net income increased to £1.89 billion from £1.72 billion pounds a year earlier, which is a heck uv a lot of money from an institution on its knees only 18 months ago (remember Robert Diamond, a US-born banker on the board of Barclays, was set to receive a £14.8 million bonus in 2008 even though the subprime mortgage crisis in the US forced his group to take a £1.6bn hit in 2007?).Senior bankers looking to make £millions. As they should.

When the financial melt-down struck, Super Gee prepared to inject £7 billion into Barclays, who instead raised £6.5 billion of new capital on their own: £2 billion by cancellation of dividend and £4.5 billion from private investors. They have earned the right to do whatever the heck they want, including fat bonuses, as long as it is legal, does not destabalise the financial system nor effect me, the tax-payer (contrast this to Goldman BTW who has treated the tax-payer as a chump). All us liberal pasties winging about the unfairness of it all should recall that British taxes 50% so we get back half of it, in the end, anyway.