Why is it necessary to pay bankers such humungous salaries and bonuses? It is not as if they are really producing anything. They are taking money from depositors and lending it out to businesses and individuals in the form of loans and mortgages. The modalities of business are written down and every time they try to be too clever to increase profits they are brought down. This is not the first time banks have failed because of unchecked greed in an attempt to increase profits to maximise bonuses. Remember Barings which was brought down by Nick Leason's unsupervised trades on the futures market? His bosses did nothing to stop him because they did not understand what he was doing but let him carry on because he was increasing their bonuses. Barings disappeared and Leason served jail time but no lessons were learnt. Instead of toughening regulations they were relaxed. The same happened in a Japanese bank but again nothing. I can imagine some justification in giving bonuses to executives of companies that produce goods such as steel or cars but there is no justification in paying exorbitant amount to bankers who make money by sleight of hand. It is rubbish to say that you have to attract clever people. Professors are extremely clever but earn peanuts and there will always be many applicants for cushy bank jobs. So golden pension for Rick Waggoner maybe but certainly not for Fred Goodwin. Is anyone listening?