The City - Snouts in the trough
WORKERS, FEB 2006 ISSUE
The snouts in the trough of London's City Square Mile are about to devour over £7.5 billion in bonuses. This is an increase of £1.1 billion on 2004. 3000 individuals will receive over £1,000,000 each in individual bonuses. City bonuses paid since 2000 have been over £34.2 billion.
The profits manipulated or extracted from Britain and the world by the capitalist institutions based in London are phenomenal – big enough to make a dent in the world poverty capitalism has created.
The bonuses are more than the entire budget estimated by the government for the Thames Gateway regeneration and Olympics bid combined. Enough to say that capitalist greed is bleeding the world to death.
An estimated 325,000 workers are employed in the City and its financial operations. Obviously the vast majority of these workers see little of these payouts. But this level of wealth is credited with creating or continuing the so-called London boom, which consists mainly of expenditure on luxury cars, homes costing £6 million or so and cosmetic surgery. Cosmetic surgery operations for men in the City have risen by 40% in the last 12 months.
New York Stock Exchange bonuses are expected to pay out £12.2 billion, so the London laggards have some catching up to do.