Rich just carry on getting richer

MAJOR SHAREHOLDERS in HSBC will look forward to big dividends as Britain’s biggest bank saw its profits almost double to £7.2 billion over the six months up to June.

Meanwhile small businesses, hopeful home owners and workers say that the banks, despite huge government bailouts, will still not lend any money. Other banks display their wealth later in the week.

  • Corus the steelmakers sacked thousands of workers in Teesside and other areas of Europe, this year. Redundant workers’ anger was magnified when Corus’ chief executive Kirby Adams was revealed as probably the multinational owner Tata’s highest paid executive, getting a £2 million package last year. His pay-off, expected next year, is likely to be at least as lavish.
  • Back in 2004 Network Rail and privatised firm Jarvis (which is now in administration), accepted responsibility for the 2002 rail crash at Potters Bar which killed six people. Recently the Potters Bar inquest found there had been a “catalogue of inadequacies” with shoddy maintenance and inspection. This typified the profit-seeking privatised rail system. Yet Network Rail had announced in June that six top directors would get annual and management incentive bonuses totalling over £2.25 billion.
  • As RMT union general secretary Bob Crow said: “Network Rail bosses are being rewarded for cutting jobs and axing inspection, renewals and maintenance. They should be stripped of these grotesque bonuses.”