January 19, 2012

Quote of the Day: Huge CEO Paydays Are Really For the Benefit of the Little People

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From a “senior banker,” explaining to the Financial Times why the bailed-out-and-still-taxpayer-owned Royal Bank of Scotland is determined to pay its CEO a huge bonus in the face of official disapproval:

This person defended Mr Hester as a “highly credible banker”. If the chief executive turned down his bonus it would “demoralise” staff members and would send a signal that they now effectively “worked for an arm of the civil service or a utility, rather than for a bank”.

Roger that. Wouldn’t want to demoralize all those tellers and branch managers who will probably break out in a North Korean-esque hail of tears if Stephen Hester receives a bonus that’s a pence less than £1.5 million. Probably best just to keep shoveling money out the door as always.

Via Keith Humphreys.

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

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So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

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