"We need our big bonuses or London will suffer, say bankers"

The above is a headline from the Independent today.
Honestly, the arrogance is astounding!

I think it is fairly well established that the exorbitant bonus culture that has been prevailing in the City of London, amongst other financial centres has been largely responsible for the situation we currently find ourselves in.

Lets just analyse the statement though.

The chain of logic is as follows

1. Banks have historically paid its staff large bonuses
2. Large bonuses have attracted talented individuals to work for the bank
3. These individuals have helped to build up further the financial centre
4. Removal of these bonuses now will upset the bankers now used to receiving them
5. The same bankers will now be so upset that they will chose to move to other countries to receive the same level of pay and bonus
6. If these individuals leave, their replacements will be of a lower quality
7. These lower quality staff who will accept lower levels of remuneration will cause lower levels of growth
8. Lower levels of growth in the banking industry will reduce the overall growth in London and the UK as a whole

In turn - 1. and 4. I can agree with. 2. The bonuses have certainly attracted some talented individuals, but also a lot of worthless blaggers to jump on the gravy train. 3 again is partially true, although as we shall see the 'profits' were somewhat of an illusion due to huge incentives to create the appearance of 'profits' in order to justify 2.
3. is also a effect of tax haven activity making the UK an attractive place for individuals to place their capital
5. really does remain to be seen, however in conjunction with 6. if all the bankers responsible for the terrible fiasco of the last 12 months (actually much longer) were to disappear to other countries would this really be such a bad thing? There is also a logical error here - that all bankers currently used to large bonuses would be able to get jobs elsewhere. There is language to consider and there are only limited numbers of these sorts of jobs available - its not as if the banking world is recruiting heavily at the moment. The individuals have lives and ties to the UK and may not want to leave. There are a myriad of reasons why 5 is not necessarily true, and no reason to suspect that 6 is true.
I have met many many extremely talented individuals, well capable of doing as good a job, if not better than many of the highly paid individuals - the idea that the bonuses are actually earned as opposed to awarded is fairly laughable.
This may be true if 6 were true. But 6 is not true, so 7 does not hold. Of course even if 6 were true there is a question of integrity. If this crisis has taught us anything it should be that it is better to have more integrity and fewer brains, than the opposite. Its no good employing geniuses if they are also crooks - they'll just find better ways to rob you
8. also does not hold true - much of the work in the financial services serves to find ways to avoid tax. A greater level of tax paid by the richest and spent on social goods is far better for a more egalitarian society.
So - to the BBA I state your old lie is ineffective - but of course you would know that and have long since made the same logical deductions as above, being the brightest of the best, as you claim to be