Taxpayers starve as Goodwin eats caviar

Well, it’s not that far off the truth.

So let me just get this straight.

After tax, Greed is Goodwin will take home about £33,000 every month.

However, if RBS had been allowed to collapse he would receive just (I say ‘just’ though it’s a lot more than I and most others will ever get) £20,000 per year from his pension.

So... RBS has so far received more than £45 billion in public funds, which means the bank is 70-per cent owned by the taxpayer. Without such a bail-out, the bank would have collapsed, and all pensions would have been transferred to the Pension Protection Fund (PPF).

The PPF guarantees 100 per cent of final-salary pensions in payment, and 90 per cent of those yet to be paid, up to a maximum of £28,000 per year. As this amount gets lower if a member retires before 65, a member retiring at 50 would be able to receive a maximum of £21,952 per year.

Dr Ros Altmann, an independent policy adviser, told The Times: ‘Sir Fred Goodwin should be treated like any other member of a pension scheme whose company has gone bust – he should be transferred to the PPF. There is absolutely no social justice or rationale behind taxpayers propping up banks to ensure that chief execs get paid such obscene pensions.’