Who Are These People?

Fascinating, isn’t it, how large organisations rig their terms and conditions completely to suit themselves, while protesting that it is the only way to do it or, more infuriating, it is for the customers’ benefit.

The UK energy companies, as is only too well known, are an even more extreme case. They have the entire population over a barrel and understand very well how to make good and selfish use of their position and power. It is the case that energy companies are permitted to charge customers higher prices without telling them for up to 65 days. Why? I have no idea.

The Energy Retailers Association supports the current system. Hardly surprising. Its chief executive, Garry Felgate, said: ‘The most relevant way for customers to hear about a price change, either up or down, is on their energy bill.’ What tosh this is. When Mr Felgate buys his wife her next Mercedes, I presume he would have no problem if the charge on his credit card statement was higher than the one he agreed with the salesman. ‘We didn’t think you would mind’ the salesman might say, ‘We knew you would find out eventually’. I guess Mr Felgate doesn’t have to budget and assumes lesser mortals shouldn’t crib at such minor inconveniences.

It really is about time organisations such as Ofgem began to stand up for the general public, the customer, the paymasters. I believe this is a good place to start.

By nature I am conservative (with a small ‘c’). If I could choose the socio-economic system that has the most appeal for social equality, respect and fairness it would be communism. The principle of ‘from each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs’ suits my ideals very well.

Unfortunately, this system won’t work, cannot work and has proven itself unworkable. Capitalism delivers - after a fashion.

Why should this be? People. People, on the whole, do not exist by principles. Society, in its most general meaning, is comprised of characters that range from Mother Theresa to Adolf Hitler. There are those with little who would give their last penny and those with much who would take it. It has always been thus and I can see no reason why it will not remain so. As a realist, I consider we must therefore work with what we are rather than what we wish we were.

It is quite understandable that anyone should aspire to financial stability so that they and their family should not want. So the essential principles of capitalism are natural and not to be despised - but avarice and raw greed, that, surely, is something else. When I think of the huge fortunes being amassed by relatively few people, even as a pragmatist I find myself appalled. And there are even those who, while making more money than most of us can imagine, are prepared to risk the savings of others, and even break the law, in order to increase their personal wealth.

Why? I honestly don’t know. As I commented earlier - it takes all kinds.

However, a scene from one of Humphrey Bogart’s films - Key Largo - comes to mind. The bad guy, Johnny Rocco, played by Edward G Robinson, has taken over a hotel during a violent storm and is terrorising those sheltering inside. The hotel owner cannot understand what the villain is trying to achieve.

Johnny Rocco: There’s only one Johnny Rocco.
James Temple: How do you account for it?
Frank McCloud: He knows what he wants. Don’t you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Sure.
James Temple: What’s that?
Frank McCloud: Tell him, Rocco.
Johnny Rocco: Well, I want uh …
Frank McCloud: He wants more, don’t you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Yeah. That’s it. More. That’s right! I want more!
James Temple: Will you ever get enough?
Frank McCloud: Will you, Rocco?
Johnny Rocco: Well, I never have. No, I guess I won’t. You, do you know what you want?
Frank McCloud: Yes, I had hopes once, but I gave them up.
Johnny Rocco: Hopes for what?
Frank McCloud: A world in which there’s no place for Johnny Rocco.

Is this the way it is, I wonder? They want more, as simple as that.

So Stephen Hester takes a job ’sorting out’ RBS after the previous incumbent, Fred Goodwin, fell asleep at the helm while the ship ran onto the rocks. (Mr Goodwin was presumably not ‘One Of The Best’ but he still got paid as if he was.) Mr Hester will get £1.2 million per annum plus a few extras that will take him up to £9.6 million. This is on the proviso that he doubles the share price of RBS. Was it not this kind of contract that caused the problem in the first place?

£1,200,000 per year. Plus incentives. Plus expenses, of course. Can you imagine how the deal was negotiated?

The Government: Hello Stephen, we need to try to sort RBS out, or at least to make an effort. Fancy a shot?

Stephen Hester: I’ll give it a go. What’s the offer?

TG: What would you like?

SH: Whatever you have in mind plus a lot more.

TG: That sounds fair.

And this is all happening while the gap between rich and poor in the UK and the world grows ever wider. And the money for the rich doesn’t come from falling stardust. It comes from the rest of the global community. If these people actually had to collect their millions by knocking on the doors of ordinary people, many of whom are living on a pittance, I wonder if they would be quite so self-assured. I am seriously beginning to doubt whether capitalism is more virtue than vice. It seems to be a system where the Johnny Roccos are feeling right at home.

(And I note that, according to The Sunday Times business section, city firms are drawing up schemes to help staff dodge the new 50% tax rate. Doesn’t really require comment, does it?)

Has anybody heard an apology from ‘The Best’? As I expected, recently some fellow on a radio program warned that ‘The Best’ should not be penalized after the debacle in the banking system and elsewhere. I had been awaiting the repeat of this comment for some time – ‘If you want ‘The Best’ you have to pay for them’. It has been trotted out regularly whenever ordinary people have the temerity to question why some executives receive salaries and bonuses that are written in astronomical units.

So where are these ‘experts’ now? The ones we have to pay so much money to because you have to pay to get ‘The Best’. If they got it all wrong, then, does that mean they weren’t ‘The Best’? Or maybe we just failed to offer enough. So, if we offer the same people more will they then become ’The Better than The Best’? Or should we have offered more to some other people? But if we didn’t then somebody else must have because they’re not queuing up at the Job Centre. So what did we pay for and where are the ones we didn’t get? I don’t hear the ‘Real Best’ boasting about how they got it Right when ‘The Best’ got it Wrong.

Is there just a chance that, like the rest of us, they are fallible? And being fallible they should not profit regardless of mistakes that are costing ordinary families so very, very much. An apology would not go amiss, I feel. Sadly, I have a cynical feeling that they are merely keeping their heads down, and when the taxpayer has paid for their incompetence they will arise phoenix-like from the flames and carry on amassing their/our wealth as if nothing had happened.