RBS received a total of £33 billion of tax payers money to prop it up and AIG has received a staggering (to use Robert Peston's favourite adjective) $170 billion.
Now Sir Fred Goodwin, who seems to be the devil incarnate if you follow the press, received a pension pot of £16 million, and the senior executives of AIG got a total of $165 million in bonuses.
All the newspapers, TV news, pundits and commentators are literally (in the case of Robert Peston) foaming at the mouth: "Scandalous! That's tax payers money being thrown away - GRRR!"
The problem is that the worlds Million and Billion sound so similar, but are in reality so different.
Lets look at the figures:
RBS got £33,000,000,000 and Sir Fred got £16,000,000. In terms of a percentage Sir Fred's pension is
| £16,000,000 |
| £33,000,000,000 |
| 1 |
| 2,000 |
AIG got $170,000,000,000 and the executives got $165,000,000. That's
| $165,000,000 |
| $170,000,000,000 |
| 1 |
| 1,000 |
It is like giving a down-and-out a £10 note and then complaining when he gives a his dog a penny chew!
What I am far more interested in is
(a) what is happening to the 99.9%
(b) where all this money came from and how the government is going to pay for it.
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