So big bank bonuses are back. Now there’s a surprise. Having been given billions in state aid, bankers are now about to be rewarded for their incompetence by receiving huge bonuses.

If you give a dog a biscuit every time he messes on your carpet, what’s he going to continue doing? If you give a self-admitted young burglar the ‘punishment’ of a rent-free home in a new town, what is he going to continue to do?

Will we in the UK never learn? If you reward bad behaviour, you’re only going to get more of the same. Reward a dog for messing on the carpet and he will continue to defecate on your shagpile. Reward a young wastrel for committing 655 offences and he’s going to continue to offend. It’s common sense surely!

Of course the biggest losers of the current financial crisis are the more prudent amongst us – the savers. While the bankers are set to receive further huge bonuses, and the foolhardy amongst us ‘rewarded’ for running up huge debts by receiving the lowest interest rate on their borrowings in our history, those who have saved, those who thought they had prepared for their future, are being penalised with miserly returns on their savings. Where’s the justice in that?

Perhaps it’s about time we savers took a stand. Maybe we should consider getting together and ‘pooling’ our combined savings. Then we present our various banks with a fête accompli. Give us a decent return on our savings or we’ll move our money elsewhere!

If we as a group of savers withdrew our combined billions and tucked the money under our mattresses, something would have to be done. Banks are able to pay out further huge bonuses because they are paying a pittance in interest on the money that we have on deposit with them, at the same time as charging exorbitant rates to viable businesses who need to borrow money to survive.

While all that is going on, foolhardy spenders are being rewarded for their financial incompetence by paying low interest rates on their borrowings. It’s the dog being rewarded for messing on the carpet all over again.

Of course the Government is missing a point when it interferes with a market it knows nothing about. But then there’s nothing new in that.

Let’s look at it a different way. As it stands, foolhardy borrowers are being rewarded for their financial incompetence by paying negligible interest rates on their borrowings. The fact that they are paying so little to borrow their money means that they can be further rewarded by paying more of it off. That doesn’t help a Government which wants to get the country spending again.

On the other hand, if you rewarded savers for their prudence, and in so doing gave them confidence that they have a secure financial future, they would spend the money they receive in interest. This would mean that the Government has to print less ‘Monopoly’ money because there would be more ’real’ money in the economy.

Or are we simply going to continue rewarding incompetence, foolishness and criminality, and watch our country slide further into decline taking us and our hard-earned savings with it?

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