Household HSBC Watch

Kudos to The Guardian for this article. As bad as finances are in the U.K. we found out that executive perks at HSBC remain untouched. The TUC PensionWatch report identifies a senior HSBC finance director who ‘receives an executive allowance of 55 per cent of annual basic salary to fund personal pension arrangements’. The average contribution rate for ordinary workers’ defined contribution (DC) schemes is around 6.5 per cent.

For you Americans, a DC scheme does not necessarily guarantee a retirement, where a defined benefit (DB) scheme (i.e., plan) virtually guarantees a retirement. A DC scheme would therefore be like social security, which may or may not be bankrupt or totally changed by the time you are eligible for it.

Consider the case of Dick Fuld, poor broke-assed chief executive over at Lehman Brothers. Based on the value of his own pay-off arrangements at the end of 2007, he would have collected $241 million, based on a share price of around $63; at $15, that has sunk to $57 million.

Dick, you should put the $57 million into one of those eBay- PayPal accounts and you can draw two percent interest on it. They will give you a PayPal debit card too, just like the rest of us.