Bankers are an unpopular bunch. They threw coal into the boiler of the financial locomotive despite the sharp bend ahead and all to line their own pockets. What though, did people expect?

The bonus system works in the employees' favour to maximise short-term returns and hang the consequences. A trader's horizon is the next bonus round and no further. By the time the long-term arrives, traders, asset managers and sales people are shielded from any ill effects by the money they earned in previous years. At worst they get paid in share options that do not vest for two years but what is so bad about that given how long it would take to earn the equivalent elsewhere in the labour market? Even unmotivated workers merely have to avoid dropping a horrendous clanger for two years to get paid.