Slightly strange piece here:

In all, 4,200 workers in the City of London — all doubtless armed with
employment contracts with lengthy notice periods to provide a lovely
soft landing should their value ever be called into question — were
expected to pick up bonuses in excess of £1 million this Christmas.

Errm, no, I don’t think so at all. I’m pretty certain that those contracts which allow for the possibility of a great fat bonus also allow for the possibility of being escorted from the trading room with your possessions in a plastic bin bag, any pay off being the legal minimum allowed.

City workers often argue that if they bring in a certain amount of
money they are entitled to a certain percentage of it. No. Employees
obviously need sufficient incentive, but they are not “entitled” to a
percentage of anything.

I agree that there is no entitlement. But the owners of capital are at least supposed to be looking for a return to it. Given that it is the human capital of those very traders that is producing such returns for the providers of the financial capital, I don’t see that’s there’s any theoretical problem with bonuses being paid. It’s also true, as has been pointed out in comments here, that in general we rather encourage the owners of a business to share the success of that business with the workers.

The distorted market that prompts such arrogant nonsense has made true
entrepreneurship, the lifeblood of business, a distinctly unappealing
alternative for many of our brightest and best.

I’m not really sure that Bolchover has understood who it is that gets these huge bonuses. Yes, there are way too many fund managers getting half a bar for underperforming a dart board but the people getting the buy a mansion sums are indeed entrepreneurs. They are those who actually create new markets…perhaps in distressed debt, or one emerging market or another. Think back to Liar’s Poker. The people making all the money for the firm were those who had worked out how to pool and then securitize mortgages. That worked for a few years until everyone else on Wall Street had also worked out how to do it.

These people are not the antithesis of entrepreneurs, they are them.

I’ll agree that there are indeed problems in the way The City pays people (the usual rent seeking and so on), just not that these are said problems.