I’ve just learned that in the current financial year, bankers plan to award themselves bonuses of £7bn – more than twice the entire UK science budget (£3.2bn, before planned cuts). I thank my correspondent S. F. Of Stockholm for this link.
Now, far be it from me to decry the bonuses of bankers. I am sure they do a jolly good job, and are worth every zuz, sou and farthing. My point is that scientists also contribute a great deal to the UK economy. Science has given us medicines without which many of us, or those close to us, would have died long ago. Science has given us computers and phones and other means of communication that draw us all together. Bankers have given us credit swap derivatives and other arcana the understanding of which has been vouchsafed to only three people, one of whom is dead, another is mad, and a third who’s been locked up in a bank vault in Geneva.
We are often told that if we penalise bankers they’ll leave the country. Scientists, however, are being penalised, and are also leaving the country. Those who’d like to come into the country cannot do so, because the PhD stipend is apparently too low to get the number of ‘points’ immigrants now require (information broadcast by Mr Ben Goldacre at the Science Is Vital demo in London today).
So, do you feel lucky? Would you rather have a load of bankers whose misdeeds we are obliged to fund in our taxes? Or scientists whose labours make life worth living, and, ultimately, much cheaper and easier for everyone?
Your call.
Those who'd like to come into the country cannot do so, because the PhD stipend is apparently too low to get the number of 'points' immigrants now require.Apparently, those who are currently doing their PhDs in UK, immigrant or citizen, aren't doing too hot either. Two days back, at a conference, my wife met a young grad student from the University of Swansea, whose PhD stipend dried up after three years, although her work in molecular biology – which seemed very interesting – wasn't yet complete. She is now struggling to manage. Surely, talented grad students should be given adequate funding for an appropriate number of years – and that helps the progress of science, which ultimately benefits everybody, no? What about this situation your leaders don't recognize or understand? I find it mind-boggling.
Don't call me Shirley.
Presumably the bankers' bonuses are bonuses on some actual larger sum that the bankers themselves generated? I think it is a bit like apples and oranges, comparing bankers to scientists, as they are very different activities and career structures.I don't disagree with the fact that there is a lot wrong with the way science is run, remunerated, etc, but I don't think that one can directly compare the two professions (I know you weren't doing that). Also, a huge number of people in the banking sector don't earn that much and don't get big bonuses, or even any bonuses. The headlines have focused on the few extreme examples, as per usual.
Well, maybe, but the fact that a rather small number of people earns, as bonuses on top of their handsome wages, more than the entire UK science budget, should be a national scandal. Why isn't it? The most senior scientists cannot hope to match even the basic salaries of many bankers, and the remunerations of junior scientists is risible. And job security? You might say that high rewards for bankers are given for high risk, but the short-term contracts current in the science world all the way up to (vanishing numbers of poorly paid) tenure positions seem to emphasise risk while offering no rewards. Truly,o the world has gone mad.