Bad-boy bankers were just doing what they were paid to do.

Bad-boy bankers were just doing what they were paid to do As we have seen in SA at Eskom and in the mines, as long as bonuses reward risky behaviour, people will take big risks AT AMERICAN International Group (AIG), bonus payments of $165m prompted public outrage and proposals in the US Congress to impose a tax of up to 90% on bonuses at financial services groups that were bailed out with tens of billions of dollars of US taxpayers' money. At Dutch bank ING, the top 1 200 staffers were asked to give back their bonuses after the bank was bailed out by the Dutch government.

The backlash against bonuses is just one aspect of a rising tide of populism in response to the …