Jake's ViewDon't blame the fat cats. Trail of cream leads back to you

Sickened by years of financial crises and reports of huge salaries and bonuses for the executives and bankers they say plunged the global economy into chaos, governments and voters around the world are moving to put the fat cats on a pay diet.

Let's put some perspective on this howl of outrage. HSBC chief executive Stuart Gulliver, for instance, got total compensation last year of US$14.1 million or 0.068 per cent of the bank's pre-tax earnings of US$20.6 billion.

Count me among those people who wonder if he was actually worth it. I think executives of institutionalised corporations long past the entrepreneurial stage generally overrate their own importance. Entrenched interests and long-standing corporate practices have much more to do with how such big beasts are run.

But I challenge anyone to count in hard cash just how much his or her notion of the excess made a difference to living standards of HSBC depositors or shareholders.

HSBC is an institutionally held stock with hundreds of millions of end beneficiaries. If institutional investors really thought their funds affected, they would club together to force pay cuts or sell the stock.

I have seen some of them take umbrage with the bank. The last time the message was that HSBC should focus more on core businesses and less on being the biggest bank in the world. The share price tumbled, too. I have never seen it happen because of executive pay.