Where the money goes
THE money made in the east end of Lon- don is spent in the west end. Bonuses have disappeared behind stucco façades and into the pockets of builders and house agents, with fancy prices at both ends of town. The City has been suffering its recurrent night- mare: what happens if all our chaps walk out to work across the road and leave us with an empty building? So they are being clamped into golden handcuffs and their bonuses are being guaranteed for three years ahead. The story is that they will all be wanted for Europe, which is just as big a market as America, but does not have as many investment bankers or fund man- agers, so is sure to need more. An alterna- tive version would be that if, as the Bank for International Settlements has been sug- gesting, western markets and western economies are in for a hard landing, there would be more than enough of these expen- sive chaps to go round, though their bonus- es, of course, would linger on.
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