Those City bonuses.

Fund managers control vast pension funds and other investment funds, and much of the money is entrusted to them because the government uses a combination of financial incentives and coercion to get people to put their savings in such funds rather than to manage it themselves.

Fund managers have a poor record; it is rare for managed funds to perform as well as a random selection of quoted shares, yet the managers, with a captive market secured for them by the state, still award themselves large salaries for achieving nothing. Just possibly managers may reduce the volatility of their funds, so a lower expected yield may be partly compensated for by lower risk; I'm not sure about that.

The voting rights of shares in funds are exercised by fund managers, not by the people whose savings are being managed, and they use those voting rights to put on the boards of companies people like themselves - reckless people with hazy visions of marble entrance halls in ever grander offices. Those people then award themselves the huge 'bonuses' that cause such annoyance.