London -- Two Lords a leaping have the Banker/Speculator/Financier community hopping mad here in the financial services capitol of the world.  

     Lord Turner, head of the Financial Services Agency, Britain's statutory watchdog over the financial industry, stirred the pot a few weeks ago when he called for tighter regulations - and taxation - of banking activities that were "socially useless."

He meant those games played on Wall Street and in London's financial district the City that to an outsider look very much like casino or pass the parcel ... with the loser being whoever is holding the credit default swap when it goes boom!!! (Bye-Bye Lehman Bros).

    Anyway, two nights ago he was at it again. Addressing a formal banquet of hundreds of banking chiefs he told them that bonus payments were "a legitimate matter of social interest, rather than an entirely private matter."  Boos and catcalls ricocheted around the banquet hall. Turner told one particularly noisy fellow to leave and go back out on the street if he wanted to engage in that kind of barracking.

     In a separate but seemingly coordinated attack, a different lord, Lord Myners,  picked up the stirring spoon, telling a different group of elite money-men that all major companies should be compelled to reveal the names of their 20 top paid employees along with precise figures about how much they earn.
He also batted away one of the financiers favorite self-justifications for the seven figure bonus: they are no different than professional athletes. They ask, if soccer players can earn ten million a year why shouldn't we?  Myners answer was that soccer players have a unique talent.  They don't.   
A word about British Lords. There are two kinds.  Those who inherit their titles (and usually a great big slice of the countryside with a grand house on it) and working lords appointed by the political parties.
Turner and Myners belong to the latter group and both were appointed by the Labour government.  This does not make them rabid socialists.  Adair Turner's C.V. includes a long stint at consultant's McKinsey & Co and he was Vice-Chairman of Merrill-Lynch in Europe.  Paul Myners has a similar executive background as a pension fund manager and chairman of legendary British retailer Marks and Spencer.  What the two have in common is a view towards capitalism with a human face.

     The timing of their speeches is not coincidental.  They were made with an eye on Pittsburgh.  What the two are hoping to make clear is that while the G-20 is trying to re-organize the global financial system, the banks that survived the crash are doing more than alright.
 Trading conditions are lovely -- there is less competition -- and profits are fat again ... but the reasons trading conditions are sweet for the survivors is that trillions of dollars of public money from all around the world went into shoring up the system.  That gives taxpayers, no matter where they live, a special interest ... and a right to have  a say in how profits are spent.  Are they re-invested in productive activities?  or are they shunted into the offshore tax-free bank accounts of the speculators who brought the system down in the first place? That is the critical question as the G-20 leaders sit down to talk.  Turner and Myners hope the leaders listen to the word of the Lords.

Michael Goldfarb, U.K. correspondent for GlobalPost