Only in the banking world could you expect to hear such nonsense as the chair of a bank suggesting that an $11 milion dollar annual salary (including bonus) is “modest.”

The Royal Bank of Scotland Chairman is trying to suggest that because other bank CEOs are paid even more, his CEO’s salary of nearly $2m a year, and potential bonus of over $9m, are “modest.”

I wonder how the RBS CEO’s salary compares to other bank CEOs who weren’t bailed out by the state and thus lost their jobs when their banks dissolved into nothing? I’m guessing that $11 million compared to “nothing” is a bit better than “modest.”

Let’s face it, others in the banking industry (including AIG after it was rescued with $180 billion and then threatened to sue the government that bailed it out) have pretty much said the same thing. They’re so delusional that they probably even believe what they’re saying. The banking bubble they all live in precludes them from seeing the destruction that they caused around them, such as trillions of dollars of government handouts, millions of job losses, plus the damage to a number of national economies, including the UK’s, due to post-recession austerity measures.

But no, when talking to the banks in the plastic bubble, none of that matters. It’s always about them, to hell with everyone else. In the case of RBS, it’s 82% owned by British taxpayers after the bailout, and the bank was just fined $600 million over manipulating Libor rates. Oh yeah, and the folks in the bank who got them into the Libor trouble are soon getting $400 million in bonuses.

How’s that for modesty?