Since I revealed my identity as The London Paper’s “City Girl” on August 3rd, I have been besieged by media requests to convey my opinion on what must be the year’s hottest City-related story: whether or not to cap banker bonuses. Politicians have concocted the idea that if they can remove the upside reaped by the financial masters of the universe, they can remove the downside they’ve capable of digging as well. As a result, new ideas on pay structure, including deferrals, clawbacks, and even the elimination of guaranteed bonuses, are being tossed around to ensure City compensation practices are aligned with long-term financial stability.

These ideas, while well intentioned, are problematic in several ways. Firstly, common sense tells us that the eradication of the City’s bonus culture seems about as likely as the eradication of futures or options. When I was a derivatives trader in the City, our year-end bonus was such an integral part of our lives it became an obsession. I listened to my colleagues describe precisely how they would spend their bonuses on the finer things in life - champagne, sex, gadgets, or an endearing mixture of the three. Like most bankers, we aspired to make as much money as possible in the shortest period of time. And like most bankers, many of us actually did.

This wild, bonus-fuelled consumerism is an image that the media likes to perpetuate of the unrestrained greed that characterizes your typical investment banker. As bankers were officially painted as the public’s enemy No. 1, “bonus” became a dirty word, taking on an air of illegitimacy and excess at a time when people were losing their jobs, homes and their life savings.

But not all bankers in the City are freewheeling, promiscuous hedonists. Indeed, the vast majority of them will spend their bonuses not on strippers and champagne, but on a mixture of three quite boring things, notably, family holidays, school fees and home mortgages. The majority of the non-bonus receiving public may understandably resent the fact that bankers receive this annual perk, but the bottom line is: most of these people are extremely intelligent, hard working individuals, many of whom hold Masters degrees and PhD’s. They’re not doing average jobs, and they should not be remunerated in the average way. If politicians render bonuses unattainable, why bother working in the City at all?

Capping bonuses will cure the symptoms of this crisis, but not the disease. Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling got it right when he stated, "If we simply concentrate on bonuses we'll be making a big mistake." The G20 ministers would struggle to make their principles enforceable. Shaun Springer, the chief executive of remuneration advisory firm Square Mile Services, stated, "The holes in their thinking are cavernous."

France and Germany have been exceptionally determined to curb bonus payments. Of course, it makes sense that two countries that never fully benefitted from Capitalism in the good times would be the first ones to pass laws that would frustrate their more entrepreneurial, Anglo-Saxon rivals in the bad.

Ultimately, a world with bonuses is preferable to one without. We need our City’s brightest people working hard in order to get this economy going again. Most high-earners I know are willing to go that extra mile, an 10 extra hours a week, for instance, with the goal of earning a healthier annual perk, but most wouldn’t lift a finger if this amount was capped to be only 10% of what they earned the year prior.

Not many bankers I know are too stressed about bonus caps because they know - deep down - that a lot of these proposals are not only unenforceable, they’re undesirable. Britain is unique in that financial services industry is the engine of the economy. Politicians understand that we’re all interconnected: when it comes to international finance, we sink or swim together. When it comes to bonus caps, politicians wouldn’t dream of cutting off their nose to spite their face.