Swiss Voters Set Limits on CEO Paychecks

[geckosfeet]

Wow - they can do this? If little Switzerland can pull this off why can't the US?

Swiss voters are set to approve some of the world’s toughest limits on executives’ pay in a referendum, a move critics say could make Switzerland less attractive to multinational corporations.

The initiative against “fat cats,” proposed by Thomas Minder, head of a herbal toothpaste company, was backed by 68 percent of the voters today, projections from Swiss television SF1 showed as of 2:30 p.m. The projections have a margin of error of 2 percentage points, SF1 said. Polls, including one by gfs.bern, had signaled that outcome as probable.

...

The result is a “negative signal for Switzerland as a place for doing business,” Economiesuisse, a business lobby which had campaigned against the proposal, said in a statement today. Nestle CEO Bulcke said on Feb. 15 Minder’s plan would make Switzerland less attractive to corporations and managers.

The Swiss are not alone in their desire to rein in executive pay in the wake of the financial crisis. Members of the European Parliament last week struck a deal to ban bonuses that are more than twice bankers’ fixed pay if starting Jan. 1, if ratified by European Union countries and the full parliament.

Oh wait - in this country we have to limit the minimum wage, not the maximum wage. I see how that works.... protect those who really don't need protection and kneecap those who do. And it's perfectly legal! Ya gotta love the way this game is rigged...

And now, since the CEO's will all hate the Swiss so much, they will congregate in the US. Thanks a bunch Switzerland.

[Democracyinkind]

1. Sadly, this is but a symbolic victory -

Symbolic for the fact that the Swiss have had enough and are willing to make serious changes I've those are presented at the ballot box.

Unfortunately, this initiative will do nothing to cut CEO salaries - it simply forces publicly traded companies to hold votes on compensation packages. I know, this sounds very good; but when you look at what shareholder's usually decide, it's obvious that it won't change anything (shareholders have, generally, been in favor of these ridiculous salaries, as paradox as it sounds).

This is simply shareholder value run amock, under the pretense of fighting "fatc cats" (though luck if the fact cats and the shareholders are one and the same)

What Switzerland would need, and I hope will get, is shareholder value taken seriously.

I hope that the anti-"fact cat" sentiment that carried this initiative to success will hold on until we get to vote on the " 1 to 12 Initiative ". That one is truly bold: It would write a clause into the constitution that would forbid any salary to be in excess of 12x the amount of the lowest salary paid out in the same company. That would truly scare the fat cats. And it would free us from the yoke of the gnomes that have been running this country since the 80's, at least.

[geckosfeet]

3. Yes. But we can't even manage a symbolic victory.

edit: Increasing the minimum wage to $9 an hour would do little to improve most peoples lives. $9 an hour is still a pitiful yearly wage in NY, Boston, Chicago, LA. And we are not even willing to provide that largely symbolic scrap to our working people. But our CEO's get everything.

[moondust]

4. "1 to 12" sounds good.

I vaguely recall reading that Japan had something like that but it may have been more voluntary than legally binding.

Gnomes?

[Democracyinkind]

5. Richard Nixon is said to have coined "the gnomes of Zurich"

But actually it was a british politician called George Brown.

It can mean many things, conspiracy aficionados use the term interchangeably with "globalist bankers" or whatever they call it nowadays.

Among the maintsreamy people it simply means "swiss bankers", in which gnomes refers to the secretive, life-in-the-underground character of Swiss banking, which was heavily involved with shorting Sterling and Dollar alike, something that everyone knew that but nobody could prove.

[dipsydoodle]

2. Why can't the US ?

Because you've not got Swiss law.