Slashdot Mirror
Swiss Referendum Backs Executive Pay Curbs
gollum123 writes in with news that Switzerland may soon have the world's strictest corporate rules. "Swiss voters have overwhelmingly backed proposals to impose some of the world's strictest controls on executive pay, final referendum results show. Nearly 68% of the voters supported plans to give shareholders a veto on compensation and ban big payouts for new and departing managers. The new measures will give Switzerland some of the world's strictest corporate rules. Shareholders will have a veto over salaries, golden handshakes will be forbidden, and managers of companies who flout the rules could face prison.The 'fat cat initiative', as it has been called, will be written into the Swiss constitution and apply to all Swiss companies listed on Switzerland's stock exchange. Support for the plans — brain child of Swiss businessman turned politician Thomas Minder — has been fueled by a series of perceived disasters for major Swiss companies, coupled with salaries and bonuses staying high."
If you boil this down, what you are left with is the disgusting stench of jealousy. Who are you to say that another person's salary is unjustified, if that person's salary was achieved through voluntary association? After all, your solution is coercion. And you dare asset that YOU are the morally superior one? You've got it backwards.
I am 38 years old, make less than $40,000 a year, and in all probability won't make any more than that for the remainder of my life. I'm guessing you make a lot more than that, as do most slashdotters. But the difference between you and me isn't money. The difference is that I have accepted my place in life, as well as the fact that certain others will have orders of magnitude more than I have. The difference is that I can see right through the smokescreen of moral superiority.