A Rightious Government, They Do Exist..(when gov. CEOs earn too much in hard times).

A few days ago the dutch senate accepted a law which says that no person (CEOs) working in (semi) public sector can earn more than 130% of the salary of a minister. There was much protest from the right wing politicians but the law is accepted as from january 1st 2015. These right wing politicians are stalling at the moment and want to enjoy such lucrative income one last year. The reason they give is because there is not enough time to do the paperwork before the end of this year.

The salary situation of these highly paid individuals was becoming ugly compared to the people who work for them and compared to their indirect boss.. the minister president of The Netherlands. We are talking about the salaries of directors of hospitals, public housing, education centres...and so on.

In these hard times many people lost their jobs while these CEOs enjoyed magnificent salaries accompanied with splendid bonnuses. And the dutch government decided that this has to stop.. Today I can say that I am proud to have such a government.

If only other countries take this initiatief for example... maybe everything will not be lost. I am not saying The Netherlands is doing everything it can and the best way possible for its citizens but this is the right direction to take..I say.





Source: DUTCH

a reply to: zatara

Good for the Dutch.

They have politicians looking out for the best interests of the country.
I wish I could say the same for our politicians that have sold us out and put the dollar first for the elite and the country second, if even.

Ross Perot as an example was one person that was an American First and Business Man second unlike the Banking Puppets we have now.

Wonder if this will lower the tax revenues?

Always a negative effect when jealousy is involved.

originally posted by: xuenchen
Wonder if this will lower the tax revenues?

Always a negative effect when jealousy is involved.

Tax Revenues are paid for by Customers, Consumers and the working stiff as evidenced by the increasing inequality in the USA. Prices on goods and services continue to rise and wages continue to deflate. That is coming out of someones pocket and it is not coming from the compensation packages and stock dividends that continue to rise.

The Compensation, Bonuses and Dividends per Share continue to go up for the top elite.

The top elite want complete Economic "Freedom" and deregulation to exploit everything in this country and in other countries and have absolutely no skin in the game from it. Meanwhile, they want to clamp down on the Freedoms on everyone below them from killing protests movements, patriot act, increasing regulations on citizens and imprisoning everyone that violates them.

I am talking about all protests by the way. Not the latest ones...though, I can guarantee you that lobbyists have destroyed more business in this country than the handful of violent protesters have from the recent uprisings.

Where do Corporate, Banking Lobbyists and Executives have skin in the game from the policies they pass off on to their puppets?

They reap the benefits from it and they pass the costs on to everyone else.

If a fine is imposed on a company, the workers and customers pay for it
If a tax increase is imposed, the workers and customers pay for it.
If a company goes bankrupt, the executives get an escape parachute and everyone else is on their own.
It seems we have no polices in place that place personal consequences on the ones passing policies onto their puppet politicians.

We need to create personal incentives and disincentives on those that are allowed to create economic policies that put the whole nation at risk.

OR

We can agree that Money Backed Lobbying is Legalized Bribery and boot out money backed lobbying. They can lobby politicians without money or get a picket sign and hit the road.

Adam Smith was against Capitalists writing political polices for this very reason. I don't know why this is not common sense and is allowed to go on. Greed is the only word I have for it

a reply to: zatara

Good for the Dutch people.

Over here though you’d have em yelling COMMUNISM, SOCIALISM.

You see strangely people over here, poor people, middle class people have some odd feelings of worry for the rich.

They actually go to bed worrying how much taxes rich people pay!

The kinds of people who listen to Bill O Reilly and Rush Limbaugh

They have adoration for the wealthy like the days when we had Dukes and Earl and Kings, Queens and princess’

They would go crazy over here to withhold such wealth from the elite in America

And strangely it would be the middle class types

Go figure

No government was ever righteous.

a reply to: Willtell

I think it is because of "The American Dream" - which basically is the desire to get rich and have unlimited financial resourses. Taking anythng away from those who have already "made it", also takes something away from the dream of the middle class people and the poor. The shiny prize that waits for them at the end of their struggles (and it does wait for them since America is the "land of opportunity" and a place where "everyone" can be a success, right?) will be smaller for them too if the rich have to pay more taxes.

So it becomes logical to protect the financial interests of the wealthy, since the middle class and the poor believe deep down that one day and somehow they will also become wealthy. The middle class and the poor are simply protecting their own long term interests....

Greed is a sad thing.

I came to learn that we are not talking small patatoos here... someone estimated that in some cases these CEOs can lose 50.000 euro a year with this new law in place.

Some say there is a down side too. The best guns for hire will look elsewhere than the public sector. There is a valid point in there. Some senior organizer with a network can do a lot of positive things for an organisation. On the other hand it can attract a very motivated young CEO who wants to make a name for him/herself.

originally posted by: zatara

Some say there is a down side too. The best guns for hire will look elsewhere than the public sector. There is a valid point in there. Some senior organizer with a network can do a lot of positive things for an organisation. On the other hand it can attract a very motivated young CEO who wants to make a name for him/herself.

For every well-connected big salaried C-level manager that refuses to work for less that 8 figures (salary + guaranteed bonuses) there are dozens of equally capable (and just as "connected" once they've got the C-level position) executives waiting to take that corporate governance position at whatever rate is imposed by society's new survival requirement. It's a myth that the highest paid are the "best guns", but it's a virulent myth at this point in Capitalism's slow motion collapse as a viable ideology.

I was watching some conversation between Anthony Bourdain and this Chinese corporate exec (big fish type) and the guy got real honest for a moment with what I thought was a powerful insight. In essence he described the future of work-for-a-living in what seemed to be extremely bleak terms. There are over 7 billion people on this Earth, he said. And each one of them is or will be required to work for themselves or for someone else in exchange for money enough to eat and have shelter and clothing. And yet, in the meantime, there is a global push for technologies and processes that eliminate jobs and ways of people being necessary to get work done (of course, the latter eliminating self-employment options and opportunities). At some point, and he suggested that the point may have already been reached, there will be no way for the sheer mechanics of Capitalism to serve the survival of modern industrialized society.

He suggested that perhaps technology and business efficiency will ultimately be the primary factor behind the failure of Capitalism in the West in same way that corruption and inefficiency were powerful factors behind the collapse of Communist totalitarianism in the USSR.

I know that there's always the wild card of human innovation, but if innovation is always going to be defined as leaner, more efficient accomplishment (creating, producing or getting something from here to there) then we, as a species, are doomed on this planet. The real innovation may have to be in figuring out how a global society of 7+ billion human beings can actually survive on one rock that none of them can escape from, and that no one can hide within any longer.

After all, human innovation has completely obliterated the concept of a "bad neighborhood" by making every neighborhood equally threatened by those with a car and the desire to do bad things. Google maps makes it easy to see where the ins and outs are in every middle-to-upper class enclave, making it easy for predators to case a target without ever driving by. Send in an aerial drone for a quick fly-over if need be. Hell, innovation has them on sale for 50 bucks - with a camera and streaming software. Kind of makes the case that innovation is a two-edged sword now days.

Every empire collapses and the global corporate structure may end up bringing on a variety of such collapses before finally succumbing to the inevitable itself. In the US, we worship this structure as if it were the heavenly host itself. Maybe it's because we secretly resent that our founding fathers dragged us away from the European aristocracy before we were fully ready to make the break, but who knows why. Perhaps it's like the royals always insisted - that the human race needs kings and princes and those who are chosen by God to be better than everyone else.

I'm just glad that I won't have to try and start another life after I'm done with this one. By then, life on this planet should be a real carnival.