How the Swiss handle corporate fatcats

This from The Economist:

PUBLIC wrath at the widening gap between packages awarded to company bosses and the average citizen’s take-home pay resounded through Switzerland on March 3rd. Voters there overwhelmingly backed an initiative to give shareholders of Swiss listed companies a binding say on executive pay and an annual right to vet board appointments. Other sanctions would forbid the award to executives of severance packages, side contracts, and rewards for buying or selling company divisions. The penalty for infringements could be as much as three years in jail, or the forfeit of up to six years’ salary.

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America’s biggest banks survive thanks only to substantial federal welfare

Here's the bottom line, as they say.

So what if we told you that, by our calculations, the largest U.S. banks aren’t really profitable at all? What if the billions of dollars they allegedly earn for their shareholders were almost entirely a gift from U.S. taxpayers?
This should be the started of a reinvigorated national conversation about immediate and dramatic reform of America's biggest banks.

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Why keep trying to clean up corrupt political systems?

Why keep trying to clean up corrupt political systems? Glenn Greenwald offers this advice:

[O]ne indisputable lesson that history teaches is that any structures built by human beings - no matter how formidable or invulnerable they may seem - can be radically altered, or even torn down and replaced, by other human beings who tap into passions and find the right strategy. So resignation - defeatism - is always irrational and baseless, even when it's tempting. I think the power of ideas is often underrated. Convincing fellow citizens to see and care about the problems you see and finding ways to persuade them to act is crucial. So is a willingness to sacrifice. And to create new ways of activism, even ones that people look askance at, rather than being wedded to the approved conventional means of political change (the ballot box). For reasons I alluded to above, putting fear (back) in the heart of those who wield power in the public and private sector is, to me, the key goal. A power elite that operates without fear of those over whom power is exercised is one that will be limitlessly corrupt and abusive.

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Unending U.S. hypocrisy in the Middle East

Glenn Greenwald sums up a large part of U.S. Middle East foreign policy: Obama administration has continuously lavished the Saudi Kingdom with a record amount of arms and other weapons, and has done the same for the Bahraini tyranny. He has done all this while maintaining close-as-ever alliances with the Gulf State despots as they crush their own democratic movements." According to a high-ranking adviser to four Presidents, including President Obama, this means: "work even harder, do even more, to strengthen the Saudi regime as well as the neighboring tyrannies in order to crush the "Arab Awakenings" and ensure that democratic revolution cannot succeed in those nations." The result is flagrant U.S. hypocrisy: "US policy to support the worst tyrannies that serve its interests, sitting right next to endless US pro-war rhetoric about the urgency of fighting for freedom and democracy."

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