Swiss vote to cut down CEO payola

A big majority of Swiss citizens have had enough of corporate greed:

The government said 67.9 percent of voters had backed allowing shareholders to veto executive pay proposals as well as banning big rewards for new and departing managers, one of the highest approval rates ever for a popular initiative.

While anger at multi-million dollar payouts for executives has spread around the globe since the financial crisis, Swiss direct democracy - including four national referendums a year - means public outrage can be translated into strong action.

Funny. I was just thinking if we had a national referendum in this country on policy, these endless manufactured crises wouldn't be so easy to pull off. Certainly the Swiss activists have an advantage under this system.

Thomas Minder, the businessman-turned-politician behind the campaign who says his proposals are aimed at ending a culture of short-termism and rewards for managers of badly-run companies, said intense corporate lobbying had backfired.

And they're just getting started

The center-left Social Democrats are already pushing for another referendum on even tougher curbs on executive pay - they want to limit the annual compensation of top managers to just 12 times that of their lowest-paid worker.

Another idea whose time has come.