Tim Almond

via the Telegraph:

Company bosses should have their bonuses cut if their firms do not act responsibly to help communities tackle teenage binge-drinking and recycling under Conservative plans to be announced today.

The Tories want to compel companies to link directors’ bonuses with their charity work rather than profits.

Directors bonuses linked to charity work? Is Face-Off a reality now? Did one of the more batshit left-wing writers on CiF get a face graft so they look like the Conservative Party leader? Cameron has made that “oath of allegiance” policy look like sanity.

Directors remuneration is the business of shareholders and no-one else. Often they screw up, rewarding incompetence. But the point is that it’s their money to choose to do that - it’s a private arrangement, something that Conservatives used to understand.

Do these people even think about this for a second? Who’s going to buy shares with such a policy?I have a choice - invest my money in a British company where a large chunk will go to charity or stick my money in US stocks. Let me see…

Shops that move chocolate bars away from check-outs to stop children pestering their parents to buy them or television stations which do not screen graphic material until late at night are examples of firms which would not face penalties under the scheme.

Graphic material already has a 9pm watershed, and OFCOM also get a bit sniffy if broadcasters show particularly violent/sexual material before 10pm. It’s a system that works reasonably well. There’s a few busybodies who’d rather that all of TV was watered down to the level of Mary Poppins, but mostly, people believe that it’s about the right balance. I’d like to think that David Cameron had other matters on his mind, like the housing market going on the slide, than something that works quite well.

As for moving choccie bars from checkouts, wasn’t he talking a while ago about a culture of personal responsibility? Either you believe that that’s up to shops and parents to sort something like that out, or you believe in nanny.

Shareholders in companies found to have failed to put the good of the community above that of profit margins would be encouraged to dock annual bonuses from senior managers.

Although the Tories insist that the measures will be voluntary, Mr Cameron has said he would be prepared as a “last resort” to introduce legislation forcing companies to consider the social implications of their decisions.

We already have a system for that - it’s called government. Decisions of what are for “the good of the community” are decided through legislation and taxes, which means that company directors don’t have to consider social implications of their decisions - it’s already done. We stop companies doing reckless things (like dumping toxic waste in Hyde Park) and tax things that have an adverse effects on others (like car pollution and cigarettes). It means that shareholders simply deal with maximising profit within their own personal moral boundaries.

Tags: Politics, Twat //