The Dutch Finance Minister, a Voice for the Little Guy
As leader of the Dutch opposition Social Democrats before the November 2006 elections, Wouter Bos demanded in a televised debate with Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende that he name three things he had done to make the Netherlands’ highest-paid workers contribute to fixing the country’s finances. Mr. Balkenende was stumped: He could not name even one example, much less three. That debate helped to secure Mr. Bos’s party a place as a junior partner in the coalition government led by Mr. Balkenende’s Christian Democrats and put Mr. Bos in the post of finance minister.
But can the Netherlands point the way forward for the rest of the world? Mr. Bos won a victory of sorts Wednesday when the Netherlands Bankers Association announced it was adopting a far-reaching voluntary code of conduct to strengthen risk management and put new constraints on executive bonuses, primarily by limiting them to the amount of a banker’s fixed compensation.
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