This will be interesting to watch!
Spanish business leaders are being told they have to declare any illicit love affairs - to the stock market.
In an attempt to crack down on insider trading, the directors of companies quoted on Spain’s stock exchange will have to come clean, on a twice-yearly basis, about anyone with whom they are having an "affectionate relationship".
Having spent almost a third of my life in the business world I think I know how this would will go down. However, it is a common fallacy that business executives are generally promiscuous, adulterous infidels who sleep with anyone anywhere.
While I worked in the Silicon Valley, a study was published (Harvard Business Review, I think, reported on it) which showed two out of three of the top three executives at the then Fortune 500 were home-bodies, who honored their families and even attended worship services at least once per month, with their families.
Things have changed and I’m unsure what we would find today; so many of the country’s top executives are children of “flower children” that it would be hard to predict. But I would guess the public would be surprised at the moral character and fidelity of those who run our nation’s top companies … especially after Enron, Adelphia, Tyco, WorldCom, etc.
Of course there is always this reaction …
Seriously, this kind of legislation is really bad for a variety of reasons, and in the end (though it’s interesting on the surface), it is always less not more government and it is always less superficial legislation which bears the best national fruit. "Blue laws" just don't teach morality!
While I worked in the Silicon Valley, a study was published (Harvard Business Review, I think, reported on it) which showed two out of three of the top three executives at the then Fortune 500 were home-bodies, who honored their families and even attended worship services at least once per month, with their families.
Things have changed and I’m unsure what we would find today; so many of the country’s top executives are children of “flower children” that it would be hard to predict. But I would guess the public would be surprised at the moral character and fidelity of those who run our nation’s top companies … especially after Enron, Adelphia, Tyco, WorldCom, etc.
Company directors must also provide information about their wives or husbands and family, but it is the idea of a "lovers’ register" - in which bosses could have to admit to having affairs or out themselves as gay - which has sparked reactions ranging from disbelief to fury among businessmen.Though I tend toward the Libertarian (the less government in business the better the business), I like this Flamenco for two reasons: on the one hand, any man or woman who thinks they’ve found their “golden parachute” will think twice if they know there face might be on front page of El Mundo; and on the other hand, execs with perverted sexual appetites (homo, bi-, trans-, kiddies, S & M, etc.) will have second thoughts as well … less of that garbage is good all around.
Of course there is always this reaction …
The thought I’m having is the old interrogation challenge, “If you have nothing to hide you won’t mind answering our questions!”A spokesman for another leading Spanish financial house - who would not be named - was outraged, saying: "If I had a lover, which I don’t, would they expect me to admit it?
Ricard Fornesa, the president of the huge La Caixa savings bank, described the legislation as "laughable".
Seriously, this kind of legislation is really bad for a variety of reasons, and in the end (though it’s interesting on the surface), it is always less not more government and it is always less superficial legislation which bears the best national fruit. "Blue laws" just don't teach morality!
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