http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/eu_odd_sw..._speeding_fine

ST. GALLEN, Switzerland – A Swiss court has slapped a wealthy speeder with a chalet-sized fine — a full $290,000. Judges at the cantonal court in St. Gallen, in eastern Switzerland, based the record-breaking fine on the speeder's estimated wealth of over $20 million. A statement on the court's Web site says the driver — a repeat offender — drove up to 35 miles an hour (57 kilometers an hour) faster than the 50-mile-an-hour (80-kilometer-an-hour) limit.

Court clerk Heidi Baumann-Becker said Thursday the unidentified driver can appeal the decision, handed down in November, to the Swiss supreme court.
The Blick daily newspaper in Zurich reported the fine was more than twice the previous Swiss record of about $107,000.

 

I only wish they based fines on income here in the U.S.

 

Me too, mine would be about $20.00. LOL

 

Give the Socialist Messiah enough time and he will put it into law.

 

ZURICH (Reuters) – A millionaire motorist clocked up a record fine of 299,000 Swiss francs ($290,000) after Swiss police caught him racing through a village at 100 km per hour in his red Ferrari Testarossa, Swiss media reported on Thursday.

A court in the northeastern Swiss canton of St Gallen gave the millionaire the hefty penalty, which outstripped the previous record of 111,000 francs handed a Porsche driver in 2008 in Zurich, after a string of previous traffic offences.
"The accused ignored elementary traffic rules with a powerful vehicle out of a pure desire for speed," the court said in its judgment of the motorist, who clocked speeds of up to 137 km per hour on country roads, said daily Blick.
The St Gallen Cantonal Court ordered the man to dip into his 23.3 million franc fortune, which included a villa with a garage containing five luxury cars.

 

There are a bunch of countries that do this. I remember a similar story with the CEO of Nokia being hit with a 6 figure speeding fine.

 

I only wish.

It'd only be fair, since we spent the last 30 years tilting the game so that the rich became super-rich at the expense of the middle class.

I have a billionaire friend who won't valet his car, so he always parks in the red right in front of any restaurant we eat at. He laughs at the $75 ticket. I wonder if he'd care if each of those tickets were $1500 for him.

 

Amazing that some people feel that way.

 

That's a win-win. He gets a good parking space and the city (or county or whomever) get the $75. I have no problem jacking up the fine, but only to the most he's willing to pay. Might be more efficient to simply auction off those parking spaces though...

PS -- Does he pick up the tab, too? If so, then it's a win-win-win (and can I get invited? I'm always up for a free lunch.).

 

Oh yeah, he's a generous guy, no doubt.

As my Dad used to say, "That guy's got more bread than a prison meatloaf!"

On one hand, I agree with what you're saying. On the other, the idea that the super-wealthy can use their gains to flout the law irks me in some way. This mindset is what allowed the excesses on Wall Street to decimate the economy.

Greed and avarice are the real gods in the U.S., alas.

 

Those guys in the Gumball 3000 laugh at their speeding tickets too. They fly through the US, accept their tickets, and just keep on flying once the cops are out of sight. Must be nice to have F.U. money.

 

I agree, but, like most things in life, it's a matter of degrees. If they do it in a meaningless way, such as taking up a parking space in a red zone and society gets something out of it -- income -- who am I to agrue? Certainly doesn't hurt me for someone to park there and if they're willing to pay the money... But, when it come to ruining our economy, I'm with you brother.

 

OT: re fines and "the rich". Okay, I'll admit this is a right wing rant. I see nothing in the constitution that empowers the Government to "equal the playing field". If I happen to have accumulated more net worth than the next guy then my argument is "I earned it, I get to keep (most) of it".

Why not just allow every "poor" person to be given a Ferrari (or better a 911). After all, they should "share in the wealth". Why should they be deprived of having a great car just because they happen to not be relatively well off?

 

I'm gonna go with the fact that the system has been rigged for a long time to favor the rich at the expense of the middle class.

You may/may not know that the income tax rate on the wealthiest Americans is under 40% now. It used to be 70%, or even more, just a few decades ago. Also all the tax cuts, capital gains cuts, estate tax cuts and so forth favored the rich. I think the playing field needs to be equalled because it has tilted to favor the rich at the expense of the middle class for so long. Remember "Trickle Down" economics in the 1980s? The rich would get the all the love, and whatever they couldn't carry would "trickle down" to the masses LOL! Guess that economic theory is blown...

The average CEO made 57 times what the average worker made three decades ago. Now, that has ballooned to 632 times. It would be one thing if those titans of business were earning their pay, but these days Fortune 500 companies collapse because of incompetence and mis-management and those who are responsible get 8-figure golden parachutes instead of going to jail.

Do you really think people like Rick Wagoner, former head of GM, earned his hundreds of millions of dollars he made while employed at GM? He and his incompetent counterparts at AIG, Home Depot, Chrysler, Lehman Brothers, etc. decimated those companies. Those folks didn't earn their pay, and in a moral society, they'd get none of those gains. Even folks like Bill Gates amassed some of his fortune by employing unethical and illegal acts such as violating anti-trust laws. At least he's giving it back, unlike many of his peers.

In a perfect world, I agree with you completely. But in THIS imperfect world, and in this country, my feeling is that many at the top, especially those whose greed or incompetence forced hardship on thousands or even millions, have the most to give back, and lets start with those who made the most by screwing the most.

My Dad used to say: "Steal $5 here and they throw you in jail. Steal $5 billion and they build statues of you." Boy, was he right.

 

That would make 100% sense.