If you allow enough "socialism" to permit the government to bail a company out to keep it from failing, can't you also allow enough "socialism: to allow government to control executive salaries to help sustain the ethics of the company thus bailed out?
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That IS the question for conservatives. When you accept something from the government (or anyone, anything else), how much power over you do they want in return? How much freedom are you willing to give up for security, financial or otherwise?
In of itself, yes it is reasonable that a company relying on a government bailout to avoid bankruptcy should also avoid spending untold millions on one guy at the top, who was obviously not doing a great job to begin with.
But then the question becomes, if a company is so big that a government has to step in to save it to avoid wider cascading calamity, then isn't that company maybe too big to simply be considered a private entity?
Isn't it clear at that point that it is no longer a "public" company?
Let me put it this way. What happens to the conservative "argument from capitalism" if it is decided that big companies can be bailed out because they are too big to fail? If companies fail to serve the public in certain ways they are eliminated by other companies who do. But if an exception can be made for big companies, then it's hard to complain of other measures on the grounds that they are socialistic. It becomes socialism for me but not for thee.
Which "conservatives" are making the claim that badly run companies shouldn't go bankrupt?
Some Fed economists made that argument but maybe it's just because they don't want to be the ones holding the bag when the house of cards fall. By proping them up using taxpayer money they actually encourage risky, bad behavior.
I also think universities should be responsible for paying off all student loans for defrauding the students. If they go under, so much the better.
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