A Question of Management

As the daily soap opera of ignorant public and pandering politicians versus the national economy and free-market capitalism continues to unfold, I see this piece in the Dallas Morning Fishwrapper:

Responsible Ownership

Now, if a columnist for a major metropolitan newspaper's business section writes it it must be reasonably business savvy, wouldn't you think? But, unfortunately, upon examination it proves to be as populist as the rest of the news. She suggests, quite logically it seems, that since the government is dumping all of this money into recovery/bailout of all of these financial institutions, that the government (AKA "we the people") becomes de facto a shareholder. And, since many of these situations can be viewed through the skewed lens of the unwashed masses, it is possible to conclude that the government now owns the controlling majority of the stock in all of these publicly traded corporations.

So, if we the ignorant people own all these shares, shouldn't we be voting them?

Of course, we wouldn't actually vote the shares for managment policy. It would be those fine representatives on Capitol Hill; the Barney Franks, Chris Dodd, Nancy Pelosi, Dianne Feinstein, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter bunch. Yeah, they would make the managment choices. And what would govern their choices? Re-election of course, not bottom line business practices.

Wasn't the whole idea of the bailouts to provide a bridge loan to sustain the companies and prop up the economy temporarily? Keep them solvent, restore confidence, loosen credit and then get paid back into the public coffers as profitability is restored. The key word is TEMPORARILY.

But, public outrage over the emotionalism of people making too much money for doing a job they are particularly trained and capable of is urging Congress to cap compensation arbitrarily. Limit the future and you inevitably quell ambition. Prod for success with one hand and take away the fruits of that success with the other--just because the people who contribute nothing to the equation demand it.

This way lies disaster. Take a look at a government managed enterprise:

Your Government Management

Fedex and UPS and DHL seem to be doing quite nicely in the package and document delivery business. Why is it that the government subsidized enterprise supposed to do that same thing can't break even?

Madness! It's madness.