The Politicization of Business

The question is one of aim, and the trouble with the current flavor of political oversight is that it is an oversight freighted with hostility. This hostility is popular and misguided and the current administration has not done, in my opinion, enough to curtail it. 

The aim of saving a business is to restore it to profitability. Period. 

A profitable business, especially the largest such business on the planet, will pay the highest salaries on the planet. This is to be expected. A board of directors, acting in the interests of shareholders, will approve compensation packages according to their understanding of what the labor market - at that level - requires. You don't take any Joe off the street and make him run GM. But the point here is now that the government has assumed the position of having some fraction of seats on the boards of directors if their mandate requires this anti-executive hostility. How can you be good for the company and be against its leadership from the position of a board member? 

The bill introduced into the House of Representative requiring a 90% tax on executive compensation is shamelessly hostile and contrary to the intent of restoring businesses to profitability. 

So now we get back to the question of aim and intent. If one sees the opportunity of putting businesses under the increased scrutiny of government oversight, whether that is good or bad for the country depends entirely on one's definition of 'business as usual'. 

If you suspect that 'business as usual' is corrupt and/or criminal and/or lining the pockets of executives, then the logical choice is to let such businesses FAIL. Not to bail them out and increase oversight. 

If the intention is to increase government oversight on general principle, then all of the bailout money is simply a bribe to put government spies and overseers in place in private industry. 

If the intention is to restore failing businesses to profitability in trying times, then something other than this hostility must rule the day.