Punishing Success

I don’t believe that any company is “too big to fail.” If a company has adhered to risky business practices, and the risks fail, then I think the company should be allowed to fail. I’d far rather have seen our government make it a bit easier for small and mid-sized businesses in this country to stay afloat, rather than shell out tens and hundreds of billions of TARP dollars on the likes of AIG, CitiGroup, Wells Fargo, and the likes.

That said, however, I definitely don’t think the United States government should be meddling in the financial affairs of businesses which have paid off their TARP loans and are no longer under obligation to the government. Sadly, these companies won’t get off that easily:

Did you catch that?

“Don’t spread that around because it’ll be much harder for the punitive taxes we’re going to put on the bonuses, if you actually say they’ve made money–it’s what we want to do because these guys have got to be punished.” [emphasis mine]

In other words, “You are too big to fail, but you’d better not be too successful, or you will be punished.”

“Once you have paid off the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.”

Stoutcat