Reimbursing the Rescuers

Well, populism is alive and well.  Today, President Barack Obama did what the public has been demanding, limited the salaries of corporate executives who have sought federal "bail out" money.    These gentlemen, the head of Citibank, Bank of America, General Motors, to name a few, have made millions of dollars, enjoy limos, private planes, luxury suites in hotels, sports stadiums, their own offices...yet, they failed in their management and still were paid exorbitant sums of money.

For awhile I was trying to figure out how this situation was similar to mountain climbers who have to be rescued.  Paying for the rescue is a much debated problem among climbers.    It can, I believe, cut both ways.  Climbing is inherently risky.  Few people do it because of the risk, so why should those people, the ones who don't climb, have to shoulder costs of rescuing those who do?  As a society we rely on climbers to assess the risks, make decisions about continuing with the climb based on their abilities and the knowledges they may have concerning the risks when they begin the ascent.  On the other hand, climbing is an adventure that, in many ways, makes us all human.  From Homer's odyssey to Hilary's first ascent on Mt. Everest, adventurers open and expand our own souls.  We, as a society, want to encourage not discourage people taking risk and challenge with nature.

But these failed businesses?  It's true, capitalism is about risk.  Unfortunately, many  more lives are at stake than the CEOs of the bankrupt businesses.  In fact, those CEOs will always land on their feet, they certainly have stashed away enough money and assets.  It's their administrative assistant who is, well, to be blunt, screwed.  

So, not only do I think their salaries ought to be limited, but like the call to have climbers reimburse the rescuers, I think the individual CEOs, and their top executives, ought to reimburse the government (or us) for their salaries from the moment their books began to bleed red and they continued to take huge salaries.  

Heck, between those reimbursements and all the back taxes we seem to be collecting recently, we may cut the federal deficit in half!