I have worked for various companies. Everything from a family owned business that employed 3 family members, to a large Wall Street firm that employed roughly 40,000 people.

The come forth that we have here is that in tiresome to regulate businesses, it’s as if the government is tiresome to please everyone…and in doing so, they please no one. Like the saying goes, “You can’t just be a modest bit pregnant”.

As a shareholder in a wide range of publicly traded companies, I have had a few of my common stocks go to zero, while the companies filed for bankruptcy (Lehman Bros. and WaMu are just 2 of them). Even though it cost me cash personally, I am thinking that the best way to go about things is to simply allow the grossly mismanged businesses to fail completely. That is what capitalism is all about; survival of the fittest. The ones that made the largest mistakes and have taken the largest falls, are also the ones that were perhaps the greediest.

What bugs me MORE is that fact that the executives of these failed companies have now come come to the US government for cash to keep their businesses solvent. And, while holding their hats in their hands and asking for a taxpayer funded bailout, they also have their friends in the backrooms writing bonus checks to themselves.

As another saying goes, “You make your bed, you have to sleep in it”. These folks made their beds. Whether it be in the form of sub-prime lending, or using derivatives to squeeze more profits from their balance sheets, or manufacturing vehicles that American consumers can not afford because of the high cost of fuels, the executives were providing the leaderhip that led to this mess and at the very nominal amount, they should suffer the consequence of unemployment themselves.

Here’s a novel thought. Before these HUG banking conglomorants became what they were, who was servicing persons home mortgages in the past? The answer? Local banks! It used to be that when someone in Middletown USA sought after to buy a home, they applied for a mortage with the Middletown USA banks. The loan officer would review the application, look at their own banking minutes, verify employment with a simple local phone call, and possibly even drive to the property to inspect it to make sure that the home was value what the buyer was paying (ensuring adequate collateral for the bank). Compare and contrast this rather ancient fashioned thought to what has been going on for that past 20 years! The mortgage lender is 2,000 miles away and has absolutely no thought who they are dealing with. For all they know, the property is a spruced-up double-wide ad that they are lending $400,000 against. So, my question is…what’s ill-treat with going back to basics and allowing these motgage banking giants to fail? There will be a void that would quickly be to the top by…small town banks.

I could go on and on here. But I wish to make one more point. It’s time that shareholders take back ownership of the companies. The boards of directors are often bloated with upwards of 15 people that do absolutely nothing in the way of corporate oversight on behalf of the real owners, the shareholders. Often times, these people serve on multiple boards of directors and are paid six figure salaries PLUS benefits from each company. For what? To rubber stamp their approval on everything that the CEOs say? It’s time for a change…and the change needs to happen on the ownership level.