Brain Drain

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/18/business/18bailout.html

As you all know, there has been a recent commotion over the boneses paid to executives recieving financial aid from the goverment, specifically those from AIG. In what was probably the most efficient expression of constituent dissent in recent history, Americans across the nation urged their congressmen to do something about it.

So they did

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/19/house-debates-bonus-tax/?s...

The enormous tax congress is trying to impose on those receiving goverment aid may do wonders to quell the populist rage that's being flamed by the media, but is it in the best interests of Americans to deprive their financial leaders of their incentive to participate in the system?

Thus, we have brain drain.

Wikipedia does a ok job defining this.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brain_drain

I think it's a bad idea to force executives to fork over their contractually obligated cash. Should they do it voluntarily in the spirit of this crisis? Sure. But I fear that should our President sign the executive tax, we will be confronted with two problems.

1) Companies in need of liquidity will not seek out goverment aid because of the restrictions on the money, causing them to suffer wholistically 

OR

2) Companies will accept goverment cash, which will prompt the depature of our best and brightest financiers (who will not find working in the financial sector appealing), thereby worsening our struggle to revive the financial sector.

Goverment officials do not have the capacity to effectively run multinational financial organizations. They hardly have the capacity to run goverment practices effectively. Maybe we should think about taxing the only folks who can get us out of this mess before we shoot ourselves in the foot. Again.