>Well first off, dividends are a normal method for business owners to make an income... they take all the risk... Except if they did actually take all the risk

>Well first off, dividends are a normal method for business owners to make an income... they take all the risk... Except if they did actually take all the risk, they would presumably be going bust right now...but they aren't going bust because they are being bailed out. This is an example of "privatizing the gains and socializing the losses", the opposite of ownership risk. Besides dividends are not the only reward of ownership, the equity/stock has a value separate from the dividend...a company taking taxpayer dollars and turning around and give x% of taxpayer bailout to owners is a direct transfer of wealth to the ownership class and just burns the cash flow the business presumably needs to attempt to survive.