I was using Circuit City & Mervyns as strawmen examples. Realize that AmEx employees are some of the highest paid in America, while Mervyns' people are among th

I was using Circuit City & Mervyns as strawmen examples. Realize that AmEx employees are some of the highest paid in America, while Mervyns' people are among the lowest paid. A government loan (by definition on more favorable terms than what they can get in the market) to AmEx is inevitably a subsidy to those high paid employees. Mervyns having to raise funds at 15% or 25% or whatever loan-shark terms they could get - yes, entirely their own fault - means that by extension, their low paid employees have to bear that interest burden on the company. Why should we the taxpayer subsidize AmEx? Why not let the do the write down of their bad assets? In what sense Mervyn's management mistakes more punishment worthy than AmEx management mistakes? Here is a modest proposal: any company requesting a government loan should accept civil service pay rules for their employees. Would AmEx employees put up with it? They can get the fuck out of they don't like those terms and find real private sector employment.