I just read a shockingly stupid paragraph in the New York Times today:
IT was the nation’s lending institutions and mortgage originators that got us into this credit mess, but it is consumers, taxpayers and those companies’ shareholders who will end up shouldering most of the costs.
OK, I'm pretty torqued off that consumers and taxpayers are going to shoulder the cost of this, but why the hell should I care about the shareholders? They are the owners of the businesses that screwed our economy up, not some victim. It was their companies and employees who caused the problems, and ultimately the buck stops with the owners.
This idea, which is pervasive in America, that owning stock is some sort of a gamble by people disassociated with the company is one of the biggest problems. Since shareholders are considered separate from the company, the CEOs and managers and board can do whatever they want with no oversight from the owners of the business.
The "ownership society" is geared toward spreading financial ownership of corporations so wide that a small class of revolving board members and CEOs can use shareholders' money and credit without having to answer for the oversight.
It is the same issue with the Bear Sterns bailout, where the investment community is outraged that they would have to accept regulation in return for tens of billions of bailout dollars. They want our money, but not our oversight.