Ruining Our Economy Is A Domestic Matter — No Foreigners Allowed
From a NYT story about new banking regulations attached to the bailout funds (and the desire for some of these banks to now return the money):
The list of demands keeps getting longer.
Financial institutions that are getting government bailout funds have been told to put off evictions and modify mortgages for distressed homeowners. They must let shareholders vote on executive pay packages. They must slash dividends, cancel employee training and morale-building exercises, and withdraw job offers to foreign citizens.
As public outrage swells over the rapidly growing cost of bailing out financial institutions, the Obama administration and lawmakers are attaching more and more strings to rescue funds.
Now, I understand canceling employee training. After all, you wouldn’t want to teach the people who got us into this mess to change their behavior. When nationalization is complete, they’ll be government employees, so no accountability is necessary! And morale-building is also out — they should be happy following the dictates of Dear Leader, and no morale building should be necessary for our properly conditioned citizens subjects.
But withdrawing job offers to foreign citizens? Do we really need another protectionist dictate coming out of this administration? Don’t we want to extend jobs to the most qualified of anyone who applies, not limit this to only Americans? This sounds like exactly the sort of provision I’d expect from the Bush administration and Republicans, and we’re supposed to believe that this is Change™?!
Hat Tip: Economist Free Exchange Blog
