IMO that's a step to far, and is a totally uneven punishment depending on how shares are held. Just make them give the government equity (or options) as part of the bailout that would dilute all existing shareholders.
Executives aren't the only ones responsible, they are hired by the shareholders.
governments taking equity positions in corporations can be bad because of the risk of corruption, self-dealing, and regulatory capture, not the principal-agent and subsequent sunk-cost risks you mention, imho.
unlike other shareholders, governments aren't strongly motivated by attaining the largest return for themselves, particularly since taxes and bonds are much easier revenue sources. and in crisis, the government has the negotiating leverage to stipulate stricter conditions upfront that aren't normally part of non-crisis investments.
If you count index funds sure
> I'm also guessing that you have never voted at the shareholder meeting of most or all of those companies.
I generally don't vote, but that isn't because I don't believe in the efficacy of shareholder voting. Just because MY (insignificant) vote wouldn't matter doesn't mean shareholder votes in general don't matter, or that shareholders as a whole don't have control over the company.
"This is still true in most young companies, which need capital to get going, and in many small ones anyhow. But in most successful American concerns which have grown to maturity, and especially in the very big ones which between them do a very large proportion of American business, the stockholders are no longer in control in any real sense: they are subordinate in authority and importance to the management... ...Suppose a stockholder doesn’t like the way the corporation is being run? Only if he is eccentric, or a special sort of crusader, or a politician (union or otherwise) trying to make a stir, does he try to oppose the management of a really big company. What he does, instead, is to sell his stock and get out... ...Looking at this segment of American business, we would almost find it appropriate to call our present economic system “managementism” rather than “capitalism.”." - Frederick Lewis Allen in "The Big Change: America Transforms itself 1900 - 1950"
yes, at least these 3 things:
* remove the tax advantage of debt over equity (currently debt payments reduce tax burdens).
* remove the tax advantage of capital gains over ordinary income.
* on any bailout, massively cram down the equity holding of the PE firm(s) and all executives by issuing new shares to every other stakeholder besides them, including other shareholders (if there are any, typically not), employees, suppliers, and debtholders, mitigating the too-big-to-fail moral hazard.