• Buffalox@lemmy.world
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    27 days ago

    why should not US Treasury take an equity position for their “risk”

    I understand why that may seem like a fair solution on the surface, but it’s because that would make Intel a part federally owned company, and in general it is avoided to have publicly owned companies competing against private companies. Which in this case would be Nvidia, AMD, Comcast, Qualcomm etc. It’s a huge conflict of interest, and would easily be seen as unfair competition, possibly also by trade partners.

    There might also be legal issues, internally in USA, and with WTO and other trade agreements.

    So it’s kind of opening a can of worms that is better left closed. It’s not that I don’t understand where you are coming from, but trust me, regulation is way better than a government taking control.
    Intel may collapse, but then maybe one of the previously mentioned companies may pick up the remains, and built it better. This is why we need to have free competition.

    • sunzu2@thebrainbin.org
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      27 days ago

      I am not aware of any law on the books that prevents US government from taking equity stake in a corporation. German states take equity in companies. China and Russia have straight majority owned mega corps.

      US took equity stake in GM when it bailed them out.

      I know there was a huge bruhaha about it but it was just that owner class refusing to face the music for their fucks up.

      Nothing is stopping treasury from making tidy profit from their investment like they did with GM.

      Current system enables parasitic behavior from owners and executive teams while life for for bottom 80% of taxpayers has been shite… yet every time owner class needs bail out, these people have to pay for it.