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U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

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Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If shareholders are losing ownership it's less a pure bailout and more a strategic investment and/or takeover. It also potentially lets the average taxpayer benefit rather than just those its directly propping up.

How does the average taxpayer ever actually end up benefitting point blank?

Profits from the stake lower taxes that would otherwise be levied on you? Of course that’s moot if the deficit isn’t something being taken seriously.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#392
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post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If a company has truly become too big to fail that it makes sense for the federal government to bail them out, then why are we even leaving the welfare of the company up to private industry in the first place? It's just asking for ways to siphon taxpayer money out of the government through their willingness to buy shares. It inflates the stock price because it shows that the government might buy more share in the fut…

Intel is public and their financials have indicated this would happen. Even at my most irrationally exuberant their stock buybacks didn’t make much sense. I’m not sure what “more transparency would look like to you, but publicly traded companies with audited financials are quite transparent. As for the part about siphoning money, history has shown that taxpayers do well. In 2008, the US government took roughly 80% of…

Don't forget that the US government took roughly 80% of AIG in a move that was later declared illegal and made a roughly $15 billion profit.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#394

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What bothers me is the double standard. When the public asks for fully publicly-owned railways, universal healthcare, or any basic social safety assurances—“socialism”. When a megacorporation struggles, immediately to the rescue.

Bailouts aren't following some rules of fairness, they're for specific reasons like preventing greater economic problems (2008) or national security (probably Intel). You might disagree that those are the best ways to address those risks but that's why we elect the government to make those decisions and act on them instead of letting the country collapse - which is arguably more important than social services which w…

That’s fine. But when the gov is picking winners and losers, that not a free market. What it is, it is. But it’s not a free market based system.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#395
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In general I would rather the government take a stake in corporations they're bailing out. I think the "too big to fail" bailouts in the past should have come with more of a cost for the business, so on one hand I'm glad this is finally happening. On the other hand, I wish it were a more formalized process rather than this politicized "our president made a deal to save america!" / "Intel is back and the government is…

I’d really rather we didn’t bail out these companies at all. It clearly creates moral hazard and makes it hard for better run companies to enter markets.

Well as much as you don't like it, companies this big failing is terrible for the economy and in this case, national security to a degree. I'm of the thinking that when your company gets to a certain size we'd be well off nationalizing. Apple has more money than some nation states. Something that huge has the potential to affect global politics. There's lots of other reasons too, but this isn't like letting the corner store fail. The repercussions are huge. If we're going to bail out, the people should own some of it.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#396
post #333

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Chip manufacturing is too important for the US. We can’t be completely dependent on Taiwan. Nothing against Taiwan, it’s one attack away from being obliterated by China. No company is going to come out of someone’s garage and build a chip fab.

So we give a bunch of money to a company with a history of mismanagement and out sourcing chip manufacturing?

[dead]

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does the average taxpayer ever actually end up benefitting point blank?

Profits from the stake lower taxes that would otherwise be levied on you? Of course that’s moot if the deficit isn’t something being taken seriously.

Deficits aren't real and 10% of $0 when they likely go bankrupt is $0

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#398

> the government made an $8.9 billion investment in Intel common stock, purchasing 433.3 million shares at a price of $20.47 per share, giving it a 10% stake in the company > Of the total, $5.7 billion of the government funds will come from grants under the CHIPS Act that had been awarded but not paid, and $3.2 billion will come from separate government awards under a program to make secure chips Interesting accounti…

Just another Trump shakedown. Nothing to see here.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#399

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only 1 winner and 1 loser: Intel. It's the only chip manufacturer "left" in the US. The argument is national security: the US expects China to invade Taiwan and this will kill TSMC in the process. Whether this will happen or not can be debated, but this is what the government expects.

If the argument was for protecting Intel, then the US government should be placing huge orders with Intel for solutions that will fund R&D and allow the company to regain its position as a foundry. They should be tapping into the defense budget. DARPA should be involved. This was an opportunity for petty extortion and a step towards socialism.

Government involvement is the fastest way to corrupt the purpose of an organization, hollow out its soul and quickly get rid of all the competant people. There's a reason that the DOGE findings made a laughing stock of government employees.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#400

Genuine question- How does Govt picking winners and losers going to help? Intel is no Too big to fail Bank. Why save Intel of all chip manufacturers? Wouldnt it be like 25 years too late, with Intel and its heydays !? Would Govt now ensure parity by investing in "marquee" entities across different industrial domains?

There is only 1 winner and 1 loser: Intel. It's the only chip manufacturer "left" in the US. The argument is national security: the US expects China to invade Taiwan and this will kill TSMC in the process. Whether this will happen or not can be debated, but this is what the government expects.

I see it different. The loser is the taxpayers. The loser is the market, which is less and less free. When there’s no incentive to run your company correctly… we get another company not run correctly.
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