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The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies

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Re: The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies

#81

Post by throwaway27448 »

alephnerd wrote: post #41
asimpson wrote: post #39

The investments listed here in the article make this seem like an effort to shore up or incentivize industries or companies that are integral to national defense. One example, in the ongoing US-China trade war one of the strongest moves China did was put [export controls on rare earth minerals][1] which are essential components across technology, defense, and healthcare to name a few. The government investing in thes…

Yes. This is called industrial policy, and there is bipartisan support for this. 2008 changed thinking on both sides of the aisle around leveraging state power to build industries. Plenty of us Obama and Biden alums are industrial policy fans, and there is a similar cohort across the aisle.

We desperately need a third party to displace one of these two. Having a state interest in industry is of course a great idea—telecoms, power generation, a base level of healthcare providers, pharmaceuticals, base level tech manufacturers are obvious things that should be state owned—but this just seems like an extension of the defense industry corruption (the "military industrial complex") that's plagued our country for many decades. Why am I paying to protect myself from china? Who will protect me from this one?

Re: The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies

#84

Post by anon7725 »

alephnerd wrote: post #31
cjoelrun wrote: post #19

[flagged]

Repeating outdated tropes ad nauseum is dumb. There is bipartisan support for industrial policy. 2008 shaped our thinking on this and most of our policymakers in the 19th century were influence by Alexander Hamilton and Fredrich List. Our allies (Japan, South Korea) as well as our competitors (China) use this as well, and so did the US until the 1990s. I support the CHIPS Act and IRA. I also support building an Ameri…

> I support the CHIPS Act and IRA

So do I. As I understand it, those bills involved incentives that any company could access provided that they met the conditions (manufacture in US, etc). The IRA also provided direct incentives to consumers to spend their money as they saw fit (EVs, solar, heat pumps, etc).

Direct investment by the executive branch is something else entirely. For example, Intel is now blessed and too big to fail. Why would anyone start a competitor to it? If you did start a competitor, your first call would be to Commerce, right? Seems like a heaping dose of moral hazard.

I can understand direct investment in very narrow circumstances, such as rare earth minerals and possibly something like nuclear power generation.

An alternative is a truly-independent sovereign wealth fund, or independently-governed pension investment arm such as the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board. But I doubt, in light of the Humphrey's Executor decision, that it's possible for the United States to create such an entity now.

Re: The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies

#85

Post by imightbebatman »

ceejayoz wrote: post #72
ImHereToVote wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

I need people to understand that 1860s Republicans and 2020s Republicans are somewhat different. I'm begging at this point.

Somewhat might be the understatement of the century.

Re: The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies

#86

Post by econ »

I still wonder if the CAFR CONSPIRACY is true.

The story is that states have some very large number of little bits of money with and without purpose all parked with investment companies. The total sum was argued to be so large the government owns a large share of the economy.

Re: The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies

#88

Post by satvikpendem »

ck2 wrote: post #17

this is why democrats are so stupid to use the word socialist even though it's accurate sovereign funds, federal ownership making companies "too big to fail" is 100% socialism but republicans are devious enough to know not to call it that so do we get to idiotically slur the current administration and call them communists?

Socialism is the workers owning the means of production. There is nothing here where workers own it except only incidentally via employers issuing stock options and RSUs.

Re: The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies

#89

Post by bit-anarchist »

mghackerlady wrote: post #34
benoau wrote: post #3

Isn't that just socialism without the social benefits?

Closer to fascism, socialism implies the workers own the means of production to an extent

In Fascism, the national workers own the means of production by proxy through the Fascist party. Directly inspired by democratic centralism, btw.

Re: The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies

#90

Post by protonbob »

alephnerd wrote: post #46
thehoff wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd be curious as to how much the executives at these firms earn (whether it be through salary or equity or whatever else).

In most cases, same as an L6/7/8 SWE at Google MTV but at the upper rungs closer to L8/9/10 EM ar Google MTV. Use levels.fyi to look at the Google payscale. Heck, I earn less as a VC today than if I remained a SWE or PM in my niche but with more stress and worse working hours. Edit: Why the downvotes? Do y'all actually even know PE/VC and leadership salary scales?!?

I think many don’t so why not just say the numbers.
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