> could not generate sufficient revenue to pay back the loans

Governments aren't people. If I gift you money, that money doesn't come back to me. But if a government gifts someone money, it makes its way back. As long as that money gets spent, there's returns. Even if you die, and even if you don't have that $14m for the death tax, that money still pays dividends back.

The only way it doesn't is if the economy crumbles or that money is taken out of the entire economy (which is much harder to do considering the dollar being the current global currency). So basically you need to light it on fire.

You can do things to slow that flow but it does come back. A low interest loan is just increasing that flow and this is why a negative interest rate can still generate a return. A company can fail and there'd still be returns through taxes in the mean time. The money doesn't just evaporate.

I think a lot conversations about money get weird because we over generalize what money means, applying money's context for an average person more broadly. But money has a very different context when you're talking about governments, corporations, or even billionaires (due to the shear amount). Nor are those examples the same either.

In this case I think it matters. The government already has a stake in Intel, and in all companies. Shares only decrease the pie available to the public while increases the ability for government official to do insider trading and increases nationalization.

While your arguments are correct, I don't think they are relevant.

Like, for example, the government could give me a few billion bucks and everything you said would still be correct. I would also spend it, etc. etc.