Genuine question : When companies are bailed out by the taxpayer, why can't we then give ownership of the company to the taxpayer? Effectively 'buying' the company to save it, instead of just gifting it money for it to survive.

Is there a reason not to make the taxpayer (or government) the main shareholder after the bailout?

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desertrider12 a day ago | parent | next [-]

This has precedent in the US, like when the government nationalized failing freight railroads and merged them into Conrail. But after the more recent bank and auto bailouts I wouldn't expect to see this happen again. The shareholders would really prefer to have money thrown at them but also keep their stake.

	▲	dragonwriter a day ago \| parent \| next [-]
		> But after the more recent bank and auto bailouts I wouldn't expect to see this happen again. The shareholders would really prefer to have money thrown at them but also keep their stake. The auto bailouts did not feature shareholders having money thrown at them and keeping their stakes (GM and Chrysler shareholders, for instance, were almost completely wiped out in the bailout, with the new GM owned by the UAW and the US and Canadian governments; the new Chrysler was majority owned by Fiat with minority stakes held by an autoworkers pension fund and the US and Canadian governments.) Bank bailouts were more protective of shareholders because they were mostly government purchase of distressed assets or extensions of credit,
	▲	frotaur a day ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Thanks for the context. Nuts that this is not seen as a strictly better outcome vs a bailout.

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yareally a day ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Isn't that what just happened with Intel?

	▲	malfist a day ago \| parent [-]
		Not really, Intel had funding from Biden's bill, and Trump told them that in order to have that money they had to give a stake to the government. In this case Intel isn't being bailed out, just securing funding for new chip foundaries

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ToucanLoucan a day ago | parent | prev [-]

> Genuine question : When companies are bailed out by the taxpayer, why can't we then give ownership of the company to the taxpayer?

tHaT'S sOcIAlIsM

Though ironically for the first time ever, the people shouting that would actually be correct. Kind of.

If you mean in a broad "is this possible" sense though, sure, absolutely. Entities owned in part or in whole by the state are not uncommon, but anytime such things are proposed in the US, the right loses it's fucking mind.

Edit: hit the comment rate wall.

> I see! But still, I don't get in what sense it is more socialist that just having people actually buy the company to save it (instead of just saving it 'for free'). If anything it makes it more capitalist if the taxpayers invest in the bailout, instead of just giving it away!

Because socialism isn't an economic system in American politics, it's a scary word that the Russians and CHYNA are. It's also completely interoperable with communism because our conservative party here has long since abandoned anything resembling reality, and even when they were here with us, they didn't know the difference between the two.

Doing it this way is capitalist because it's American. Doing it the other way is evil because it's socialist/communist, like the Russians/Chinese/North Koreans do with the lot of this rhetoric absolutely drowning in racism and nationalism. Mind you, all those countries have issues, absolutely. I'm just saying a conservative with a gun to their head couldn't actually explain those issues, they're just evil because they're not American. [ insert eagle screech here ]

Honestly the best distillation is: It's Freedom when private citizens run things, and it's Communism when the government does. The fact that the government sometimes has to give rich private citizens a shit ton of money to keep things afloat is not reflected upon.

If you try and analyze it through a lens of what these words actually mean, yeah it makes no goddamn sense at all.

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frotaur a day ago | parent [-]

But not really right? It could happen in the market, company A chooses to bailout company B by buying it and investing money to keep it afloat.

Except company A in this case is the government. No? Why is it that when it is the government doing this action, it has to gift the money instead of potentially profiting from it?

Edit : just saw the edit. I see! But still, I don't get in what sense it is more socialist, instead of just saving the companing 'for free', people actually buy (forcefully invest?) in the company to save it. If anything it makes it more capitalist if the taxpayers invest in the bailout, instead of just giving it away!

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graemep a day ago | parent [-]

Its pure propaganda playing on American fear of socialism.

In other very capitalist economies governments did take stakes in banks in return for bailouts. The first British bank that needed one (Northern Rock) was entirely taken over by the government and shareholders just lost their money. The government bought stakes in others. It was still criticised as being too generous to shareholders and management.

	▲	frotaur a day ago \| parent [-]
		That's crazy to me...