The argument I have heard about the US taking 20% stake in Intel is that when a company asks for federal money then it’s only fair if the federal government gets some equity in return.
> argument I have heard about the US taking 20% stake in Intel is that when a company asks for federal money then it’s only fair if the federal government gets some equity in return
Great forward-looking concept. Terrible ex post facto. The precedent set is that the government can demand equity for past favours at any time.
Also, now that the U.S. owns a stake in Intel, where does that leave competitors? We're already seeing a push to force AMD and Intel to merge [1].
For example, here in Louisiana the utility companies do this. After a major hurricane, Entergy will fix and upgrade tons of infrastructure and then get to tack on a +$15.00/m on to your utility bill for the next 5 to 10 years to recoup the costs all while they are making millions in profits each year.
Why pay for it themselves when they can just force the public to do it.
We kept doing this, a bank or company stretches too much after making record profits, and then cries for federal funding and free money.
The federal reserve is a lender of last resort and they shouldn’t have given that much money without any collateral etc. Even if they just kept the stock and then sold it afterwards, we wouldn’t be in this much debt. We spend trillions covering private losses, this was plain stupid.
easiest way to get downvoted on HN is to point out that we are the largest socialist country on the planet exactly because of this. there isn’t any shit we won’t socialize losses on (farming, banking… you name it, US has got your back)
Socializing is not the same as socialist per se, the latter of which has the specific definition of workers controlling the means of production, and I don't see that anywhere in the US much less the world.
you can throw any semantics at this you want and re-define it however you see fit. but there are few things more socialist than government taking a stake in companies. if this Intel story came out or Venezuela or China we would be crying a foul saying “oh look at that socialist shit, glad I live in America”
Sure, I don't disagree on the argument, I'm just saying that people have been using the word socialism wrong for so long that it now just means when the government does something, basically.
If you use the word "Socialise" then the current trend of reactionary ill-informed is to assume "Communism". It's an argument I'm sick of having, but it's an argument that needs to be had.
> it's an argument I'm sick of having, but it's an argument that needs to be had
OP [1] is the first person to make the argument that socialising anything implies communism in this thread. The entire shtick is a straw man. It doesn't need to be argued if it's only brought up by the side tearing it down.
the terms are used interchangeably for the HN crowd but you get the point... US is the largest socialist country on the planet by far. Not communist country yet but Project 2025 is working hard on that :)
I believe it's the other way around: The western governments, media and legislative bodies are under Israeli control.
Have you seen how the US Congress, half of which boos the US presidents along party lines, suddenly all rise up and fall in line when Netanyahu visits the Congress?
It is humiliating, but that makes no sense at all from a power dynamics perspective. Israel is just not that powerful, economically, militarily, or socially. The US's military industrial complex is, and basically every politician is beholden to powerful capital interests, the MIC among them. Unconditional and enthusiastic support of Israel, then, is a proxy for support of those financial interests, hence the visits, deference, etc. This backed up by the very real threat of a handful of powerful lobbying groups that will and have coordinated to redirect funding to opponents of anyone they deem insufficiently deferential.
Recall please Grover Norquist. In the 90s and 2000s he leveraged proximity with the post-Reagan new conservative wave to grow a relatively modest org, Americans for Tax Reform, to a near universal policy chokehold on the Republican party.
Through a socially viral "no net new tax" promise, once Norquist secured pledges from party leaders, essentially all federal elected Republicans had to pledge as well. They were otherwise threatened with losing endorsement from Norquist and faced being ostracized and primaried. The leaders themselves were then caught in the net and none felt like they could break.
ATR influence has waned in the face of MAGA's more populist fiscal liberalism, but that was pretty much just one guy.
Extend that singular goal to a network with a narrow and aligned interest, and it can be very effectively maintained with intelligent and shifting messaging and reputation management. Consider how people like Loomer and Raichik that have emerged, not through established power brokers, but organically through social media platforms, and the significant influence they possess even in the White House.
How can you say it’s a conspiracy theory when you see tons of verified news articles with all of these Western politicians so supplicant to Israel and Israeli politicians?
What’s surprising is that this not a bigger part of the conversation.
Perhaps they have an understanding of the history of the region that goes further back than 2022, to truly understand this conflict you have to go back a couple hundred years.
If you read history and understand that Jews are persecuted and murdered in every country that is not Israel, what are they supposed to do?
Should we blame the Ottoman Empire for not industrializing earlier and losing the technology race to Europe and collapsing? After all, if the Ottoman Empire hadn’t collapsed at the end of WW I, Palestine would likely still be a Muslim territory.
That’s how far back you have to go to find a good starting point to explain how the conflict got to the point it’s at now.
> Israel is just not that powerful, economically, militarily, or socially.
Its not just funding and religious indoctrination. The very, very serious question that nobody seems to have the courage to ask, is this: where are Israels nukes?
The answer to that question might provide some insight into why things are so supplicant in certain halls of power ...
They replace taxis and potentially postal and trucking applications in future.
It’s certainly not a replacement for mass transit. US is sparsely populated compared to Europe and mass transit don’t work as well in the suburbia. That said, I do see many transit oriented development in SF Bay Area where high density buildings are being built near transit stations.
I believe TSLA also represents their humanoid robot segment with some questionable addressable market definitions done by investment analysts. I believe it’s overvalued but they are a forcing function for the other tech companies to push ahead
You can’t socialize losses and privatize gains.