U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

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 investing BUY INTEL SHARES" media event. These things should follow a strict set of rules and processes so investors and companies know what to expect. These kind of deals should be boring, not a media event.

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.

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?

Not that I agree with bail-outs, but 2008 financial crisis that resulted in a number of bail outs actually netted the treasury a profit.

> In total, U.S. government economic bailouts related to the 2008 financial crisis had federal outflows (expenditures, loans, and investments) of $633.6 billion and inflows (funds returned to the Treasury as interest, dividends, fees, or stock warrant repurchases) of $754.8 billion, for a net profit of $121 billion

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Troubled_Asset_Relief_Program