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Uncle Sam shouldn't own Intel stock

(www.wsj.com)
335 points aspenmayer | 19 comments | 24 Aug 25 21:40 UTC | HN request time: 0.642s | source | bottom
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GeekyBear ◴[24 Aug 25 22:36 UTC] No.45008439[source]▶
Didn't we already cross this particular Rubicon during the auto bailout a decade ago?

Other examples:

> Since the 1950s, the federal government has stepped in as a backstop for railroads, farm credit, airlines (twice), automotive companies, savings and loan companies, banks, and farmers.

Every situation has its own idiosyncrasies, but in each, the federal government intervened to stabilize a critical industry, avoiding systemic collapse that surely would have left the average taxpayer much worse off. In some instances, the treasury guaranteed loans, meaning that creditors would not suffer if the relevant industry could not generate sufficient revenue to pay back the loans, leading to less onerous interest rates.

A second option was that the government would provide loans at relatively low interest rates to ensure that industries remained solvent.

In a third option, the United States Treasury would take an ownership stake in some of these companies in what amounts to an “at-the-market” offering, in which the companies involved issue more shares at their current market price to the government in exchange for cash to continue business operations.

https://chicagopolicyreview.org/2022/08/23/piece-of-the-acti...

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themafia ◴[25 Aug 25 02:48 UTC] No.45009730[source]▶
> the federal government intervened to stabilize a critical industry

They intervened to maintain the status quo. Industries are neither stable or unstable for a long period of time without external influences forcing that outcome. Short term turbulence is to be expected and is beneficial for the market as a whole.

They destroy markets and then lie to your face about it.

> industries remained solvent.

How does an _industry_ become insolvent? Only when it's nearly fully monopolized and when there is no difference between an industry and a single entity. This is where we are currently.

> more shares at their current market price to the government in exchange for cash to continue business operations.

Couldn't they just offer those shares to _any investor at all_? Why is the government special here?

> https://chicagopolicyreview.org/2022/08/23/piece-of-the-acti...

Of course. Chicago school thinking. It's infected our country for decades now. Certainly not to the benefit of it's citizens.

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stogot ◴[25 Aug 25 03:24 UTC] No.45009902[source]▶
Could it be that Chicago school thinking has worked but greed & profiteering elsewhere have stolen benefits from the citizens?
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1. fredrikholm ◴[25 Aug 25 09:01 UTC] No.45011788[source]▶
> Is there some society you know that doesn’t run on greed? … What is greed? Of course none of us are greedy. It’s only the other fellow who’s greedy. The world runs on individuals pursuing their separate interests.

Milton Friedman when asked about combating greed.

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2. Teever ◴[25 Aug 25 10:57 UTC] No.45012497[source]▶
Milton Friedman is wrong.

The human emotion that drives free market capitalism optimally isn't greed, it's competition.

People compete to produce better goods at a lower price to win acclaim and profit.

Greedy people mess that all up by amassing wealth and then using that wealth to change the rules of the game so that they can amass more wealth.

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3. da_chicken ◴[25 Aug 25 11:17 UTC] No.45012600[source]▶
"Winning profit" is greed. That's how you amass wealth.

It's like you're arguing that overeating isn't how you gain weight, it's just having an unbalanced caloric ratio.

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4. Teever ◴[25 Aug 25 11:33 UTC] No.45012715{3}[source]▶
Profit seeking through competition isn’t the same as greed. Greed is the impulse to rig the game once you’ve won a little, so you can keep extracting more without competing. And that tendency from some kinds of people corrodes free market capitalism and its ability to drive innovation and reduce prices. Competition only works if players play by the rules.

And your food analogy works against you. If we extend your analogy, profit is like eating, greed is like overeating. Saying profit = greed is like saying every person who eats three meals a day is a glutton. Competition rewards healthy eating -- efficiency, balance, discipline. Greed is scarfing down the pantry and locking the fridge so nobody else can eat.

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5. somenameforme ◴[25 Aug 25 12:23 UTC] No.45013067{4}[source]▶
A typical example here might be something like chess. The primary reason people play it is competition and enjoyment of the game. But there are some who a distorted mentality and simply want to win, even if they're not the one's doing anything, and so you get things like people using computers to cheat. And online chess sites (and increasingly even major over the board events) only work so well by making sure that these sort of people are completely removed from the game.

The desire to compete is somehow not really the same as the desire to win. This is overtly apparent in things like body building. 99.9% of body builders will never compete in a body building show, let alone win, but enjoy the journey that's mostly full of years of self inflicted pain, occasional injury, and endless dedication - largely for the sake of competition and of course what it does to your body. And that latter part isn't really about showing off or sex or whatever, but simply about pride in what you've accomplished - much in the same way one might take pride in their ability to play chess well, or manage a healthy business.

6. roenxi ◴[25 Aug 25 12:28 UTC] No.45013120{4}[source]▶
> Greed is the impulse to rig the game once you’ve won a little, so you can keep extracting more without competing.

You're making up your own novel definition of greed there, which is certainly cheating when you're saying Milton Friedman is wrong. He was using greed in a more generally accepted sense, ie, a desire for more than one has right now.

There are a lot of greedy people out there who are scrupulously honest. As far as I can tell, the average greedy person should be modelling scrupulous honesty, advocating fair systems and enforcing rule-following behaviours - that is creating the best environment for acquiring capital and maintaining property rights. Greedy people who white-ant the systems sustaining their capital are generally more stupid than greedy.

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7. potato3732842 ◴[25 Aug 25 12:45 UTC] No.45013240{4}[source]▶
You're splitting stupid hairs here over the exact implication of words in a setting where they don't exactly matter. Whether you call it greed, self interest, a desire to amass wealth, etc, doesn't really matter because for the fat part of the bell curve it's all the same.
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8. BlackFly ◴[25 Aug 25 12:51 UTC] No.45013292[source]▶
Yes, and altruism doesn't exist, everyone is political, and a whole slew of other nonsense banalizations that pretend that distinctions cannot be made.

> Greed: a selfish and excessive desire for more of something (such as money) than is needed

This definition is quite easy to distinguish ordinary desire from greed. Otherwise you need to render selfish and excessive banal and meaningless as well.

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9. schmidtleonard ◴[25 Aug 25 13:11 UTC] No.45013474{5}[source]▶
It's hilarious to watch people try to pretend that "crony capitalism" and "capitalism" are different things, as if the greed to rig the system once you've won is fundamentally different from the greed that pushes you to compete in an un-rigged system.

No, sorry, it's not only the same emotion, it's the same system and the same rules: if greed is good, why shouldn't one seek network effects, platform effects, last-mile dynamics, vertical and horizontal integration that block competition, engage in FUD and dumping and regulatory capture and so on and so on? The answer that the entire business community and an increasing fraction of the general population seems to agree to is that one should, and this has prevented the sort of gardening that can keep the system actually competitive and working for the people, rather than working for the people on top, which is what it overwhelmingly wants to do when left to its own devices.

10. lotsofpulp ◴[25 Aug 25 13:29 UTC] No.45013641[source]▶
How is "needed" determined? 3 of my 4 grandparents made it around 100 years old with way, way less than what I "need" for my kids.

They did not need doctors, daycare, helmets, cars (they sat 5+ to a motorcycle), air conditioning, avocados, bedrooms, computers, etc.

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11. chuckadams ◴[25 Aug 25 13:42 UTC] No.45013758{5}[source]▶
Economists really should read more Adam Smith: for every word he wrote on free markets, he wrote five more on ethics and morality.
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12. da_chicken ◴[25 Aug 25 17:43 UTC] No.45016547{6}[source]▶
And, boy, has he got opinions on landlords!
13. Teever ◴[25 Aug 25 18:23 UTC] No.45017115{5}[source]▶
No.

Greed and competitiveness are two different motivators, and free market capitalism is driven by competition and not greed.

People compete for many reasons and the collection of material wealth is only one of them.

14. Teever ◴[25 Aug 25 22:45 UTC] No.45020065{5}[source]▶
Give me your definition of greed.
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15. roenxi ◴[26 Aug 25 09:00 UTC] No.45024074{6}[source]▶
I did. "a desire for more than one has right now"

If you want a dictionary definition, search suggests "An excessive desire to acquire or possess more than what one needs or deserves, especially with respect to material wealth".

On their own neither of those implies any desire to rig games or to avoid competition. Some greedy people do that, but since pretty much everyone is greedy to some extent you find greedy people with every combination of human characteristics.

16. jhbadger ◴[26 Aug 25 11:48 UTC] No.45025235{6}[source]▶
Newton wrote more about alchemy and theology than he did on physics too. There's a reason why Newton and Smith are primarily remembered in a subset of the fields they worked in.
17. BlackFly ◴[26 Aug 25 13:19 UTC] No.45026133{3}[source]▶
Getting more than needed does not imply that something is needed at all. You can live your whole life without needing to eat a Lychee, but if you eat 1000 of those that is clearly more than needed. A person who never ate a lychee maybe cannot put it into perspective and might suggest that wanting a single lychee is greed, but most people wouldn't find it difficult to see that perspective as extreme. Change lychee for cocaine and you suddenly start getting a different balance.

Context and our norms is what determines it.

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18. lotsofpulp ◴[26 Aug 25 13:23 UTC] No.45026200{4}[source]▶
I know. Per your definition, anyone who desires a vacation to a tropical island is greedy. Or eating at restaurants. Playing video games, renting a movie, eating dessert, etc. How about living on the California coast? People who want to earn more so they can move there are greedy? Or do they simply desire it?

One of my cousins' parents immigrated to the Bay Area, but mine went to the midwest. Am I greedy for desiring to earn income more than a couple standard deviations above the mean so that I could buy land in the Bay Area? Is my cousin not greedy because they were born there?

>Context and our norms is what determines it.

Exactly, which is the problem with trying to distinguish "desire" and "greed". "We" don't have norms. I was lambasted growing up by my grandparents for wanting things that any 1990s kid had in the US, but they didn't have in their poorer country from 1920 to 1940.

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19. BlackFly ◴[27 Aug 25 21:23 UTC] No.45045461{5}[source]▶
> Per your definition, anyone who desires a vacation to a tropical island is greedy. Or eating at restaurants.

It isn't my definition, it's Merriam-Webster dictionary, and I suggest reading the definition more carefully, it really isn't that hard to understand. That is how the word is used.

All of your examples are not selfish or excessive. So not greedy. That it isn't a clear bright line isn't a problem, most judgements in life are not clear cut.