Uncle Sam shouldn't own Intel stock

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...

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.

Milton Friedman when asked about combating greed.

> 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.

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

Context and our norms is what determines 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.