Intel is about a done deal I believe. Reportedly taking a 10% stake. Then there's this article.

https://www.newsmax.com/politi...dkt_nbr=010502mqgj5h

Commerce Sec. Lutnick: Defense Leaders Consider Equity Stakes in Contractors

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick said Tuesday that Pentagon officials are "thinking about" whether the U.S. government should acquire equity stakes in top defense contractors.

President Donald Trump late last week announced that the government will take a 10% equity stake in chipmaker Intel.

Appearing Tuesday on CNBC's "Squawk Box," Lutnick was asked whether the Trump administration would consider equity acquisitions with other companies.

"Oh, there's a monstrous discussion about defense," Lutnick said. "I mean, Lockheed Martin makes 97% of their revenue from the U.S. government. They are basically an arm of the U.S. government. They make exquisite munitions. I mean, amazing things that can knock a missile out of the air when it's coming towards you.

"But what's the economics of that? I'm going to leave that to my Secretary of Defense [Pete Hegseth] and the Deputy Secretary of Defense [Steve Feinberg]. These guys are on it and they're thinking about it."

He added, "There's a lot of talking that needs to be had about how do we finance our munitions acquisitions."

Lockheed Martin, RTX, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, and Boeing are among the top U.S. defense contractors.

Lutnick defended the administration's move with Intel, which had been targeted to receive funding from the Biden administration's CHIPS and Science Act.

"The Biden administration gave ... G-A-V-E ... gave Intel, an American company, [an] $11 billion grant ... for nothing, to help them build semiconductors in America, which would be a really good thing but why would you ... I mean, talk about corporate welfare," Lutnick said on CNBC.

"So, Donald Trump sits in the room with me and Lip-Bu [Tan], the CEO of Intel and says, 'C'mon, we have to make it fair for America,' and we agree. We get 10% of the company, which brilliantly equals $11 billion."

The secretary disagreed with the notion that the Trump administration got a stake in Intel "for free."

"It's correct in that the Biden administration had contracted $11 billion out the door, and Donald Trump and the Trump administration turned that into $11 billion of equity, but the money was already out the door," he said.

"So, I think the key is, where is the United States of America adding fundamental value to your business. If we are adding fundamental value to your business, I think it's fair for Donald Trump to think about the American people."

It's fascism.


Fascism
By Sheldon Richman

As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. The word derives from fasces, the Roman symbol of collectivism and power: a tied bundle of rods with a protruding ax. In its day (the 1920s and 1930s), fascism was seen as the happy medium between boom-and-bust-prone liberal capitalism, with its alleged class conflict, wasteful competition, and profit-oriented egoism, and revolutionary Marxism, with its violent and socially divisive persecution of the bourgeoisie. Fascism substituted the particularity of nationalism and racialism—“blood and soil”—for the internationalism of both classical liberalism and Marxism.

Where socialism sought totalitarian control of a society’s economic processes through direct state operation of the means of production, fascism sought that control indirectly, through domination of nominally private owners. Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the “national interest”—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it. (Nevertheless, a few industries were operated by the state.) Where socialism abolished all market relations outright, fascism left the appearance of market relations while planning all economic activities. Where socialism abolished money and prices, fascism controlled the monetary system and set all prices and wages politically. In doing all this, fascism denatured the marketplace. Entrepreneurship was abolished. State ministries, rather than consumers, determined what was produced and under what conditions.

Fascism is to be distinguished from interventionism, or the mixed economy. Interventionism seeks to guide the market process, not eliminate it, as fascism did. Minimum-wage and antitrust laws, though they regulate the free market, are a far cry from multiyear plans from the Ministry of Economics.

https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html

I think it’s fair, on the rare occasion, if ever, that it’s necessary. I don’t think my tax dollars should go for free to someone else’s business and I get nothing.

But it has to be in the form of profit sharing only, no control, as in no voting stock.

I don’t think this should happen often, as I don’t think that there are many companies that are “too big to fail”. Maybe none.

My understanding was they were getting grants in the equivalent sum from the Feds. What Trump did was get something in return - meaning ownership in the business.

Right or wrong I don't know but at least we are not just giving the money away.

Why a stake? Why not just enforceable operational guidelines? What is the benefit of buying a (sufficient) stake if other means to an objective is available?

It’s an interesting concept but I don’t believe it’s fascism in the sense of the definition.

Lockheed is another example.

As long as we don’t get a controlling interest or have a voting interest I don’t have a problem with us getting a quid

I put having a stake in Intel in the same category as Tariffs temporarily. Tariffs have been traditionally anathema to the conservative mindset. As a negotiating tool, Trump as changed my mind. With the Intel stake, I’m in a wait and see. It’s not as if Trump is the first Republican president to do this; Bush did it in 2008 with several companies. A couple of auto companies, at least. Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae remain under U.S. government control.

No.

What makes any one believe the fed.gov can pick winners over losers?

It's a terrible idea that will go horribly wrong. Just because we currently have a competent POTUS doesn't mean government is capable.

Didn’t the Federal Government take an interest in GM a few years ago??

Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick Discusses Parameters for U.S. Govt Stakes in Private Companies

Against the example of the U.S. Government taking a 10% stake in Intel, a private technology company who manufactures microchips, Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick outlines the parameters where the Trump administration would consider taking a stake in private sector companies.

Secretary Lutnick notes that when a company comes to the U.S. government for assistance or benefit, the government -ultimately the taxpayer- should gain an equity stake in that company.

WATCH:



https://theconservativetreehou...mpanies/#more-275379

Only if they take working people's social security deductions and only that money is invested in equity stake of National Security type company's.

In other words, quit pissing away our social security deductions and invest it so social security doesn't go insolvent.

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
Didn’t the Federal Government take an interest in GM a few years ago??

That was the end of bankruptcy law as we knew it. Prior to that upending of what we used to know as a rules-based process, the debt holders would have had priority. Basically, the Bush and Obama administrations took over the company and gave the assets of the company to the union in order to "save" the union and the pension funds.

Mr Wonderful's opinion...

quote:

Originally posted by Sig2340:
No.

What makes any one believe the fed.gov can pick winners over losers?

The government picks winners and losers every day. The difference is that normally when the legislators pick the winners and losers the front run the trades and personally make money on it, either directly or through their husband’s (who they never discuss legislative business with) amazing stock picking skills. (Yeah, looking at you Nasty Nancy Piglosy. In this case, President Trump is taking an equity stake in exchange for the $11 billion that Dementia Joe gave Intel. What do you wanna bet some of his family members frontran that grant and bought either shares or options before that all became public?

In this case, President Trump is getting the American People (via the government) something for their tax dollars that Sleep Joe gave away.

Against it because it will warp government actions to favor those companies. The government will want to protect their investment, to the detriment of competitors or potential startups.

No, no, no, and nyet.

As a theory, I once proposed that rather than any form of capital regulation/corp tax, an entity could go public, in exchange for a “modest” position - I think I said 1%.

Mainly, to give the state shareholder standing.

This does not mean I thought it was really a good idea. (I do think it’s better than the SarbOx etc mess.)

Where things get weird is when we have companies which exist, mainly, for our security.

I think there’s one N95 mask maker in the U.S. - COVID shenanigans aside, we do need a domestic mask manufacturer- probably every nation/larger nation should have one.

The market may not support that.

Maybe a temporary stock position, in exchange for grants makes sense.

Somehow, we need more competition in the defense industry/we really need to rework purchasing to stop building toys and come up with weapons we can actually use in a war.

The toys may have lots of use, in modern politics - but if we ever fight someone with an industrial base, we better figure out how to make thousands of units a week again/hell, make anything.

I tend to agree with Kevin (Mr. Wonderful) on the matter, and also his specific opinions on Intel.

I don’t know much about economics except that at one time the government’s excessive involvement in private enterprise was (claimed to) be anathema to Republicans and the Right in general. “RINO” is a favorite term used to tar any Republican who dares to think independently, but I cannot but wonder what “Republican” means any more. And without knowing such a meaning, RINO becomes nothing more than a self-righteous buzzword to be thrown around as easily as racist or Fascist. Is this proposal relevant in any way to all that? Again, I don’t know, but I do have my questions.