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Comment by Animats | Hacker News Reader

With, apparently, a board member appointed by the Trump administration.

The U.S Steel deal included three board seats, but the Intel deal did not include any.

This is starting to look like the way China does things, with the central government having a financial stake in important companies.

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I'm really surprised that there hasn't been more discussion of the (effective) nationalization of US Steel, so thank you for bringing it up. It's not only that he gets to pick board members, he gets final say on basically any decisions the company makes.

I'm not a fan of the administration by any means but a lot of democracies do this. Public/Private partnerships are commonplace in Europe.

Yeah, I don't mind the public profiting if public money and or concessions were made to set up the business. And especially for bailouts!

Is it common for this sort of company, though? I can see public-private partnerships making sense for infrastructure, for example, but a social media company? That just sounds like a way for a country to censor and push propaganda.

Governments are much better at free speech than companies are, the US government is much more for free speech than Facebook or Google or Apple or Microsoft is etc.

So it is common for Governments to cooperate with media to ensure they remain independent and not just push corporate propaganda, not just to push government propaganda.

If you actually believe this then I do not know what to tell you.

No it isn't, this is an attempt to censor and push propaganda.

That's irrelevant. Did this happen frequently in the US history? The US does not simply adopt France's laws but makes their own for a reason.

It's not irrelevant. The parent claimed the US was taking after China; I'm mentioning that this is not uncommon in democracies and places not named China. If you pull anything else from my comment then you are reaching for something that isn't there.

> With, apparently, a board member appointed by the Trump administration.

Trump has essentially selected all of the board members. Its not a coincidence that Larry Ellison and Andreessen are big Trump supporters. The amazing corruption continues.

> The amazing corruption continues.

Also known as industrial policy. They are inseparable.

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