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Comment by shimman | Hacker News Reader

Don't worry, this is the type of project that can easily get nationalized with zero pushback if anyone with authority wanted to.

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That might have pretty negative long time consequences. Nationalize a few companies and soon the corporates might relocate.

Where are they going to go? Honest question, because capital flight is always a threat that never materializes. Turns out the actual pillars of wealth can't easily be extracted out of the country.

Literally any other country offering anything better than nationalization

So no where, lol got it.

yes but only by a US authority.

Yes and the seeds have already been planted by the current US administration taking various financial stakes in public companies as a condition of corporate welfare.

The current administration didn’t start that, see the bailouts of the 07-08 financial crisis.

Those were just repaying the loans, having a stake in a company is completely different. It's not hard to push that further and in more creative ways too.

That’s completely incorrect, they got significant equity in AIG, Citibank, and several other companies.

Even better, this is a policy that has been done by multiple Presidents. All you need know is an executive willing to do it as it's clearly in the President's power to dictate commerce if they can force the federal government to take equity in various companies at any time (even better if said company relies on US welfare to exist).

I don't see this as a good analogy, because the financial crisis bailout appeared to save the companies from shuttering, which is not what happened under the current admin.

Some of it is. Intel was in big trouble.

Some of the investments were more national security related and a lot of it was done through the DoD which has a history of this too.

It’s unusual but not entirely unprecedented.

Huge difference between taking an equity stake in a failing company and nationalizing a successful company. Either way, those seeds were planted well before this admin, though this admin can be seen to have watered/tended them.

One of those differences being "Hey, we want to buy some shares at market price, will you sell them to us?" vs "We're taking over your company, and if you don't like it, talk to the men with the guns".

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