The US Government Is Now a Shareholder in 26 Companies

Plenty of us Obama and Biden alums are industrial policy fans, and there is a similar cohort across the aisle.

This doesn't preclude the creation of a generalized SWF, but there is a difference between an SWF, SDF, and everything in-between.

This is the same approach Japan, South Korea, China, and India use as well.

From a purely financial perspective, federal taxation on companies would be similar to owning shares (except ≈preferential since the government usually gets paid first).

From a voting and control perspective, we usually don't want the government getting involved (the government should be using industry regulations, and avoiding trying to pick winners).

In New Zealand our government screws up everything it has an ownership stake in (notably electricity and rail).

I'm not sure it's the only issue, but for now focusing only on this issue: it's a really big issue. The R's often complained about Dems choosing winners and losers (IIRC related to the solar industry). This is now way beyond what the Dems were trying to do by advancing solar. The gov can use it's buying power to sway things towards Intel, for example, over AMD. Huge potential for conflict of interest that will distort the markets.

The other tangential issue is that in some cases these can look like bribes. For example, OpenAI "offering" 5% of their stock to the gov.

Tax the rich.

What does this mean?

For all the current US administration has complained about the opposition being “socialist,” they’ve certainly gone all-in on the state partially owning private companies.

Almost like cries of “socialism” have become a dog whistle instead of what the term actually means.

"A fascist corporation can be defined as a government-directed confederation of employers and employees unions, with the aim of overseeing production in a comprehensive manner. Theoretically, each corporation within this structure assumes the responsibility of advocating for the interests of its respective profession, particularly through the negotiation of labor agreements and similar measures."

A lot of dystopian literature has been written with the premise that governments would wither away and end up replaced by mega-corporations that become the de facto law. I suppose the theory where the government just buys all the corporations instead because they control the money supply was generally overlooked by those authors. The end result probably isn't much different, but the path to get there has some differences, I suppose. It also seems reasonable to say that the authors, not being from the finance world (at least that I know of) may not have realized the depths to which financial engineering would sink and the willingness of the governments to participate in it.

Back in the 1980s when cyberpunk was really thriving the government at least made mouth noises about fighting the worst excesses of financial engineering. Whether history bears that out as something they were actually doing, the reader is welcome to come to their own conclusions about. But the government at least tried to look like a countervailing force to financial engineering.

Think of it like the original Bitcoin wallet, its value is $0 because none of those will ever be sold.

If dividends are involved it could matter but the government basically gets 20% of dividends already and extra 4% doesn't make a huge difference.

Returning to blocking stock buybacks as price manipulation and forcing businesses to give out dividends again would actually impact revenue in a meaningful way in contrast.

And you think this is that? Oh dear.

> the people who have been running American countries have been consistently making decisions that are against the national interest

Freudian slip?