[sobiolite]

Ironic, Western politicians thought opening up to trade with China would lead to it adopting a Western model of government. Instead it's lead to the USA adopting the Chinese one.

[Buttons840]

[flagged]

[torginus]

Yeah, this so weird coming from the US. The US government has a history of writing no-strings-attached blank cheques to people/companies just so avoid the stigma of government control in public companies.

I wonder how the markets will react, will stocks go up because people will assume Intel's going to be a government mandated champion or will they go down because of the negative connotations government control brings?

[JackYoustra]

Name one literal no-strings-attached blank cheque to a large company in the last 20 years

[DarkNova6]

Kinda. But I think the current Chinese model is actually much closer to how the USA used to work when there was competition with the USSR. Closer than the US of today compared to the 70s and 80s.

[torginus]

The current Chinese model's basically you have fully publicly traded companies, companies who are either minority or majority owned by a certain provincial government and ones who are either minority or majority owned by the central government (although this is surprisingly rare outside of key areas like telco/banking)

[JackYoustra]

The US never owned a brewer, an airline, the major defense giants, etc.

[signatoremo]

You need to study history. US government is no stranger in getting stakes in businesses. Did you already forget the Great Depression?

https://www.investopedia.com/articles/economics/08/governmen...

[bink]

We aren't anywhere close to being in a depression though. What extraordinary situation requires the government to take a stake in a public company and under what conditions will this position be liquidated?

[robotnikman]

It somewhat makes sense in terms of industries which are deemed strategically important. Intel needs to start thinking long term instead of short term profits.

[petemill]

> Intel needs to start thinking long term instead of short term profits

Which is what the last CEO was in the middle of doing and he got fired just recently because they couldn't stomach it

[astrange]

The CHIPS act founded the National Semiconductor Technology Center for this purpose. As for Intel, they aren't even achieving short term profits…

[christina97]

OP didn’t make a value judgement about which model is better or makes more sense!

[bobthepanda]

Intel has had a couple years of saying they were going into a more long term vision and failing, and it’s unclear how direct government ownership will make them get better at execution

[JackYoustra]

if someone believes this, they should buy intel and just do it outright! But no one does because it's not as easy as "just think long term" - if it were, berkshire has the liquid money to buy intel several times over.

[pryce]

That's very cute quip but I notice that it places the blame on 'trade with China' for an alarming problem that is in fact entirely the doing of US voters expressing their values (or the lack of them) in fair elections.

A more interesting question is whether that voterbase's idea of what they were voting for does or doesn't line up with what they got.

[yieldcrv]

We even have no assurance of keeping private property via civil asset forfeiture!

Private ownership was the adults main point of pride to distinguish from the Chinese when I was growing up.

And now the Chinese private property frameworks are closer to ours and ours are closer to theirs.

[nine_k]

Civil forfeiture existed since 1660s, and was used initially to confiscate smugglers' vessels. Then it was dug out during Prohibition, and turned toxic in 1980s when the agencies doing the forfeiture (e.g. police) were allowed to keep the confiscated property. Ideally it should be used for restitution (e.g. to victims of fraud), but...

I suspect you were growing up when this was in full swing already.

[Tagbert]

[flagged]

[Barrin92]

The Chinese have been surprisingly willing to let companies and sectors die even at the expense of growth (see real estate), I think it's honestly too charitable to compare the US to China, which has at least some degree of technocratic governance, the US went straight for something out of the Tropico franchise

[jibal]

post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy

(Also, pet peeve: "it's lead" should be "it's led".)

[FrustratedMonky]

We're living in the time of irony. Up is Down, Left is Right, Right is Left. Republicans have become Socialist. Free Speech absolutist now against Free Speech.

[glimshe]

The promiscuous relation between government and tech is as old as Silicon Valley. I'm fact, it created Silicon Valley. It started when people in China were still building backyard furnaces.

[bigyabai]

Who ordered the Chinese people to build furnaces in their backyard?

[concinds]

It’s not “adopting” the Chinese model yet, so much as incoherently copying bits and pieces. If you want to run effective industrial policy you need sufficient state capacity and an army of technocrats who are experts on industrial policy. Trump’s second term performance gives no hope on both fronts.

[andsoitis]

Western governments have taken a stake in, nationalised, or owned / operated corporations for a very long time!

Some examples: VOC, BBC, national airlines, etc.

List across countries: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_government-owned_compa...

US specific: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State-owned_enterprises_of_the...

[legitster]

Most of these were done under duress or specifically for public goods (BBC, for example).

Taking an ownership stake in broad daylight for political favors is very much unprecedented in the modern economy.

[JackYoustra]

Calling VOC an offshoot of a western government with any modern relevance is a HUMONGOUS stretch

[cyanydeez]

No, I think you're missing the wag-the-dog portion of this event.

[slashnode]

Ha! Too perfect