Look I’m fine if the govt wants to say a particular corporation is too big to fail. But trying to let that company remain private is not how too big to fail works. If you want a bailout, the govt owns your company, and the govt is obliged to maintain ownership for as long as it’s deemed too big to fail…e.g. critical to national interests.
Personally I think all publicly traded companies should be partly owned by the people… Like sure you can have an IPO, and still make a zillion dollars… But society automatically owns a large enough share that you have to check with us before doing anything drastic
While I don’t disagree with you in principle, this begs definitions of what “us” and “anything drastic” means, which could vary to such an extent as to prove whatever law you’re proposing meaningless or to be so draconian as to stifle all technological progress.
To big to fail should mean splitting up the company. At the very least when bailed out. Intresstingly the US actually made a profit bailing out banks in the 2008 crisis.
If I remember it correctly, that “profit” was nominal, i.e. without including the devaluation of that money due to Inflation, much less doing the proper investment accounting (as the Finance types do) were profit is a yield above a risk free investment (which, curiously, is normally Treasuries) and if it’s below that it’s not a good investment and beyond this the risk of losing your money also determines if the yield is worth.
Pretty much by definition the yield wasn’t worth it in helping the banks at the interest rate the Government got, as why nobody else was willing to lend them the money at that interest rate.
Look I’m fine if the govt wants to say a particular corporation is too big to fail. But trying to let that company remain private is not how too big to fail works. If you want a bailout, the govt owns your company, and the govt is obliged to maintain ownership for as long as it’s deemed too big to fail…e.g. critical to national interests.
Personally I think all publicly traded companies should be partly owned by the people… Like sure you can have an IPO, and still make a zillion dollars… But society automatically owns a large enough share that you have to check with us before doing anything drastic
That’s called taxes.
Lots of decisions are made with our taxes and we aren’t consulted.
So maybe tax megacorps so much that they have to pay with shares?
That’s why the government owns us.
While I don’t disagree with you in principle, this begs definitions of what “us” and “anything drastic” means, which could vary to such an extent as to prove whatever law you’re proposing meaningless or to be so draconian as to stifle all technological progress.
To big to fail should mean splitting up the company. At the very least when bailed out. Intresstingly the US actually made a profit bailing out banks in the 2008 crisis.
If I remember it correctly, that “profit” was nominal, i.e. without including the devaluation of that money due to Inflation, much less doing the proper investment accounting (as the Finance types do) were profit is a yield above a risk free investment (which, curiously, is normally Treasuries) and if it’s below that it’s not a good investment and beyond this the risk of losing your money also determines if the yield is worth.
Pretty much by definition the yield wasn’t worth it in helping the banks at the interest rate the Government got, as why nobody else was willing to lend them the money at that interest rate.