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The first thing that jumps out is that it is impossible to avoid the absurd juxtaposition of a republican led major national corporate stake, after a decade of

The first thing that jumps out is that it is impossible to avoid the absurd juxtaposition of a republican led major national corporate stake, after a decade of the auto bailouts being used as a poster child of policy that the current party in charge doesn't agree with. Moving on from that, you make a good point that it may be the best compromise if the original deal is off the table. That said, in my eyes the implementation could be better. On both a practical and ideological level, I think it would behoove the dealmakers to lay out clear exit conditions. That could look something like anything from signing a covenant with Intel to freeze dividends and corporate buybacks and pay down debt (which is dangerously high for them currently), and then once the corporate balance sheet gets to a safer level, the US gov could run a public auction for the equity once that strike level is hit. I'm sure they could come up with something palatable. What's unexcusable is to apparently enter into a seemingly permanent zone of CCP-style state corporate capitalism without clearly laying out what that means for America going forwards. As an average citizen, I certainly have questions about the precedents being set, and to me it just looks haphazard and off-the-cuff.

mlinhares 1y ago
> The first thing that jumps out is that it is impossible to avoid the absurd juxtaposition of a republican led major national corporate stake, after a decade of the auto bailouts being used as a poster child of policy that the current party in charge doesn't agree with. The only absurd here is to think republicans care about anything other than power . Doesn't matter what they did or said yesterday, what matters is what can they say and do today to remain in power and enable their deep pocketed donors to make more money and gain more power. People really have to stop thinking there's anything there, there's nothing, its all about acquiring and using power. Trying to come up with ideological reasons as to why they do this or that is useless.
- lisbbb 1y ago
  [flagged]
  - orwin 1y ago
    Pray that before 2026, you won't have had any DOJ approved FBI raids to Trump political enemies. How I guess it will happen: first target 'close ennemies': same party, small public recognition, but opposite views on specific policies you want to denounce. No charge filed, just good old intimidation: raid the home, take the files an computer, then say "sorry we didn't find anything" after a few months. My mother hosted political refugees from Russia and Kazakhstan, I've heard a lot of story, and that shit seems to always starts the same way.
    - ModernMech 1y ago
      You're a couple days late, it already happened: https://nypost.com/2025/08/22/us-news/patels-fbi-raids-john-boltons-home-in-high-profile-national-security-probe https://nypost.com/2025/08/22/us-news/patels-fbi-raids-john-... But you're spot on -- John Bolton is a long-time Republican war hawk, small name recognition, differing views on many specific policies (came out against Trump during his first impeachment), home raided by FBI under vague implications, boxes taken, computers taken. What happens next, according to the refugees?
      - orwin 1y ago
        In Kazakhstan, it was a power play to designate a new common enemy (in the case i know, Orthodox christians). The man was close to the president but fell in disgrace. It was used to quell the protests (i was an adult when this happened, so probably after 2009, i'll have to look), and the group that supported him, the Orthodox church, fell with him as public ennemies (it was also racism/ethnicism because most of the orthodox were ukrainians/Cossacks displaced under Staline during the famine, and looked quite different than ethnic Kazakhs). Basically fascistic behavior. The refugees i've met were all part of the church, so the purge hit a lot of people. Not sure if it worked, after all, i think they changed president recently, but i'm definitely not an expert on the area. In Russia i have no idea, probably you have underhand deals and politics happening, but its a fairly lock down country, information-wise
  - wredcoll 1y ago
- Fade_Dance 1y ago
  >The only absurd here is to think republicans care about anything other than power . Doesn't matter what they did or said yesterday Right, but it's an absurd juxtaposition when taken at face value none the less. I agree with what you said, but my point was more about other possible structures for the deal rather than political conclusions. I was attempting to brush aside the political considerations and take a somewhat tabula rasa approach, not spur a partisan political conversation, which clearly I failed at by mentioning the absurdity in messaging.
gonzopancho 1y ago
The auto bailouts were started by Bush https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/business/20auto.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/business/20auto.html
- Fade_Dance 1y ago
  Absurd all the way down. Perhaps I should have nixed the political aside at the top. Wasn't my intent to bring that to HN.
rayiner 1y ago
> The first thing that jumps out is that it is impossible to avoid the absurd juxtaposition of a republican led major national corporate stake The GOP overthrew its leadership in 2016 and a different faction took control of the party. The GOP started out as an economically interventionist party: https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2017/04/gops-civil-war-trade-nothing-new/ https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2017/04/gops-civil-w.... Then it went through a libertarian phase in the mid 20th century. Now its back to an economically interventionist party.
petralithic 1y ago
Why have an exit condition at all? I'm not sure what's so inexcusable about what China is doing, by the looks of it, for their nationally important industries, they're doing pretty well.

mlinhares 1y ago

> The first thing that jumps out is that it is impossible to avoid the absurd juxtaposition of a republican led major national corporate stake, after a decade of the auto bailouts being used as a poster child of policy that the current party in charge doesn't agree with. The only absurd here is to think republicans care about anything other than power . Doesn't matter what they did or said yesterday, what matters is what can they say and do today to remain in power and enable their deep pocketed donors to make more money and gain more power. People really have to stop thinking there's anything there, there's nothing, its all about acquiring and using power. Trying to come up with ideological reasons as to why they do this or that is useless.

lisbbb 1y ago
[flagged]
- orwin 1y ago
  Pray that before 2026, you won't have had any DOJ approved FBI raids to Trump political enemies. How I guess it will happen: first target 'close ennemies': same party, small public recognition, but opposite views on specific policies you want to denounce. No charge filed, just good old intimidation: raid the home, take the files an computer, then say "sorry we didn't find anything" after a few months. My mother hosted political refugees from Russia and Kazakhstan, I've heard a lot of story, and that shit seems to always starts the same way.
  - ModernMech 1y ago
    You're a couple days late, it already happened: https://nypost.com/2025/08/22/us-news/patels-fbi-raids-john-boltons-home-in-high-profile-national-security-probe https://nypost.com/2025/08/22/us-news/patels-fbi-raids-john-... But you're spot on -- John Bolton is a long-time Republican war hawk, small name recognition, differing views on many specific policies (came out against Trump during his first impeachment), home raided by FBI under vague implications, boxes taken, computers taken. What happens next, according to the refugees?
    - orwin 1y ago
      In Kazakhstan, it was a power play to designate a new common enemy (in the case i know, Orthodox christians). The man was close to the president but fell in disgrace. It was used to quell the protests (i was an adult when this happened, so probably after 2009, i'll have to look), and the group that supported him, the Orthodox church, fell with him as public ennemies (it was also racism/ethnicism because most of the orthodox were ukrainians/Cossacks displaced under Staline during the famine, and looked quite different than ethnic Kazakhs). Basically fascistic behavior. The refugees i've met were all part of the church, so the purge hit a lot of people. Not sure if it worked, after all, i think they changed president recently, but i'm definitely not an expert on the area. In Russia i have no idea, probably you have underhand deals and politics happening, but its a fairly lock down country, information-wise
- wredcoll 1y ago
Fade_Dance 1y ago
>The only absurd here is to think republicans care about anything other than power . Doesn't matter what they did or said yesterday Right, but it's an absurd juxtaposition when taken at face value none the less. I agree with what you said, but my point was more about other possible structures for the deal rather than political conclusions. I was attempting to brush aside the political considerations and take a somewhat tabula rasa approach, not spur a partisan political conversation, which clearly I failed at by mentioning the absurdity in messaging.

gonzopancho 1y ago

The auto bailouts were started by Bush https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/business/20auto.html https://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/20/business/20auto.html

Fade_Dance 1y ago
Absurd all the way down. Perhaps I should have nixed the political aside at the top. Wasn't my intent to bring that to HN.

rayiner 1y ago

> The first thing that jumps out is that it is impossible to avoid the absurd juxtaposition of a republican led major national corporate stake The GOP overthrew its leadership in 2016 and a different faction took control of the party. The GOP started out as an economically interventionist party: https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2017/04/gops-civil-war-trade-nothing-new/ https://www.journalofthecivilwarera.org/2017/04/gops-civil-w.... Then it went through a libertarian phase in the mid 20th century. Now its back to an economically interventionist party.

petralithic 1y ago

Why have an exit condition at all? I'm not sure what's so inexcusable about what China is doing, by the looks of it, for their nationally important industries, they're doing pretty well.