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If they're too-important-to-fail they're too important not to be broken up or nationalised.
by philipwhiuk 1y ago
If they're too-important-to-fail they're too important not to be broken up or nationalised.
- jimbokun 1y agoWhile that is a sensible opinion the 2008 crash showed that it is not the opinion of decision makers in the US.
- whimsicalism 1y agoI’m curious if those of you calling for nationalization have worked for the government or a state-owned enterprise like Amtrak. People should witness the effects of long-term public sector ownership on productivity and effectiveness in a workplace.
- saulpw 1y agoYeah, like IBM and Intel and GE and GM are shining examples of how effectively the private sector runs companies. Maybe large enterprises are by their nature inefficient. Maybe productivity isn't the best metric for a utility. We could, for instance, prioritize resiliency, longevity, accessibility, and environmental concerns.
- whimsicalism 1y agoEven those problematic companies exemplify the difference: when enterprises are mismanaged and fail, capital is reallocated away from them.
- saulpw 1y agoThe US government just allocated $10b towards Intel, and bailed out GM in the past. So what you said is clearly not the case. Now we have publicly-funded private management that is failing. At least if they were publicly owned and managed outright, they wouldn't be gutted by executives prioritizing quarterly profits.
- whimsicalism 1y agoExecutives should prioritize producing things people are willing to pay money for cheaply. If there is a bias towards short-termism, that is a governance problem that should be addressed. I agree that the US taking stakes or picking winners is bad, I don't think it follows that nationalization is the solution.
- overfeed 1y agoThe USPS does more for its workers and customers than FedEx. There are addresses FedEx won't service due to "inefficiencies", hand over packages to the USPS for delivery.
- philipwhiuk 1y agoSure, but I have witnessed the cost of having to bail out organisations that realised we'd do so and so lost any sense of moral hazard. I also gave an alternative.
- will4274 1y agoFwiw, this is a facile argument. You make no attenpt to demonstrate that after major reorganization (breakup / nationalization) that the firm will continue to have the desirable attributes (innovation, efficincy, ability to build) that made them too important to fail.
- philipwhiuk 1y agoWhy should I have to pay for their failure but not be rewarded when they profit. Essentially as a taxpayer I'm being forced to take all the downside risk without any gain. Nobody in the universe would make that trade.
- will4274 1y agoYou didn't respond to anything I said. If you want to shout into the void, notepad.exe is right there.