zlacker

>>giveme+(OP)
In general I would rather the government take a stake in corporations they're bailing out. I think the "too big to fail" bailouts in the past should have come with more of a cost for the business, so on one hand I'm glad this is finally happening.

On the other hand, I wish it were a more formalized process rather than this politicized "our president made a deal to save america!" / "Intel is back and the government is investing BUY INTEL SHARES" media event. These things should follow a strict set of rules and processes so investors and companies know what to expect. These kind of deals should be boring, not a media event.

>>jjcm+Ef
What bothers me is the double standard.

When the public asks for fully publicly-owned railways, universal healthcare, or any basic social safety assurances—“socialism”.

When a megacorporation struggles, immediately to the rescue.

>>sergio+Ej
One big difference is management control. People feel that government administered services tend to have poor management and citizen services more often than not. One big example is the DMV since almost every has experience dealing with it, long queue times are almost universal because no one gives a crap and it's very hard to fire a government employee. Or the passport issuance, or applying for permits. Or unemployment benefits, the list goes on and on.

Imagine if the DMV and passport services had even the possibility of competition like a private company has. You bet all of a sudden the service would get much faster and better and with fewer mistakes and red tape with the same or fewer number of employees. Or someone would set up a competitor and imagine how many people would even pay extra just to not waste several hours of their time.

It's tax payer money so there is a lot more waste than even at big private companies. For example, the costs to just administer and operate the social security administration(not including any money paid out to recipients) is $15 billion dollars with a big B. There is no incentive for anyone to save the tax payer any money and there would be a huge pushback from govt contractors, unions and employeees. See how much hate DOGE gets for even proposing cuts or higher efficiencies.

Any large IT project in the government in almost any country and at any goverment costs huge amounts while not returning much value if any. Look at the state and costs of local metro stations and trains in almost any city.

>>ivewon+sn
That's interesting example to choose, as I've actually heard often that the Social Security administration is an example of an efficient government administration.

For example, a quick Google search shows administrative overhead as around 0.5% of benefits: https://www.cbpp.org/research/social-security/top-ten-facts-...

>>devinp+4p
Just one instance.

https://fedscoop.com/problem-project-threatens-progress-soci...

> The program, called the Disability Case Processing System, or DCPS, was designed to improve case processing and enhance customer service. But six years and $288 million later the program has “delivered limited functionality and faced schedule delays as well as increasing stakeholder concerns

For the main system they're still using COBOL, which has no Date data type, causing issues even in 2025.

>>ivewon+VB
Have you read the book "Recoding America"?

I have a feeling you might enjoy that book as it goes into a LOT of detail about government dysfunction with respect to software.

I found the book eye opening and personally it provided me with some new perspective.