
Nationalize This - sarvesh
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123362405866441891.html
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beingfamous
If I remember correctly, the Swedish government nationalized their financial
system in a way to ease the pain from the credit crunch, and it worked out
well.

The main argument against these series of bailouts would be that it creates
inflation of the currency. Of course, this is only be thought of now when
we're attempt to fix infrastructure across the nation, or saving the jobs of
workers, instead of bailing out banking systems too large to fail.

American businesses are operating at an unlevel field, partially because the
criminalization of vertical integration (the Japanese do this for their
automotives), compared to other nations in the world.

My 2c.

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jerf
My problem with "nationalization" is that people treat it as some sort of
atomic, unique thing, where we either "nationalize" or we don't.

In reality, it's way, way, way more complicated, and the debate borders on the
useless, because _how_ and _what_ is nationalized, and _how_ the nationalized
assets are managed matters a lot, and nobody ever discusses those.

Right now, I see no great reason to believe that the government is staffed by
people particularly likely to even _try_ to use their brains to decide what to
nationalize or how to run it, let alone succeed. Right now what I see are a
bunch of politicians running rampant with no regard for reality... which
always has the last word.

That's _my_ problem with the bailouts. Putting politicians in charge of our
companies to solve problem the politicians credibly created in the first place
(without admitting it, and I fear they actually believe they are blameless,
not just putting up a front) doesn't seem like a recipe for success.

~~~
beingfamous
In the situation of the financial sector's bailout, some had speculated it
would have been better to have not done anything. It would leave us more money
to allocate and loan (not give) the companies which employee the average
American worker who doesn't live bonus to bonus.

As for nationalization, it should start at the Federal Reserve which is as
much Federal as Federal Express. What a screwed up system we have where our
government is forever in debt while we use The Federal Reserve Note as our
currency.

~~~
jerf
I hate to reply with this sort of thing, but I gotta say "live bonus-to-bonus"
is a great turn of phrase. Google says you're basically the second person to
use it in the context of the current economy. (There are two others but not
really the same context.)

(I hope there's a little room in the HN credos for some positive feedback.)

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dmix
This reminded me of a quote from Fight Club: "Only after disaster can we be
resurrected." Sometimes things need to fall apart so they can be rebuilt into
something better.

The approach the United States government is taking is similar to using duct
tape to fix a house. Its bringing short term stability but we may regret it in
the long run.

~~~
teuobk
Exactly. It remains unclear to me how the housing crisis can be "fixed" until
the underlying home values fall in line with historical price:income ratios.
That is, either real incomes must rise significantly, or real housing prices
must decrease much more than they already have. Anything short of that will
serve only to delay the inevitable.

~~~
sammyo
If the downturn is slow and steady there may be time for adjustments, as
opposed to a crash.

~~~
dantheman
Actually, I think the best advice to let it happen as quickly as possible.
Otherwise resources will be misappropriated thus making the problem worse.

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known
I suppose <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flexicurity> will be good for America.

