
France could nationalize big companies if necessary: finance minister - spking
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-nationalist/france-could-nationalize-big-companies-if-necessary-finance-minister-idUSKBN2141AO
======
Funes-
Most of them were originally national companies, like BNP Paribas or Renault.
Those two were privatised in the nineties. It's the same thing in Spain, and I
reckon all around Europe. A shame, if you ask me, that many of them were
providing essential public resources (telecommunications, energy, food,
banking, etcetera) and eventually underwent a very sketchy privatisation
process.

~~~
fgonzag
The problem isn't national vs private companies. It's monopolies vs true
competition. Any monopoly or oligopoly is inefficient by nature, and tend to
become corrupt over time. National companies are monopolies. Incorrectly
privatized national companies is just transferring a monopoly from one party
to another.

Privatization done right can work. But you need to break up the big national
companies into smaller regional companies that should be incentivized to
expand into each others regions, thus providing competition.

~~~
lozenge
Natural monopolies can be efficient.

Regional companies encouraged to lay duplicate fibre cables, duplicate power
delivery or duplicate water or sewer systems, are not efficient.

By your reasoning the government is always becoming more inefficient by
nature. Odd because the standard of life keeps going up and the % GDP taken in
taxes remains steady(ish).

~~~
dzhiurgis
> Regional companies encouraged to lay duplicate fibre cables, duplicate power
> delivery or duplicate water or sewer systems, are not efficient.

That’s never the case. Power is separated into producers, transmitters and
retailers (you only deal with retailers who compete in service and negotiate
with producers.

Telco’s lease line from national company, negotiate peering and retail to you.

Exception is cell telcos... these pay so much in spectrum auctions that almost
undoubtedly few millions end up in polichickens pockets.

------
jariel
The French government (as with most European governments) has a closer
relationship with industry that we see in the Anglosphere, so this is not
quite a surprise.

That said, it's good timing on the announcement because it's more a signal
than anything.

'We will not hesitate' is pretty strong language, indicating faith in those
institutions that are, at least for now 'too big to fail'.

~~~
lez
I would really like to see new laws (or deleted old ones) in order to increase
safety for such unexpected conditions.

It feels something is terribly wrong with the world and the basic laws of
capitalism, now that it turns out many companies don't pile on stuff, and go
out of business in a matter of weeks when supply is lagging behind.

~~~
TeMPOraL
> _It feels something is terribly wrong with the world and the basic laws of
> capitalism_

But this _is_ the basic law of free markets at work. If you can run on a
leaner supply chain, you'll outcompete those that can't. It's regular market
competition that makes systems extremely fragile - all redundancy is
considered as waste, fat to be cut off.

~~~
ericd
Thats only true if regular crashes aren’t allowed to take place.

~~~
TeMPOraL
No. Most companies do that and they do crash because of that. The market
doesn't care about survival of any individual company.

------
jajag
Can anyone here say to what degree EU state aid & competition law is going to
help or hinder governments over the next few weeks, as they try to shore up
rapidly collapsing national economies?

~~~
LatteLazy
National emergencies are an exception to state aid rules (and a lot of other
rules and laws).

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youareostriches
This is a far, far better response to bankruptcy of essential industry than
the bailout of 2008.

~~~
refurb
Can you expand on that?

Nationalization to me isn't that different from a bailout, the government (and
thus taxpayers) foot the bill. With nationalization I guess the government can
exert greater control over how the company is run, but is that necessarily the
best way to provide oversight?

~~~
spaginal
No, Venezuela is a poignant example of what nationalization does to companies
and industries. They simply bog down in eventual corruption and massive
inefficiency to the point of stopping or limping along.

The counter opposite example is China and their industries, but that implies
an even worse kind of relationship that greatly exploits people and their
labor.

~~~
jacquesm
You really can not compare Venezuela and France like this. I love both
countries but they are worlds - ok, continents - apart in how they are
governed and to what degree corruption is prevalent.

~~~
netsharc
OP's argument is so cheap... "Nationalization failed in this corrupt country,
therefore nationalization is terrible!".

It's like saying Ford are shit cars after a drunk driver crashes one..

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kakoni
Is goverment helping small and medium sized companies in someway?

~~~
ddebernardy
Yes, at least in France. They passed (or merely announced?) a number of
measures so that SMEs don't collapse due to treasury problems:
postponed/cancelled taxes and contributions, paid time off for the staff
without the usual delays, etc.

As I understood they took example on what Germany did in 2008, and learned
from what worked over there. Whether all countries do the same is another
story altogether, but at least in France they might save a good number of jobs
(by inflating the public debt, but that's a separate issue).

~~~
MuffinFlavored
> postponed/cancelled taxes

If a business loses 2-3 quarters of revenue/profit due to COVID-19, how will
they "make it back" to payback their previously postponed taxes (from the
quarter they made little to no money in)?

~~~
venj
French business owner here. The current goal is to prevent companies from
failing to avoid mass unemployment:

\- If you need to suspend your workers contracts, they are covered by the
state. No need to fire them.

\- all tax collections have been suspended

\- your credit lines with commercial banks are covered by the state, so you
can suspend payments or increase them if needed

\- The BPI (Public Investment Bank) has an emergency loan available for
companies that could run out of cash due to the situation.

They are not talking about the aftermath yet but these efforts cost a huge
amount of money. My guess is that they will recover money by raising taxes for
several years.

------
LatteLazy
Any Western country can do this.

------
DeonPenny
France is very known for this. It's not surprising. Doing businesses there can
be very fishy sometimes cause of this.

------
tarkin2
Please stop downvoting arguments you disagree with.

There are a few bad posts, simply calling someone an idiot, etc. Good:
downvote.

But a lot are being downvoted because they express arguments that are
disagreed with.

~~~
Funes-
>But a lot are being downvoted because they express arguments that are
disagreed with.

In my experience, that's always going to happen with voting mechanisms on
comment sections. I tend to have disagreeable or extreme views on most
subjects, and while I try to be considerate and not show any rudeness in my
comments, I still get a lot of downvotes from time to time.

~~~
kjakm
I know this opinion gets thrown around a lot but after coming back to HN after
a few years away the discussions have changed a lot. I feel in the past the
downvote mechanism was used less frequently and debates were possible without
them. It's still far better than a lot of discussion boards and like all
communities growth creates change but as a heavy user in the past (I think I
hit the top 100 users at one point) it's definitely much more 'reddity' now
depending on the subject.

~~~
Funes-
I honestly don't know why there's a downvote function to begin with. I cannot
downvote (yet?), but I wouldn't use it if I could. In the case that I disagree
with someone and I happen to be knowledgeable on the subject at hand, I'll
write them a reply if I have the time to do it. What downvoting does, instead,
is fostering polarization and bias, on top of silencing controversial comments
that could very well be absolutely sensible and truthful.

~~~
KerrickStaley
I downvote things that seem poorly thought out, poorly argued, incendiary, or
in general seem to be adding noise to the conversation without adding anything
meaningful. It seems like there has been a rise in this sort of low-effort
posting in the past few years, and I think downvoting is helpful to combat it.

When I downvote something, I usually write a comment explaining why I think
it's not useful, although I don't always have time to do so.

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gigatexal
this is a step too far... bailouts are preferred to this but if France wants
to shoot itself in the foot I guess let them?

~~~
gmm1990
If the government is competent the nationalization can be good. French govt
already took control of their face mask supply. Ensuring at least more face
masks to healthcare providers. It’s hard to argue this specific action hurts
the French society. People need to analyze whether specific actions by the
government are good or bad for society not if it fits into your ideological
narrative

~~~
jmnicolas
> French govt already took control of their face mask supply.

I don't know about that. What I know is that they sent all the production to
China and Iran a month ago and now that we critically need masks there are
none to be found even for medical professionals deemed 'not essentials'.

We're talking about a government that allowed elections to happen 3 days ago
then quarantined the whole country today ...

~~~
ceejayoz
> What I know is that they sent all the production to China and Iran a month
> ago and now that we critically need masks there are none to be found even
> for medical professionals deemed 'not essentials'.

That may wind up being the right call. China's ramping up production
dramatically; the goodwill engendered may be to France's benefit.

------
magwa101
For the US:

Pump money into Amazon/FedEx/PostMates delivery services.

Keep restaurants open and tap them into the food supply chain.

Close all stores except to delivery services.

UBI and universal health care starts now.

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godzillabrennus
Government motors worked out okay for taxpayers in the USA. Not sure France is
going to relinquish control though. They seem to like central planning / high
unemployment over there.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Taxpayers _and_ GM workers and pensioners.

