Why do you think there would be severe turmoil? In existing cases where the government has taken control of a business in the US, it’s typically reduced turmoil, which is why they’ve done it.
The difference in incentive is that private investment is looking for profits, and public ownership is usually more concerned with stability or public welfare.
What do you picture a change in ownership looking like? Do you think that somehow means massive layoffs and changes in management? Why would shelves go empty? What calamity befell the economy when we nationalized passenger rail, airport security, or mortgage financing? Or when we temporarily nationalized GM?
If changing ownership decimates the economy, then why hasn’t it been decimated already by routing changed in ownership that businesses have?
All this is aside from the original point, which is that profitability is not the same thing as solvency.
Siphoning some percentage of the companies revenue to investors isn’t what makes the business work.
Are you talking about tiny changes or an entire economy? I don’t think it’s at all similar. What do you plan on doing with the owners you’ve taken property from?
Fuck if I know? I wasn’t even advocating for anything, I was just explaining that “no profit” doesn’t mean a business ceases to exist. An example of this is state owned enterprises, which don’t turn a profit but still add to the economy and provide value to society. They pay their employees, and things are fine.
In a nationalization scheme, you can either compensate the investors a fair value, or seize their assets. Emminent domain is typically more fair, although recently examples tend towards either buying a controlling share at bankruptcy prices, or seizing the business outright and leaving shareholders in the lurch.
My take would be that if we’re taking the business for the public good, we should pay a fair value for it, and if it’s to stabilize something important that it’s fine for investors to take the fall, since without stabilization they also would have lost their money.
Fuck if I know? I wasn’t even advocating for anything, I was just explaining that “no profit” doesn’t mean a business ceases to exist.
Fair enough.
I think you’d meet more resistance than you expect, and I’m not convinced the goals of government officials are as sane as we’d like.
My take would be that if we’re taking the business for the public good, we should pay a fair value for it, and if it’s to stabilize something important that it’s fine for investors to take the fall, since without stabilization they also would have lost their money.
If that value is market value, we’re kind of fucked.
To be clear, I don’t disagree with your initial assertion. Markets pay people that notice inefficiencies. I’m just not convinced there’s a better model.