The Road to AI State Socialism

Bernie Sanders sees Trump industrial policy and decides to raise the government stakes

WSJ editorial. Excerpts:

"Mr. Sanders wants to force companies to hand over half of their equity to the government."

"this would be a government expropriation. It would violate the Fifth Amendment’s prohibition on government taking property without just compensation. To pay this tax, companies would have to issue new shares to the government diluting current shareholders. Or they could buy back half their shares from private investors and hand them to the government."

"One model is China’s state-owned enterprises, which are an albatross on its economy. Political favoritism and government interventions have led to economic inefficiencies. Hence China’s partially state-owned Semiconductor Manufacturing International trails TSMC and Samsung in chip fabrication."