[abeppu]

Why does aid for corporations rely so heavily on loans or bonds? If a continuing source of frustration and dysfunction is that profits are privatized and losses are nationalized, and if the issue is that companies need an influx of cash, why do we not ask these companies to sell the federal government a stake? If the companies recover, why shouldn't the public benefit as a result of their investment?

The idea that the federal government would take an ownership stake in companies in exchange for this cash infusion seems like it's been a fringe left wing proposal -- but I don't understand why it's fringe.

[CamperBob2]

Because the notion of government ownership of the means of production is, if not the very definition of leftism, at least a key ingredient.

Of course it's not that simple, but it sounds that simple, and these days that's all that matters. People hear "government stake" and they reflexively think Cuba or Venezuela or China, not Germany.