Comment by zmmmmm

> taxpayers should receive a share of the company in return

This is seductive logic but I think the opposite is true. The only time government should be giving money to a for-profit company is where a dividend in value is available that is not related to having a stake in the company.

Think about it this way: if the value transferred is fully realised as shares in the company then the government actually transferred nothing to the company. It was a pure commercial transaction and there is no obligation on the company to do anything different than it would have done commercially otherwise. Except the outcome is that the government is now entangled in private industry which is generally bad because it creates strong conflicts of interest in terms of policy and regulatory powers wielded by the government. All the dividend to taxpayers comes from the part that is not realised commercially.