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Comment by bix6

1 day ago

Why did we sell it instead of lease? This seems like something that should be in public hands.

The Helium Privatization Act of 1996 (HPA) required it. It passed to House on a voice vote and the Senate by unanimous consent and was signed by President Clinton.

After sales paid off the debt that has been incurred from the expansion of scope of the helium program in the 1960 Helium Act, which was one of the main points of the HPA, it was update by the Helium Stewardship Act of 2013 (which passed the House 394-1, and the Senate 97-2, and was signed by President Obama).

Ideological idiocy, the dismantling of anything public turning into private hands is ideologically pure for libertarian-inclined folks, no matter how strategically stupid it might be.

  • Seems more directly capitalist than libertarian to me.

    • Neoliberal capitalism is founded on absorbing parts of libertarian thinking. The "capitalism" moniker of today used by ideologues is coupled to the meaning of it given by neoliberals.

      It's been coopted, not necessarily capitalism means "everything should be private", the current flavour of capitalist ideology wants that but other versions of capitalism don't put that as a foundational Ideological tenet.

sorry thats too far left wing an opinion in america today

  • The sale was completed in 2024.

    • I feel that as soon as the existential threat easened with the splintering of the Soviet Union, the US started doing some self-harming libertarian flavored shit to itself.

      In the 1980s, I assume getting rid of the "strategic reserve" of anything would have met more pushback, because of primal fear overriding greed.

      3 replies →

crypto-libertarian "government bad" ideology is one hell of a drug.