Nationalization

What is nationalizing vs privatizing a company? First you get a lot of flags. Wave them around. And repeat like baying sheep “the government can run this airline better than private industry; the government can run this oil well better than private industry; the government can run this school system better than private industry…”

And you say it all blankly, bleatingly, like a 4-legger in Animal Farm.

Nationalizing a company happens when a government essentially seizes control of a company, or even an industry and claims that they own it. And then they run it. (These are government workers, the people who steal your lotion at TSA as you check in for your flights, running real companies.)

Government workers: Meaning that whoever the voters were who put them into power often the biggest union in that ‘hood, then runs and controls it. The United States has flirted with nationalized airlines a few times. It did so in the 70s when airlines went bankrupt more times than planes crashed.

It was a complete disaster. And after losing enough billions of dollars, at least more than it could stomach, the government privatized them again, selling the airlines back to private industry, where the best and brightest worked more than 38 hours a week and actually answered their email in the less than 6 weeks a year of vacation that they took.

Key idea:

Nationalizing: government seizes control and runs.

Privatizing: government sells control and taxes.

How do you avoid this yin and yang of torture? Find careers in industries that are far away from regions where the government gives a rat’s…derriere.