Corporate welfare is where private companies take the profits when they succeed, and then ask for public bailouts when they fail. Lemon socialism is akin to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lemon_socialism
FANNIE MAE is a perfect example of BOTH. For 30 years Fannie Mae was a publicly owned mortgage company that significantly raised the wealth and home ownership of the middle class. Then, after it was 'privatized' it became a moral hazard that nearly wrecked the economy of the entire world in 2007. 'Privatization' of public corporations is usually just the first stage of KLEPTOCRACY. Where crooks get elected to public office, and then use their power to sell valuable public assets to their crooked friends at fire-sale prices. It's been going on in Russia for decades, in the USA for decades (on a smaller scale), and in Canada, too (on a much smaller scale).
By the way, what he said about Canadian scientists selling inventions to private interests is not quite true. If you're a research professor working at a Canadian university, and you discover something lucrative, the university you work for is supposed to have first right of refusal for patenting it. If the university doesn't agree that it's a valuable discovery, they won't patent it (because the patenting process is expensive). Then the professor is free to patent the discovery or invention with their own money if they wish.
The universities haven't been nearly as aggressive about patenting as they should, but still, they have patented a lot of inventions (including some of mine). So, at best, what's happening is that taxpayers are paying universities to do research. Those taxpayers are stuck footing the bill for all the research that doesn't go anywhere. But sometimes they discover something valuable, the university patents it, and then sells the patent to a private company. So, the taxpayers recover SOME of their investment on research. But, whenever a pharmaceutical company boasts about the amount of money they spend on research, it's a lie. Because pharmaceutical companies do very little of their own research. Most of it is done at universities at taxpayer expense, and the companies just pay for the patents on the things that worked. Doing it that way considerably lowers the risks for the pharmaceutical companies. They pay for the research that paid off, but they don't have to pay for all the research that never went anywhere.
By the way, do you remember the Ebola virus outbreak? There was no vaccine at the time. There is now an Ebola virus vaccine, so we don't have to worry about Ebola as much. The Ebola vaccine was also developed in Canada. It was actually developed by an old friend of mine named Judie Alimonti, who worked at the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg Manitoba. It's part of the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), the equivalent of the NIH. Once again, it was a public research institution that developed that vaccine, and a private company that simply bought it after the hard work had been done.
Ironically, even though Judie basically saved the world from Ebola, she never even had a permanent job with the PHAC. She was just a contract worker who was poorly paid, had no job security, eventually left, and died of cancer. She's one of those unsung heroes who worked for the public, but never got any of the credit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judie_Alimonti
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