What is a GOC?
A government-owned corporation, state-owned enterprise or government business enterprise is a legal entity created by a government to undertake commercial or business activities on behalf of an owner government. There is no standard definition of a government-owned corporation (GOC) or state-owned enterprise (SOE), although the two terms can be used inter-changeably. The defining characteristics are that they have a distinct legal form and they are established to operate in commercial affairs. While they may also have public policy objectives, SOEs should be differentiated from other forms of government corporation or entity established to pursue purely non-financial objectives that have no need or goal of satisfying the shareholders with return on their investment through price increase or dividends.
SOEs can be fully owned or partially owned by Government. As a definitional issue, it is difficult to determine categorically what level of state ownership would qualify an entity to be considered as "state-owned", since governments can also own regular stock, without implying any special interference. As an example, the Chinese Investment Corporation agreed in 2007 to acquire a 9.9% interest in the global investment bank Morgan Stanley, but it is unlikely that this would qualify the latter as a government-owned corporation.

Is this what we have with the financial institutions, the auto makers?

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Of course, and it's something you should find appealing with your socialist views Med. The purchase of ownership stakes by the government in these corporations is something that would never have happened in a laisse-faire capitalist system (as you keep on trying to argue), because under a laisse-faire capitalist system the corporations would have been assumed to be abject failurse and left to collapse under the collective weight of the stupidity of their management and workers.

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Let's see...........AIG, Fannie and Freddie, are now basically government owned. The feds have an 85% interest in AIG, and complete ownership of Fannie and Freddie.

The autos - not quite there yet. I don't know if the feds have an equity stake in them or not. They've gotten a loan, but I don't know if the feds have gotten anything in return. But, its not over yet.

Regardless, the equity stake needs to be over 50% for them to have "control". Anything approaching +25% and they can have major sway on the board, but not until they have 50%+ can do they have carte blanche control.

The 9.9% stake by china in Morgan Stanely is merely an investment. No doubt Morgan will comply with whatever the Chicoms want as far as their biz practices on the mainland, but they would comply even without the equity stake in M.S.

So you're aying in effect China controls M.S..

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Only on the mainland. M.S. wants a foothold in china, just like everyone else. So, they'll comply with whatever the chicoms want concerning the mainland.

If M.S. starts doing something in Africa - where the Chinese are basically Americans and the Africans are chinese.....only less friendly....- and the Chicoms don't like it.........M.S. will get scolded. But, they don't have direct control over all the operations....And don't count out M.S.....they're still some crafty codgers.

At one time I had a Mutual fund with them. It went ballistic, from 3,000.00 to 35,000.00 if about three years. I figured it was solid so basically put it into the retirement category and stopped watching it carefully, My mistake, within a year it tanked and was basically worthless, The bursting of the internet and hi-tech bubble. That hurt.

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Life is good, the water is sweet. The ground keeps moving beneath my feet.

Yeah, that's what it was..It had nothing to do with Morgan Stanley..........there's so much redundancy in mutual funds it is really sad....always be wary of something that does extremely well. Its not to say it can't happen, or won't ever happen again........just that they don't last..........

I love the way the banks got their interest rates cut down to .25% and then got bailout money only to turn around and increase their fees. My mortgage company got a tremendous bailout and thanked me for my tax dollars by raising the check by phone fee from $8 per transaction to $20 per transaction.

I have vowed to never do another check by phone again, either it's snail mail, or if I'm in a hurry, Western Union only charges $12 for it, they can collect the fee.

I was on change.gov reading questions the other night and someone wrote in that their credit car company will no longer accept payments above the monthly minimum. Isn't that a nice fuck you? The days of charging something and paying it off before the bill comes due are OVER.

The banks didn't "get interest rates down to .25%" the federal reserve did that for a couple reasons 1) make it cheap for banks to borrow, and hopefully lend........that way they make a higher profit with their cost being so low. 2) to discourage people who do have money from saving......the fed wants that money out there making investments........buy a house, build an addition, or construction - anything really.......

Yeah, the banks are really fucking us now....I listen to clark howard a lot. He's a consumer finance guy out of atlanta - he has a spot on headline news now..i think his show is on sat @noon on headline news.....He's a capitalist, but he has been at war with "giant, monster, mega banks" for years. He suggests getting into a credit union, or bank with a small local community bank. One big bank he does endorse is ING online bank. It's time to fire these banks. I don't deal with them anymore. I'm a capitalist, I think free-markets are the best system we've used so far.........but that doesn't mean I HAVE to fucked in the ass. I have a choice. So FUCK THEM.

I haven't heard anything about someone not being able to pay more than the minimum. I don't who that person has a credit card with, but if you look at any bill in circulation it clearly states "legal tender for all debts public and private" that person needs a lawyer. However, Citicards, a few months ago, carte blanche - didn't matter what your credit history was - raised their minimum interest rate to, I think, 7%....