I heard an interesting conversation on the teevee this morning about the government helping businesses. The main points were the usual liberal talking point about just bailing out and tossing money at big businesses and the conservative talking point about loaning money instead so the taxpayers get most or some of their money back.
An interesting third point was the government buying stock in publicly traded companies. I didn't catch what the legalities of that would be, but the thought was interesting. Instead of bailing out American Airlines, the gov buys a million shares of their stock, and five years from now, when it has doubled, you sell it and put the profit back in the gov kitty - something targeted like debt reduction or emergency response.
Again, I'm not sure of what the legalities would be, or potential "separation of business and state" issues, but as long as there were guidelines preventing the gov from becoming a majority stockholder or otherwise interfering with said business, it's an interesting thought experiment alternative to just throwing taxpayer money at stuff with no hope of return.
Edit: Oh, another use for the profits I just thought of would be reimbursing the gov coffers for stuff like these $1200 checks we're all going to get. At least I won't feel as bad when I use that dough to buy guns the day after the check arrives if I know it's all a prepayment for stock profits.