"...we actually live in a capitalist society that allows big businesses (and otherwise zombie corporations) to fail..."

We do, though. Lehman Brothers was sacrificed in 2008, IIRC. Enron was taken down a few years before that. Occasionally the owners throw one of their sacrificial lambs to the wolves.

"So not only will we be propping up Intel but also a slew of other companies when it suits the administration?"

Remember that Mussolini defined Fascism as the partnership of corporations and government, what we call today public/private partnerships. What the USG taking a 10% stake in Intel is can be properly defined as Fascism. That's what this is. Fascism.

Also, don't forget the IME, the Intel Management Engine that is a separate computer on your computer that has it's own power source, so you can't turn it off, and turning off your system doesn't turn it off, has access to all your devices, all your keystrokes, all your data before you encrypt it, and so forth. This factory installed backdoor into your devices (all commercially available chipsets AMD, and etc, have similar mechanisms) will now be government property. "...vital to national security..." indeed!

"It's a dark comedy but it's still pretty funny."

It hurts to laugh.

Thanks!