the Netherlands has a big banking industry for a small country. Some of our banks are Fortis, ING, and ABN AMRO. When Fortis failed last week the goverments of the Netherlands Luxemburg and Belgium all nations where Fortis is active desided to step in and bail out this banking giant with 11.2 bilion euro's (around 15ish bilion dollars) they did not however just buy its bad death they bought a share of the banks of 49% therby protecting dutch taxpayers form the biggest risks. Not only does the state now own stock in the wholle bank and not just ownership of the failing parts, it has a voice in decisions made at the bank.

Dutch lawmakers resited the urge to play into sentiment with this bailout and try to block it because it bails out banking execs. Every party from communist/socialist to green to conservative in principle agrees the bank needs to be saved. They criticise the banks management but beacause the state gains influence they can agree to the deal now and know they can savely put in the money because they can iron out the details later, the money is not lost or given to bankers to play with it is changed into ownership of the bank. The need to save the bank now is bigger then the need to argue about details, but because the details are very important the goverment decided to go for partial nationalisation so not all desisions had to be made today. The goverment could act and still remain able to change course later on.

Note how the goverment now not just owns bad asset with small chances of seeing the money back but a share in a bank that has many healty parts. The first move the goverment made is forcing Fortis to sell its most expencive asset, its dutch rival ABN AMRO which it just bought, the takeover was corrently waying down on the  liquidity of Fortis en should therfore be sold. The dutch goverment made sure it ended up in the hands of another Dutch bank (ING) who might pay for it now in part and pay the rest later when the international money market alows for it.

The dutch taxpayer will in the long run almost certainly win in this situation. No bank will go belly up or end up in  foreign hands.  No buying it up and moving it abroad which would result in Dutch people losing employment.

The morale of the story is that if your gonna play big goverment you might wanna do it the socialist way and claim ownership. If you go in, go all in not just save the companies but take temporarry control!