$79B to Boost US Semiconductor Production Opposed by 31 Republican Senators - and Bernie Sanders (apnews.com) 129
A long-awaited bill in the U.S. Congress proposes $79 billion (over 10 years) to boost U.S. semiconductor production, reports the Associated Press, "mostly as a result of new grants and tax breaks that would subsidize the cost that computer chip manufacturers incur when building or expanding chip plants in the United States."
But opposing the bill are 31 Republican senators — and democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders: Supporters say that countries all over the world are spending billons of dollars to lure chipmakers. The U.S. must do the same or risk losing a secure supply of the semiconductors that power the nation's automobiles, computers, appliances and some of the military's most advanced weapons systems. Sanders (Independent — Vermont), and a wide range of conservative lawmakers, think tanks and media outlets have a different take. To them, it's "corporate welfare...."
"Not too many people that I can recall — I have been all over this country — say: 'Bernie, you go back there and you get the job done, and you give enormously profitable corporations, which pay outrageous compensation packages to their CEOs, billions and billions of dollars in corporate welfare,'" Sanders said.
Senator Mitt Romney (Republican — Utah), is among the likely Republican supporters. Asked about the Sanders' argument against the bill, Romney said that when other countries subsidize the manufacturing of high technology chips, the U.S. must join the club. "If you don't play like they play, then you are not going to be manufacturing high technology chips, and they are essential for our national defense as well as our economy," Romney said....
"My fear is that more and more companies will locate their manufacturing facilities in other countries and that we will be increasingly vulnerable," said Senator Susan Collin (Republican — Maine).
The bill's supporters remain confident it will pass the U.S. Senate, but then "the window for passing the bill through the House is narrow if progressives join with Sanders and if most Republicans line up in opposition based on fiscal concerns.
"The White House says the bill needs to pass by the end of the month because companies are making decisions now about where to build."
But opposing the bill are 31 Republican senators — and democratic socialist senator Bernie Sanders: Supporters say that countries all over the world are spending billons of dollars to lure chipmakers. The U.S. must do the same or risk losing a secure supply of the semiconductors that power the nation's automobiles, computers, appliances and some of the military's most advanced weapons systems. Sanders (Independent — Vermont), and a wide range of conservative lawmakers, think tanks and media outlets have a different take. To them, it's "corporate welfare...."
"Not too many people that I can recall — I have been all over this country — say: 'Bernie, you go back there and you get the job done, and you give enormously profitable corporations, which pay outrageous compensation packages to their CEOs, billions and billions of dollars in corporate welfare,'" Sanders said.
Senator Mitt Romney (Republican — Utah), is among the likely Republican supporters. Asked about the Sanders' argument against the bill, Romney said that when other countries subsidize the manufacturing of high technology chips, the U.S. must join the club. "If you don't play like they play, then you are not going to be manufacturing high technology chips, and they are essential for our national defense as well as our economy," Romney said....
"My fear is that more and more companies will locate their manufacturing facilities in other countries and that we will be increasingly vulnerable," said Senator Susan Collin (Republican — Maine).
The bill's supporters remain confident it will pass the U.S. Senate, but then "the window for passing the bill through the House is narrow if progressives join with Sanders and if most Republicans line up in opposition based on fiscal concerns.
"The White House says the bill needs to pass by the end of the month because companies are making decisions now about where to build."
Mitt ain't wrong... (Score:3)
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Chip fabrication is mostly automated. This is ostensibly about supply chain stability, not jobs. I say ostensibly because Bernie is right, this really is just corporate welfare. They’re using the presently dysfunctional supply chain as an excuse to ask for a handout.
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Mitt's 2nd religion is money ( mammon.)
We need not limit our thinking to THEIR constraints. Corporations are US legal entities in the US system; just about anything we want to do with them we can make them. Your brainwashed minds fail to realize this and if you dare think otherwise they threaten doom and gloom terror that the elite will turn their backs on us and take "their magic" away. FALSE. Their legal powers are granted by we the people (and an early corrupt SCOTUS ruling) and their assets are in the
Nancy was confident the bill would pass :) (Score:2, Informative)
According to the disclosures, Paul Pelosi purchased between $1 million and $5 million worth of Nvidia stock on June 17.
The stock purchase comes as the Senate is expected to meet this week to discuss a bipartisan bill to boost semiconductor manufacturing in the country. The bill aims to provide grants, tax credits and other incentives for companies to manufacture semiconductors in the United States.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/mone... [msn.com]
Re: Nancy was confident the bill would pass :) (Score:3)
Nvidia does not make chips nor have a fab plant. This bill does little to nothing to make Nvidia a better investment.
These is some other reason why her husband made this investment. He trades a lot, and Nvidia is just one of many buys
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Nvidia sells chips. Cheaper chips - lower costs and higher profits for Nvidia.
I am also very opposed (Score:3, Informative)
There's absolutely no reason to go out money to the semiconductor fabs by government.
The first thing is we don't know if this is just a short-term problem or a long-term problem. Most of the problem facing chip shortages now are problems created by the government in the first place, by the government screwing with the economy with to much free cash which is like throwing gasoline on the economy fire. The problem that I face from day to day is the Chinese third party resellers hoarding parts, so the government should do something about that first. Another problem is cryptocurrency mining which is absolutely a useless waste of silicon, it should be banned, why should we create silicon chips who's only uses to create waste heat to win a lottery? All the while burning up electricity and making everything expensive for everyone.
The second thing is if it was a good business case and semiconductor fabricators to create new fabs then they would do it on their own, they wouldn't need to go to government, they would get the money and build fabs.
The real problem here though is businesses have not been managing their supply chains correctly, with only a single source with just in time ordering. This works if you don't have a disruption of the supply chain but wars and pandemics can throw a wrench in that plan. Yeah it's cheaper to operate your supply chain that way but those days are gone
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Chip fabs are actually one thing where there is little ability for anybody but the fabricators to control; everything that is made is sold, so they have little direct incentive to produce domestically.
The alternatives are to add taxes (tariffs, purchasing requirements which drive up government costs, etc) on foreign-produced "critical" products.
It is in the US national interests to ensure that more of the supply chain is detangled and de-coupled from China. An action needs to be taken to make that happen.
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The first thing is we don't know if this is just a short-term problem or a long-term problem. Most of the problem facing chip shortages now are problems created by the government in the first place, by the government screwing with the economy with to much free cash which is like throwing gasoline on the economy fire.
Citation needed. The chip shortages were cause by the government? I am pretty sure that a worldwide pandemic coupled with years of private companies sourcing chips from overseas and a heavy reliance on just-in-time supply chain logistics adopted by said companies caused the issue. Somehow that is the governments' fault for private companies' decisions?
The problem that I face from day to day is the Chinese third party resellers hoarding parts,
Why are Chinese 3rd party resellers "hoarding" parts again? From what I can tell, Chinese sellers taking advantage by increasing prices due to a high demand,
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> https://www.statista.com/chart... [statista.com]
Maybe you his chart of chip production over the last thirty two years will help you see which:
https://www.statista.com/chart... [statista.com]
Looking at the data for yourself, do you think chip production leaving the US and moving to Asia, especially China, is a long term trend or short term? It should be pretty obvious if you look at the data. Note Taiwan is officially part of China and the leadership of China is moving to have less local control, more party control, in Taiwan. So e
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Taiwan is not and has never been part of the People's Republic of China. It is all wishful thinking, a figment of their imagination. They are missing an international treaty or two, not to mention a desire on the part of the Taiwanese to be ruled over by a genocidal police state.
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China very much wants to "re-unify" Taiwan.
Do you want to go to war with China over that, or do you want to stop being so dependent on Taiwan?
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PS - the last company I owned had a total of three employees.
That was the entire corporation - three people.
We had proper backups.
If you want, you can tell me how you and your organization are less competent and less capable than a three person company. Or, you can spend an hour to fix your shit.
Doh! (Score:2)
Crap, I replied to the wrong post.
But to your post, you realize China has 350 nuclear weapons, right? With 100 of those mounted on missiles that can hit the continental United States. You SURE war with them is a good idea?
Granted, many of their missiles would probably hit California, so that's a mitigating factor.
Sanders will want strings attached (Score:5, Interesting)
If you and me give a company money we get one of two things: product or stock. I propose (and Sanders did before me) that when the gov't does the same the gov't gets the same. No free lunch. No Welfare Queens. You want my taxpayer dollars you give me something tangible in return. And my elected representatives now get to vote on your board of directors.
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So let's get this straight:
1). Pay huge amounts of money to a failing chip fab (Intel)
2). Give taxpayers stock in this company
3). Watch everyone's shares drop to $0 when INTC plummets
If the goal is to shore up actual semiconductor production in the United States, years of damage that Intel did to other domestic companies (GF, TI, etc.) needs to be undone. We also need to consider opening up the wallet to foreign companies investing in State-side fabs like TSMC and Samsung.
TSMC and Samsung are doing quite w
We're going to pay it anyway (Score:2, Insightful)
You're call man. Me and Sanders are capitalists.
Re:We're going to pay it anyway (Score:4, Informative)
If you were a capitalist, you wouldn't support any legislation that calls for billions of dollars to go to failed or failing corporations.
If Intel wants money - specifically defense money - then they need to kneel to the beats known as second sourcing and open up their patent portfolios to other domestic fabs so that the DoD can place orders with more than one company. Then we can talk loan guarantees for capacity expansion. Maybe.
Barring that, the United States should strengthen strategic alliances with the RoC and S. Korea while encouraging their healthy foundries to continue expanding fabrication facilities in the United States.
Bailing out a bad company and giving shares to the public is wasteful and stupid.
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beast, not beats. Feh.
You don't understand capitalism (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not all aboard the socialist train, mind you. I don't think we're ready for the Star Trek Utopia. People like owning shit, and they like hierarchical structures and being told what to do by folks higher up on the totem pole. But at the same time you have to temper that somehow or the whole system falls apart.
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The question I ask is why us this justifiable and defensible while the US took the EU to court for state-supplied loans to Airbus not that long ago?
The same arguments can be made about aerospace infrastructure by the EU - Airbus, AMD and Intel are all well established companies operating in both the military and civilian markets, and having an independent ability to develop aircraft is certainly a national security concern.
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Actually the US has a very healthy heavy industry sector. This is one area that has seen very little off shoring. Heavy manufacturing is still very healthy here. Other than raw steel, I don't know of very much heavy industry machinery that comes from China. Japan and Taiwan both provide quite a bit of heavy industry infrastructure (such as construction equipment, large lathes, mills, etc). Chinese companies have made some minor inroads by buying a few American companies and moving them to China. For e
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better than voting stock would be convertible bonds, or possibly convertible preferred stock.
These have a higher priority before dissolution (must be fully paid before the common stock gets a dime).
So the bond pays interest at whatever percent, and the gov't can sell them to someone who can convert them to voting stock.
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Tell that to Ford, Boeing, AIG, etc. Too big to fail has been a thing since 1792. [investopedia.com]
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You want my taxpayer dollars you give me something tangible in return. And my elected representatives now get to vote on your board of directors.
Hm, I keep forgetting. What kind of social order is it where the government owns the means of production?
You have a valid point, if money is given, then something should be returned. Socialsm is not a viable path so your idea is kind of a non-starter.
Honestly, government mucking about in commerce and creating winners and losers is a sure way to get a crippled sector of industry with no long-term viability. Could it work out fine? Sure. Has it ever worked out fine in the past? I am currently unaware of any l
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How about we vote REPUBLICAN from now on and kick the crooked Democrats out?
You want to replace them with even more crooked republicans? That's on-brand for you, both because of cuckservatism and stupidity.
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I know you're just trolling, but the Republicans are totally on board with corporate welfare. Socialize losses and privatize gains, that's the GOP way.
The Democrats do it too, which is why the only real differences between the parties is where they fall on environmental and culture war issues. They're both full of corporate kissasses. It's inescapable.
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NOT THE SAME.
Increased corporate power results in more fascist infections. It's a political disease. One side is infected and the other side think it's a holy blessing they need to force onto everybody.
Bernie has immunity but it only spreads to people who can think and hear him.
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The Republicans normally have no problem falling in line when they want to filibuster something. This bill would be DOA if the Republicans didn't truly support it too.
Global competition sometimes needs govts (Score:2)
Like it or not, in lots of global industries - e.g. automotive - government actions are needed to attract the players. It's fine to have moral and philosophical objections to the process, but unless the whole world stops the practice together, opting not to participate often just means... opting out. You can strongarm industries by preventing access to local markets to spur capitulation, but that can kill long term investment.
Security through local production means attracting investment, and the relative pr
Re: Global competition sometimes needs govts (Score:1)
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You're talking about something entirely out of the scope of this context. I'm talking about attracting industries to the country, you're talking about the collapse of existing markets and companies.
On a global scale, government participation and actions is a part of the market.
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It was GM and Chrysler, not Ford. IIRC, with GM, it did go bankrupt. What the government did was seperate all of GMs liabilities out into a seperate company and that company went bankrupt, screwing everyone who was owed money.
What else is hiding in the bill? (Score:2)
It will be 1999 pages of pork, 1 page of semiconductor stimulus.
Business is war. To succeed be like Beijing. (Score:2)
Idealism has its place but that is nowhere near economic warfare. Business is war and the only way round that is not doing business.
Complex systems operate with some degree of degradation. The US and Chinese (either version of "China") systems are effective but of course imperfect.
To wage economic war in an implacably permanently hostile world fusion of secular democracy (not the same as fascism) and business is necessary for the West to survive. Enlightened cooperation and shitloads of money are needed. So
Has to be said again, but . .. (Score:4, Interesting)
Let's summarize:
Media/politicians noticed "chip shortages". Most of these chips are low-margin parts like chips for automotive modules or PMICs for monitors. Stuff like that. Legacy semiconductor companies (e.g. ones not sinking significant amounts of money in cutting-edge R&D) produce a lot of this stuff, and for awhile there they weren't keeping up. Without plans to expand old facilities producing old nodes, they'll continue to fail to meet demand.
Meanwhile, Intel (who incidentally wiped the floor with most of their American semiconductor fabrication competition decades ago, reducing them and others to "legacy" status) is finally struggling to compete with totally-not-Chinese competitors Samsung and TSMC in the cutting-edge fabrication game. Intel generally doesn't like low-margin stuff and their foundry game is weak anyway (despite launching their Foundry 2.0 effort; ought to tell you how well Foundry 1.0 went).
China continues to steal technology from TSMC and Samsung and invests a lot of money into their domestic SMIC, which mostly produces chips for use by Chinese industry, though honestly I don't have an export list for them. They might be exporting more than is generally understood in these conversations.
So the CHIPs act essentially asks us to bail Intel out of their current problem (keeping up with Taiwanese and Korean competition), under the assumption that Intel will solve our commodity chip shortage and protect us from Chinese competition. Keep in mind that Samsung and TSMC are both investing in fabs in the United States, either on their own or with state/local incentive packages.
Intel is not going to get into the low-margin commodity chip market seriously. Not unless forced to do so by law. Pouring money into them directly does not solve the problem that the politicians and media think it might solve. It does, however, allow Intel to compete with design companies like AMD; Qualcomm, nVidia, and Apple that generally get their chips fabbed by TSMC and/or Samsung.
Any serious attempt to bolster semiconductor manufacturing in the United States would so the following:
1). Force all companies receiving money to engage in patent sharing with all other companies receiving money
2). Require all companies to maintain a large footprint in the United States while avoiding a large footprint in countries hostile to the United States - Intel has fabs in China, for example, while Mubadala-owned Globalfoundries has all their fabs in the United States, Germany, and Singapore.
3). Money would have to be shared between multiple interested companies - not just Intel. And not predominantly Intel.
The US taxpayer doesn't need to just bail out Intel in the hopes that they'll save the United States.
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Correct. Foundry 1.0 was kind of a joke. They had an option to fab chips for Apple's first gen iPhone and blew it off:
https://techcrunch.com/2016/05... [techcrunch.com]
In fact that failure is one of the reasons why they're struggling now while TSMC and Samsung are ascendant.
Do they deserve it? No. Should we give it? Yes. (Score:2)
Look this is almost like paying a kidnapper a ransom. We can be indignant about justice, right, and all that -- ultimately we have to save the victim, not be right. Pay the money, and demand a stake in these companies be placed in a private nonprofit foundation that is independent-from-the government. The foundation can manage the share dividends and things like that. But if we do not give the money. Well we should spend it on learning Mandarin and Hindi with a concentration in subservient phrases.
Susan Collins should be in a retirement home. (Score:2)
The woman is mentally impaired.
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If that suddenly becomes a reason for a politician to be forced into retirement, I think the cheaper variant is to turn the House into a retirement home. I mean, it already is a home for the unemployables, what's a bit of redecoration and adding some nurses?
Intel is looking for a bailout. (Score:3)
I agree with Bernie Sanders, I watched Intel's CEO talk about this bill, and in my opinion it's just a thinly veiled attempt by Intel for government welfare to bail Intel out of the very poor decisions they've made over the last decade with respect to AMD, ARM, and now RISC-V.
Intel finally realized that they will never retake the lead against AMD with AMD's "amd64 x86_64" instruction set architecture. Intel also realized that the server market is now forward focused on RISC-V, which is a completely open source instruction set architecture. So Intel is scrambling to stay relevant.
That said, we do need to focus on creating a strong domestic silicon supply chain for national security reasons, because China's authoritarian ideologies do not aline with the United States interests, so if Intel wants to make formal concessions that they will fully get behind RISC-V and/or other patient free instruction set architectures or open standards cooperatives I would support them.
The biggest threat right now is Nvidia's closed source instruction set architecture, the whole ARM, and Mellanox, deal was to strategically position them into being the next "closed source Microsoft"... Jensen Huang doesn't seem to know how to play nicely with others.
If it is important for national security (Score:3)
I'm for the bill, but it galls me.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Being American, I agree that it is a national security issue, and we need to support the return of semiconductor manufacture to the US from China. However, it galls the fuck out of me to pay for it after already paying for these companies to move their fabs in the first place through added margins they charged to cover the costs related to the move. This IS blatant corporate welfare, but I don't know how else to insure the fabs get built here.
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How about just forcing them to do it if they want government contracts?
Politicians are idiots (Score:2)
The level of discourse from the politicians is at the level of 12-year-olds. What we really need is a well-thought-out industrial policy, including all sorts of strategic materials and products. Unfortunately, because our "leaders" are mainly morons who are only interested in their own power, much like African dictators, even a highly imperfect bill to do SOMETHING that is not per se destructive is a lot better than nothing.
Stick instead of carrot? (Score:2)
How about setting a rule that companies that sell chips to US Defense and other sensitive areas should be manufactured in the US?
Why pay when you can just force them? The US is a big enough market to force manufacturers to do certain things no?
What am I missing?
The problem can't be fixed by money alone (Score:2)
We (the US, as well as Europe) do have a huge problem: over the past 30 years the production (research, design, manufacturing, ) for most commercial products has shifted to Asia. This includes semiconductor chips - critical building blocks for many important commercial and military products. So it is essential that we reduce our reliance on these other nations for semiconductor chips (and related electronic parts).
Providing government money to the US semiconductor producers might be required, but that must
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It's not even a handout. It's more like a bailout. These companies are so poorly run they can't operate without the U.S. taxpayer endlessly footing the bill for operations.
Re:It's a handout (Score:5, Informative)
It's not even a handout. It's more like a bailout. These companies are so poorly run they can't operate without the U.S. taxpayer endlessly footing the bill for operations.
That's completely false, and if you believe it, you're completely deluded. Intel has enough liquid investments that they can afford to build a new fab in the US outright, right now. I don't know where you heard that horseshit, but repeating it is literally doing their propaganda work for them. They do NOT need any of our money.
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+1
Re:It's a handout (Score:5, Insightful)
If they want our money, we should demand equity
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I could not agree more. No more interest free or even low interest loans, or handouts. Quid pro quo all the way. If they need money from The People, then The People need equity. Anything else is "The government" picking winners, where what that actually means is the most entrenched and corrupt politicians are doing it.
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Wonderful. We may yet get some open source hardware out of this whole deal.
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>"No more interest free or even low interest loans, or handouts."
Or tax breaks. Agreed.
>"Quid pro quo all the way. If they need money from The People, then The People need equity."
"Equity" is nonsense, and is neither fair or just. That word MEANS government/collectives/power groups picking those it wishes to favor over others who lose. Best to leave that totally out of the equation. Equality of opportunity (not outcome) is, however, something I always support. And that can be applied here as well
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"Equity" is nonsense, and is neither fair or just.
In this case, I mean equity in a shareholders' sense. And it would be both fair and just if The People wound up owning a piece of anything we helped to fund. It's easy to say that the government shouldn't get involved in these decisions, but that's a massively naive position that doesn't take into account issues like national security or the health of the economy. Government picks winners every time it makes a purchasing decision... and it costs money every time they choose a new supplier. Corporations shou
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>"In this case, I mean equity in a shareholders' sense. And it would be both fair and just if The People wound up owning a piece of anything we helped to fund."
I think that would just further corruption and dysfunction.
>"It's easy to say that the government shouldn't get involved in these decisions, but that's a massively naive position that doesn't take into account issues like national security or the health of the economy. Government picks winners every time it makes a purchasing decision... and it
Re: It's a handout (Score:2)
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The government should be setting sound policies, and the winners should be those who find a profitable way to follow those policies. This is not at all picking winners. This is instead creating a positive-sum game.
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Best to leave that totally out of the equation. Equality of opportunity (not outcome) is, however, something I always support. And that can be applied here as well. These companies should enjoy no extra privileges not handed out to all other companies and industries.
I, for one, welcome your new Chinese overlords.
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It's not even a handout. It's more like a bailout. These companies are so poorly run they can't operate without the U.S. taxpayer endlessly footing the bill for operations.
That's completely false, and if you believe it, you're completely deluded. Intel has enough liquid investments that they can afford to build a new fab in the US outright, right now. I don't know where you heard that horseshit, but repeating it is literally doing their propaganda work for them. They do NOT need any of our money.
*sigh* No one gets sarcasm any more.
The fact you admitted to the very thing I was getting at proves Intel and the rest don't need taxpayer money. They are swimming in cash and if they need more they can always get a loan. Just like you or I would do.
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Nobody got your sarcasm because there were no clues that it was sarcasm, as many people on Slashdot believe even dumber things than what you said.
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That level of sarcasm isn't really detectable. Of course Intel et al have the money, or could get the money, to build whatever they want.
It's a question of national policy. Up until 2020 I would've said that sure, let them figure out what to build where. But COVID and Russia exposed the problem with our free market approach. It all works great until you realize one of the player is not at all friendly and has you by the balls. Under normal trade, there's of course no issue with basing your manufacturing in
Re: It's a handout (Score:2)
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Well, if we want them to build it here, we have to incentivize it somehow.
Intel doesn't give a fuck about the government that made it possible. They just want money.
We can either give them money, which I think is stupid, or we can institute supplier requirements that demand that parts be made here, or we can tax stuff made with slave labor and without meaningful environmental controls. Any of these methods would encourage Intel to build fabs here.
I don't think giving them money makes sense, though. If The P
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That's completely false, and if you believe it, you're completely deluded. Intel has enough liquid investments that they can afford to build a new fab in the US outright, right now. I don't know where you heard that horseshit, but repeating it is literally doing their propaganda work for them. They do NOT need any of our money.
This is why I do not understand this bill. Intel has many, many fabs in the US. The problem is they haven't competed at the leading edge because of their own manufacturing issues. It was not that long ago that Intel had the leading edge at 14nm. The problem is that they were stuck there for years while their competitors went on to 7nm and now 5nm while Intel floundered at 10nm. To be clear, Intel made products at 10nm but their yields were so low that they could not transition the bulk of their products to
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They have many outside the US, as well. And they're looking to build more.
The purpose of the CHIPS act is to entice these companies to build their next gen fabs in the US. Otherwise, there are other first-world nations that are courting them as well with similar funding..
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They have many outside the US, as well. And they're looking to build more.
There are currently 14 Intel fabs. 12 of them are in the US. Please describe what you mean by "many" because in my world, "many" does not mean 2.
The purpose of the CHIPS act is to entice these companies to build their next gen fabs in the US. Otherwise, there are other first-world nations that are courting them as well with similar funding..
Long before this act, Intel had already announced 3 new plants to be built in the US. All this does it give Intel money for things they were going to do anyways.
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They have many outside the US, as well. And they're looking to build more.
There are currently 14 Intel fabs. 12 of them are in the US. Please describe what you mean by "many" because in my world, "many" does not mean 2.
The purpose of the CHIPS act is to entice these companies to build their next gen fabs in the US. Otherwise, there are other first-world nations that are courting them as well with similar funding..
Long before this act, Intel had already announced 3 new plants to be built in the US. All this does it give Intel money for things they were going to do anyways.
So the 'makers' are actually 'takers' ... who'da thunk it?
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But why should they spend their own money when they can get a handout from the government and spend our money instead?
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Tax Minimisation Structures (Score:2)
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It's not even a handout. It's more like a bailout. These companies are so poorly run they can't operate without the U.S. taxpayer endlessly footing the bill for operations.
It isn't a bailout, those companies are not in trouble. Bailout is supposed to get the recipient out of trouble, yet those companies are all posting record profits. However, why would they invest their own money, if they can get money from the tax payers? This is corporate welfare at its most pernicious. Government is taking money from the poor bartenders like Alex from the Bronx and giving that money to mega-corporations like Intel and NVIDIA. We also shouldn't forget the speaker of the House, who will mak
Re:It's a handout (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, the companies are doing great. They are even expanding fab capacity with or without government aid, just not particularly invested in ensuring the *US* specifically provides adequate capacity, the companies are just as happy to have capacity in Taiwan as anywhere else, and we are trying to persuade them to favor US soil rather than just build up overseas.
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These companies are very profitable. They don't need a handout to build more plants. They are just looking for corporate welfare.
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Intel could be run better I think, but they are not exactly too poor to afford to build their own fabs.
My only thought is, Intel spent billions over the pass few years on share buy backs.
If they can afford to enrich the shareholders, why can't they afford to build their own fabs? If this law has something about no share buy backs for next 15 years after the company gets the grant, I may actually consider it. Or maybe no dividends for X number of years as well will be good too.
If not, it's just free money fo
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Re: bullshit (Score:2, Flamebait)
Re: bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)
You could quite easily pass a law requiring all GSA purchases and federal contractors to purchase equipment solely containing chips manufactured and packaged in the US and to ensure that the supply chains for critical components can be exclusive to the US.
The question is if you want to strategically incentivize or penalize, and what level of pushback you get on purely eonomic terms.
The best approach might be half carrot, half stick, but it is hard to know until everything plays out... at which point it is too late.
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You could quite easily pass a law requiring all GSA purchases and federal contractors to purchase equipment solely containing chips manufactured and packaged in the US
*cough*Jones Act*cough*
Re: bullshit (Score:3)
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My friend Mr Zutin said that the US should give the $79B to Ukraine to help their economy and to rebuild the Donbas region after Ukraine wins the war. They will supply the necessary neon gas. Promise.
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Not that bad an idea if you think about it. Ukraine has a pretty well educated workforce while at the same time having salary levels that are closer to third world countries than anywhere in the US. And you can grab them by the balls right now, they'll sign you anything you present to them.
The only risk you'd have to take is that they may just lose that war.
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Ohio taxpayers are already coughing up billions for that plant. The companies always promise large numbers on the payroll, and therefore lots of income tax revenues to exchange for the billions coughed up by taxpayers, but there's no-one making sure they come through with their end of the deal, nor are there any penalties if they don'w.
It is corporate welfare.
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And unlike normal welfare, there's a pretty good chance that money isn't even spent domestic.
Re: bullshit (Score:4, Insightful)
Bullshit, the subsidies are pay as you go, with defined metrics tied to each subsidy, and the vast majority of 'subsidies' are actually tax abatements, the only real payments from taxpayers to anyone are infrastructure investments.
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"You want us to do what?
Send it to our new HQ in Dublin!"
Re: bullshit (Score:2)
Just put a customs fee or tax on imported electronics. Call it an environmental fee/tax.
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Pretty much, yes. This is assholes in public office filling their own coffers, i.e. corruption. Corruption erodes anything.
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We shouldn't complain about their corruption until we make at least a feeble effort to vote them out. 90% reelection rates are not their fault. The entire house can/should be swept out every two years, democracy is high maintenance
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It's always the other congressmen that are the problem, never you own.
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Well, yes. Assholes and idiots vote assholes and idiots into office. Going on on both sides, with the Republicans usually being a noticeable bit worse, but essentially they are all corrupt and a majority of the voters is pretty much the same. Some voters also have stopped caring, which is not any better.
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The CHIPS bill is a handout not just to big corps like intel and nvidia, but also to lawmakers who own lots of their stock like the Pelosis. They have been manipulating the market by manipulating the bill.
Correction: mostly Intel. Nvidia would have less direct benefits as they have no semiconductor fabs but contract that out to the likes of TSMC and Samsung. Incidentally Samsung would benefit as they have fabs in the US.
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nvidia stock will definitely go up if fabs are supposed to be built in the USA, because PC sales are down due to shortages. More fab capacity means more PCs means more GPU demand as well. With major cryptocurrencies constantly threatening PoW (eth is still mined with GPUs) their future profits are not guaranteed. I personally think PoW isn't going to happen any time soon, they've been dicking around with it for ages without apparent progress to actually using it, but if it does it will harm nvidia.
Buy American (Score:1)
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The CHIPS bill is a handout not just to big corps like intel and nvidia, but also to lawmakers who own lots of their stock like the Pelosis. They have been manipulating the market by manipulating the bill.
Totally agree, and I would add this:
The problem with these chip companies isn't a lack of money. They build products that are in BIG DEMAND and will be in demand for decades to come while printing money for these chipmakers.
I think it's a lack of laws & regulations to incentivize these companies to build where you want them to build while controlling & enforcing laws to curb any unlawful behavior by those companies.
Most places have laws and permitting processes and NIMBYs and enviros that make it s