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Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

reuters.com

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Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#211

Post by antonzabirko »

Covzire wrote: post #123
Traster wrote: post #93

The problem with this governmental intervention is that you can't have it both ways. These companies want the governmetn to step in to hlp them with their problems, but let's take a look - are they going to contribute back once the government has intervened? What are they really proposing, a 20% revenue tax on consumer products that are sold with these new US sourced chips? No. Of course not. God forbid they actually…

Just to play devil's advocate, what would the world look like had there been massive investment 5-10 years ago? The benefits would probably have been a chip shortage that wasn't and we'd be free to complain about other things.

I would take a chip shortage over subsidizing them.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#212

Post by _-david-_ »

smithza wrote: post #204
_-david-_ wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China only has 100% chance of winning in a war with Taiwan if the west and allies do not join.

From some commentaries I read, China has a near 100% chance of winning in war with Taiwan even if US and allies join. This is mostly to do with mainland China's relative proximity to Taiwan and the few relative number of air bases US has on Japan and how far away Hawaii is.

Wars are not single battles. If China were to attack (and capture) Taiwan the war would not just be over. The West could attack mainland China and attempt to retake Taiwan.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#214

Post by paulddraper »

Traster wrote: post #93

The problem with this governmental intervention is that you can't have it both ways. These companies want the governmetn to step in to hlp them with their problems, but let's take a look - are they going to contribute back once the government has intervened? What are they really proposing, a 20% revenue tax on consumer products that are sold with these new US sourced chips? No. Of course not. God forbid they actually…

> God forbid they actually pay taxes to fund the government services they're asking for.

That unironically makes complete sense.

If they were going to pay taxes to fund the subsidy, why have the subsidy in the first place?

(My conclusion: don't subsidize, don't pick winners and losers.)

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#215

Post by [deleted] »

ohashi wrote: post #99

If the US tax payer gets a significant stake in the chip fab venture, I would be OK with this. We want to secure national security via chip manufacturing and you want billions of dollars? Give us some upside. I don't want to hear it creates jobs, it generates blah blah blah, a real equity stake and possibly repayment of the capital. Creating jobs should be a happy by-product of subsidizing an industry that is probabl…

[deleted]

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#216

Post by AlexC04 »

ohashi wrote: post #99

If the US tax payer gets a significant stake in the chip fab venture, I would be OK with this. We want to secure national security via chip manufacturing and you want billions of dollars? Give us some upside. I don't want to hear it creates jobs, it generates blah blah blah, a real equity stake and possibly repayment of the capital. Creating jobs should be a happy by-product of subsidizing an industry that is probabl…

I mean, in theory taxes are that significant stake, but of course in practice it doesn't really work like that.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#217

Post by Rafuino »

yumraj wrote: post #213

Does anyone know if AMD is just not mentioned or is not even part of this group? If not, why not? Do they think they are better suited under their current arrangement with TSMC and perhaps Global Founderies?

I found the lobby group and AMD's logo is there... They're probably not mentioned just because they're a blip on the radar compared to what AWS, GCP, and Azure buy from Intel still.

https://www.chipsinamerica.org/about/

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#218

Post by lvs »

dang wrote: post #192
lvs wrote: post #171

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hm, it certainly looks a lot like "improve the quality of the threads" == suppress industry critique.

"Industry critique" fills virtually every HN thread. With suppression like that, who needs amplifiers? Most people who see a moderation decision they dislike leap straight to the idea that the moderators secretly hold $VIEW, ignoring (or not noticing) all the moderation decisions going the opposite way. In reality, we just don't care— I don't have words to describe how profoundly we don't care about commenter opinion…

No doubt a thankless job, but your claims to being unbiased are obviously going to be faced with skepticism when you label industry critique as "predictable" or "mean" and censor it. It's your perception that it fills every thread, but my perception is that the industry cheerleading in this community is wildly untethered. I think you probably wouldn't deny that your goal is to stem generalized negativity, based on the bias that negativity is bad and positivity is good "for discussion." It's not as if that bias has no consequence.

If you were being consistent about this, by the way, you'd be censoring the banal security and bug sanctimony that dominates every thread on that topic. A buffer overrun? Good heavens! An unsalted pw hash? Fetch my inhaler!

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#219

Post by smithza »

coliveira wrote: post #173

It is funny that the US intelligentsia complains about China as being dominated by government, but there is nothing really big done in the US without huge costs for American tax payers, frequently without any retribution. This is clearly the next step: the US corporations created the "big enemy" China by exporting jobs there during the last 40 years, now they want the same taxpayers to pay for rebuilding the US indus…

A cynical take... considering how short-sighted public corps are with quarterly shareholder valuations, this is an unintended side-effect at best. At worst, it could be that your comment "the US corporations created the 'big enemy' China" was intentional.

Re: Tech giants join call for funding U.S. chip production

#220

Post by mjevans »

DebtDeflation wrote: post #205
leesalminen wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The MBAs running US manufacturers need to scrap their JIT strategies, build some warehouses, and start keeping a store of the essentials. Just the other day here on HN I read an account from a founder who did just that- in early 2008. He ended up having a warehouse full of raw materials and no cash to make payroll. That's one way a business dies. So, this talking point sounds good, those damn MBAs and their JITs!,…

A few months into the pandemic. a Texas manufacturer of N95 masks offered to ramp up capacity and start cranking out millions of N95 masks so long as hospitals and the government were willing to sign a multiyear contract to continue to buy masks from him at pre-pandemic prices after the pandemic ended. No one took him up on his offer. He said without a long term contract there would eventually be a supply glut and al…

This is exactly where the government should operate with emergency stockpiles.

Buy stuff and sit on it for half it's shelf life, and when it's done sell it at just a little bit under fair market cost.

E.G. Buy N95 masks with a 5 year shelf life, hold them for 2, and rotate it out of the warehouse so the warehouse always has newer stuff and places that use it like construction and hospitals have a price stabilized source.

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