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

reuters.com

261–270 of 301 posts

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

#261

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…

It's getting really tired to blame companies for acting like rational agents against the natural laws of competitive global markets.

Being against free trade works for an economy right up until it has fully squandered its competitive advantage (derived in great part in the modern world by leveraging comparative advantage) and then GDP and the tax base start collapsing. And then capital flight happens when the combination of protectionism and necessarily increased taxes to sustain government programs makes it prohibitive to conduct business, compounding the vicious contractive cycle.

Retarding an economy with protectionist policies is a losing strategy in the long term. The only way to win is education and retraining. That's it.

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

#262

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…

> US corporations created the "big enemy" China by exporting jobs there during the last 40 years I've noticed that for the most part every time a corporation export jobs it's the corporation's fault. Whenever a corporation brings jobs to the US the politicians get credit for good policy.

Ah yes, blame the faceless free market or the bumbling gmen.

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

#263
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…

The subsidizing of this should be limited to speeding regulatory reviews. It should at least be economically viable with private capital to have this plant. If not, why not? What's so expensive that you can't open a plant profitably where there is a shortage?

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

#264

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…

> US corporations created the "big enemy" China by exporting jobs there during the last 40 years I've noticed that for the most part every time a corporation export jobs it's the corporation's fault. Whenever a corporation brings jobs to the US the politicians get credit for good policy.

It is better to blame culture and values.

From the cultural left, if you believe that nationalism is immoral and everyone is a global citizen with nation-states being obsolete and even illegetimate ideas, you can't expect someone to have a sense of loyalty to his fellow citizens and not outsource. After all, why deny good jobs to the poor in other countries who benefit from them? Isn't it bigoted for a company to want to keep jobs in America? So that's why the left is strangely silent on these trade deficits, and attacks anyone who raises concerns about them as "nativist".

On the economic right, if you believe that profit maximizing behavior leads to pareto-maximizing outcomes, why would you interfere with a company that decides to boost profits by outsourcing?

It is the cultural right, economic left that remains shaking their heads at what are obviously foolish, self-destructive policies, but they are generally locked out of power in this country, and so the national firesale continues.

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

#265

Couldn't this be a positive long term benefit of Corona? A push back against globalisation and more domestic production in each region of the world.

Globalization is not what happened during the last few decades. Investing your entire supply chain in China is not globalization. Corona is causing a push back against sinicization.

If the world actually did have globalized production, the pandemic, which originated in China, would probably have hurt relatively less.

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

#266
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…

The tax payers need to start demanding something in return for tax money gifts, and bailouts.

These companies move manufacturing overseas because they don't want to pay family members/neighbors a decent wage, or other business incentives like lax polution standards.

Now they want struggling Americas to build them a new cozy home in the country they abandoned. (You know what I mean by abandoned. The last thing the wealthy boys will ever do is move these wealthy executives to these cheaper countries completely.)

I'm at the point---go ahead and give them billions. Give them land. Take off any tariffs. Yes--a complete 180 from my opening sentence.

I feel computer chips are very important, and we do need factories here.

It seems like every few years a big prospering industry takes tax payer money. I'm always hoping they might show a bit of gratitude, but no. We bailed out "big stupid banks" (quote by Jamie Diamond), and the banks just turned around raised fees for everything.

I don't want a lot. Just some compassion with prices. If you sell drugs (Pharmacutical jab) to another counties at a huge discount; give poor/middle class Americas the same deal? Johnson & Johnson were the only drug company that didn't take millions in grants for Covid research. You would think by taking millions in gifts, the manufactoring information would be freely available to any American? (I am so glad they found a vaccine. I am still angry over my prescription price dole out each month.)

Oh yea, I'm not one sided. I felt AOC, and others, took demands to far with Amazon a few years ago.

It's almost like when we do get a say in a private business decision, we go overboard? We are so used to big businesses stepping on us, we over demand?

But yea, I'm completely disenfranchised. Give them money, and incentives.

It will be interesting to see what our inflation rate will be in a few years.

I heard a big wig stock guy say today he is worrying the dollar might not be used as a bench mark in other countries in a few years if we don't stop spending like drunken sailors.

I'm all for spending when it benefits the poor, and middle class. It doesn't seem to ever trickle down.

The homeless encampments are just getting bigger in my county. I see too many frantic people filling up moving vans. Instead of happiness over the opening, I'm seeing a lot of misplaced anger when I go out.

(Sorry about rambling.)

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

#267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At this point there is very little economic sanctions US could impose on China that Trump didn't already either try or talk about. And anything with teeth will never work whilst US companies build everything in China. So for me a short military dispute is more likely. No one is expecting war this year. There will be 3 Ford Class carriers by 2030 and 5 by 2040. As well as the Nimitz class which are still better than w…

>At this point there is very little economic sanctions US could impose on China that Trump didn't already either try or talk about. This is incorrect. Trump/Pompeo would have instituted US capital market controls (and pension fund disinvestment) had they been re-elected. That destroyed the USSR, and would have shattered China in a matter of 24 months. At a high level, BRI/etc. rely on a few trillion USD from New York…

What I wrote above has been reported on NTD Media, including interviews with former State Department officials. This is well-known information for anybody current on CCP issues.

Is there some confusion that I can clarify?

Am I so ahead of HN that nobody else understands this?

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

#268
post #119

People mention how building new fabs in the U.S would be a worthwhile yet extremely costly and risky investment that require a monumental undertaking that could only be done through massive tech firms and the U.S government. What I don't see mentioned too often is promoting chip design. Compared to building a fab, making a startup that simply designs chips should be straightforward but through my initial research int…

The EDA vendors are pretty good about university licenses. They want the students to use their tools when they graduate.

EDA tools require a ton of multidisciplinary knowledge. A computer scientist can write a compiler. An EDA tool requires that along with EE, physics, and mathematicians.

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

#269
post #186

To all those saying that those companies can afford it themselves, remember that there are reasons they don't. The economics don't add up. Companies tend to do what is in their economic interest to do. Something like this can change the economics, which could be a good thing.

Rather than advocate for a specific conclusion, I'd like to propose a way of looking at this problem: What matters is a society's capacity to produce. Not whether something is "fair", not whether an industry deserves this or that. Not whether some cherished economic theory is being honored. Specifically, what matters is the creation and support of productive ecosystems , which are networks of credit, knowledge acquis…

I don't know how you can justifiably call Africa a has-been. Africa is by far the youngest continent in the world, with 60% of the population below 25. The median age is 19. The fertility rate is incredibly high. Most likely, Africa is the continent of the future.

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

#270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I wasn't clear. I meant that "A US-led TSMC-like foundry (since we're talking about funding a US chip production facility) would be a good source of tax income that might justify a federal startup investment."

Ahhhh, makes sense. Also, after reading further, it appears I was wrong - TSMC has some operations in the US including some in Arizona - plus their interest in maintaining friendly terms with the US in order to preserve the existence of Taiwan is also an angle. What still worries me is that ramp up time for fabs like these are on the scale of years - if we assume a fab started right now, we'll be making semiconductor…

> What still worries me is that ramp up time for fabs like these are on the scale of years - if we assume a fab started right now, we'll be making semiconductors in ~2 years at the earliest (very optimistic)?

TSMC announced the Arizona fab in May of 2020. They estimate it will be at volume production by 2024. The challenge is that it's not just building the fab, but also the lead times for all of the equipment involved, getting the specialists in to install+calibrate, then doing some initial runs to work out issues before going to volume production.

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