America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate • Hacker News Board

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#81

Post by jeffbee » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:32 AM UTC

bradlys wrote: post #70

jeffbee wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imagine using government money to fund Intel, AMD, Micron, Apple, etc with combined capitalization over 4 trillion dollars. Instead they should be levying massive windfall taxes on these companies' overseas cash hoards, and using those revenues to fund onshore semiconductor startups.

Aren’t fabs and all that like multi-billion dollar projects? How does one realistically become a startup in that space when the capital to start is so intensive? (At least these days - idk about back in the past)

You are under-estimating how much cash these American companies are holding.

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#82

Post by BeFlatXIII » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:33 AM UTC

huy-nguyen wrote: post #9

Per [1], the House version contains important immigration provisions. 1) The bill would create a new category of non-immigrant visa called the W visa for owners (W-1) or essential employees (W-2) of start-up companies and their dependent family members (W-3). 2) The bill would exempt applicants holding a PhD in a STEM field from the annual per-country green card limits, enabling them to quickly apply for permanent re…

> The bill would exempt applicants holding a PhD in a STEM field from the annual per-country green card limits, enabling them to quickly apply for permanent residency without being subject to the availability of an immigrant visa.

Finally! It was utter idiocy that it wasn't already the law to staple a green card to each PhD diploma earned by a foreigner for my entire life.

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#83

Post by civilized » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:33 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #54

civilized wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people might be skeptical of the premise that it's beneficial for the government to manipulate balances of imports and exports.

Many people are skeptical that the world is round, when you phrase a statement like that you have the luxury of being right but without having said anything at all because "many" and "skeptical" are extraordinarily vague and trivial to make true about anything. Having trade policy is as old as government, skeptics or not. "Free markets" in the absolute sense have never and will never exist, and talking in absolutes i…

You could have just as well said "War is as old as government, skeptics or not. 'A peaceful world' in the absolute sense has never and will never exist, and talking in absolutes isn't helpful etc. etc."

I'm open to the idea that trade policy is sometimes useful but such a defense of it is facile nonsense. The ubiquity of something across time and space doesn't make it good or pragmatic or savvy or endow it with any other nice quality. Some things, like war, are basically bad, and at best perhaps necessary in some very limited situations.

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#84

Post by metaphor » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:33 AM UTC

ipnon wrote: post #12

To give an idea of how much content is in this bill, please see "Sec. 74029. Beverage containing coconut water." where duties on imports of beverages containing at least 10% coconut water are hereby free .

> Non-alcoholic beverage containing 10 percent or more of not-from-concentrate coconut water, with added flavors and stevia, packaged for retail sale

More specifically, Bai Brands[1], owned by Keurig Dr Pepper.

[1] https://www.drinkbai.com/bai-cocofusion

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#85

Post by skybrian » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:33 AM UTC

mwint wrote: post #40

paxys wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Forgot all PhDs, it is next to impossible for most students and researchers who get advanced degrees from American universities to get work visas or permanent residency. We get the best talent from all over the world, spend billions on educating them, and then force them to go home.

Is the US spending billions to educate them, or are they spending billions to be educated here?

Since graduate students do work for universities at low wages, it seems like the universities are getting a good deal.

So how do you want to account for labor costs? After they leave, the work got done and the workers got paid. Both sides benefit from this arrangement, though you can certainly argue (and many do) that the benefits should be split more fairly by paying the workers more.

Separately, the US would benefit from letting them stay and do more work. But that's generally the case for any immigration restriction. They get in the way of mutually beneficial private arrangements. US employers can't hire people who are willing to work for them, and the workers strongly benefit from being able to work in the US. Immigration restrictions are all about the government getting in people's way and the various justifications people make for continuing this interference.

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#86

Post by thaumasiotes » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:33 AM UTC

a2tech wrote: post #32

ronyfadel wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That would lead to the immediate creation of Ph.D. farms in other countries

You say that like they don't already exist

Not at all. Extra benefits to Ph. D. holders means more Ph. D. mills, regardless of how many already exist.

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#87

Post by kesor » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:33 AM UTC

Sec. 4432. Prohibition on the use of TikTok.

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#88

Post by butterisgood » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:34 AM UTC

edgyquant wrote: post #41

butterisgood wrote: post #22

So more free money for billionaires?

If this is the conclusion you reach it says more about your worldview than anything. Real world policies have nuance to them.

Nuance meaning the American oligarchy says “fuck you middle class slaves”? Then yes you read me correctly.

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#89

Post by thaumasiotes » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:36 AM UTC

colechristensen wrote: post #54

civilized wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many people might be skeptical of the premise that it's beneficial for the government to manipulate balances of imports and exports.

Many people are skeptical that the world is round, when you phrase a statement like that you have the luxury of being right but without having said anything at all because "many" and "skeptical" are extraordinarily vague and trivial to make true about anything. Having trade policy is as old as government, skeptics or not. "Free markets" in the absolute sense have never and will never exist, and talking in absolutes i…

> Having trade policy is as old as government, skeptics or not.

This isn't even true. Government is much, much older than trade policy.

Re: America COMPETES Act of 2022 passed House and Senate

#90

Post by throwawaygh » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 1:37 AM UTC

abeppu wrote: post #74

throwawaygh wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Is the US spending billions to educate them One PhD student costs a professor about $100K - $200K per year. A third of that is stipend and the other two thirds is... well, in CS I'm not even sure. A good bit of administrative welfare AFAICT. (Universities don't pay FICA taxes for grad students and grad student healthcare premiums are actually more of a subsidy for the risk pool of the aging faculty/admins than an a…

Is looking at the per-student cost and multiplying by the number of students a good way to evaluate the systemic cost? Or are there other factors separate from the marginal cost to a professor of an additional grad student which should be included (e.g. are there institutional-level resources which are significantly supporting this workforce?)

> Or are there other factors separate from the marginal cost to a professor of an additional grad student which should be included (e.g. are there institutional-level resources which are significantly supporting this workforce?)

No. At least, not in CS. What sorts if things would you be referring to? Compute? Honestly you're better off with a trivial cloud grant than trying to use the slurm cluster with a dozen ancient gpus for hundreds of faculty to share. Office space? Your average dilapidated cube farm is LUXURY compared to the sardine situation grad students put up with. Robotics hardware? Doesn't really scale like that. And... those are the only three things needed for like 90% of CS research. In CS, precious few dollars other than the stipend go toward anything useful. As far as a faculty member is concerns, that money money disappears into a pit.

(What's going on is that the PhD stipend is fixed by the funding agency, and the university squeezes as much as possible away from the professor/student. Just armies upon armies of assistant deans doing not much of anything while the grad students toil away doing the only useful work in the place for rent and pizza.)