211–220 of 593 posts
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> As of 2022, ASML Holding is the only company who produces and sells EUV systems for chip production
Okay, so still: what is the company making the next-best chip making machines, using the next-best technology after EUV?
Intel spent tens of billions on stock buybacks and now they're getting subsidies to build fabs. Why does the middle class taxpayer have to bail everyone out, with lower living standards due to taxation and inflation.
Stock buybacks are a simple standard way to distribute company profit to it's owners (alternative options are dividends, retaining the profits in the balance sheet, or reinvesting them). This is decided by Intel's management and overseen by the board who represent the interest of the stock owners (who are widely dispersed and include lots of pension funds of commoners, not just billionaire fatcats).
The EU by way of the European Commission appears to have decided that it's of strategic interest to subsidize Intel fabs as a way to induce them to build in Europe, as opposed to Asia (which according to Intel is 30%-40% cheaper). The European middle class is not "bailing out" anyone here.
If you want to rant, a better starting point IMO is to 1) contemplate whether the European Commission is acting in the interest of the German/European citizen (and if not, how to fix this democratic deficit) 2) check if Intel's claims are truthful, and if so, why Asia is so much cheaper and whether that is worth doing something about that
In any case, I don't see what Intel's stock buybacks has to do with European taxation and inflation in this case.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> As of 2022, ASML Holding is the only company who produces and sells EUV systems for chip production
Okay, so still: what is the company making the next-best chip making machines, using the next-best technology after EUV?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Does it really matter which country is the headquarters for the corporate owner? It's still a German plant hiring Germans and subject to German laws. The rule of law exists in both Germany and the US. German citizens can invest in Intel. And, in the event of a US/German war, that plant is and will remain German, not American. I think there's an excellent case for distinguishing that from companies from China, where n…
The difference is that patents for inventions made for Intel by Intel employees go to the US, whether or not that employee is an US person. Those inventions, if made by Germans, could instead help the German - or European - tech sector. That's kind of brain drain without actually leaving your country and sustainably hurts European competitiveness.
Unless you think Intel will refuse to do business with a European company vs a US one.
Investing in local chip fabs is long overdue. These are incredibly important for geopolitical stability and should be distributed world-wide. We've centralized too many fabs in too few places in the search for low cost.
ASML is in the Netherlands though. Edit: Yes ASML is obviously not a chip fab but they supply the machines that actually fabricate the chips.
Investing in local chip fabs is long overdue. These are incredibly important for geopolitical stability and should be distributed world-wide. We've centralized too many fabs in too few places in the search for low cost.
Sure they can fabricate the chips, but a lot of the raw material needed will come from places like China.
Intel spent tens of billions on stock buybacks and now they're getting subsidies to build fabs. Why does the middle class taxpayer have to bail everyone out, with lower living standards due to taxation and inflation.
Notice all the zeroes https://www.intc.com/stock-info/dividends-and-buybacks
Also, "Upcoming Dividends: There are no future dividends presently declared for INTC as of Jun 7th, 2022. The declaration and payment of dividends are at the discretion of the Company."
I suppose one could argue that they shouldn't have done that in the quarters before now but they are where they are.
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They are dependent on and subservient to the US and its geopolitical interests. We see this right now with Germany self-sabotaging it's own economy and industrial power by cutting off cheap Russian energy at the direction of US policy interests (Nord Stream 2 was agreed upon for years between Russia and Germany but thwarted at every turn, sanctioned etc by US).
It was also hated by other EU countries: >President of the European Council Donald Tusk said that Nord Stream 2 is not in the EU's interests.[19] Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán have questioned the different treatment of Nord Stream 2 and South Stream projects.[19][20] Some claim that the project violates the long-term declared strategy of the EU to diversify its gas supp…
And, just because they want to diversify, doesn't mean the present geological and economic reality allows for it. Utopian policy in place of realpolitik is foolish. Same with ESG and insane green anti hydrocarbon, anti-nuclear policies.
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Does it really matter which country is the headquarters for the corporate owner? It's still a German plant hiring Germans and subject to German laws. The rule of law exists in both Germany and the US. German citizens can invest in Intel. And, in the event of a US/German war, that plant is and will remain German, not American. I think there's an excellent case for distinguishing that from companies from China, where n…
> Does it really matter which country is the headquarters for the corporate owner? It's still a German plant hiring Germans and subject to German laws. The rule of law exists in both Germany and the US. Of course it matters. The profit goes in the direction of headquarters, tax is paid in the country of headquarters, and the government of the country of headquarters has much bigger influence to the company.
I agree that China impacts its companies beyond its borders, but the US government does not. The US government has enough trouble regulating the US operations of US companies,
Unless you bribe someone. They seem to actually care about that.
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I don't think this is why fabs were centralized. I think this is because when you start to decrease node size, the fab costs go up astronomically so to keep the cost in check you need economies of scale and with the current manufacturing techniques you can achieve this by centralizing manufacturing.
Seems to me that most software is horribly inefficient anyway. If push came to shove we might just consider making better software?
The hot paths in most important high-end computing are mostly quite efficient.