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Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

electronicsweekly.com

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Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#371

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

madrox wrote: post #297
FooBarWidget wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A connected world is not a guaranteed sufficient condition for peace. But that does not mean it's not a necessary condition for peace. One could argue that without economic interconnectivity, Europe could have fought WW1 much earlier, or would have had wars much more often.

While I ultimately believe you're correct (along with open borders and travel) I wish there were more rigorous proofs that this were the case. I think about the line in West Wing: "Free trade is essential for human rights...the end of that sentence is 'we hope because nothing else has worked.' ...Chinese political prisoners are going to be sewing soccer balls with their teeth whether we sell them cheeseburgers or not…

Ah... West Wing. Even the cynicism was better than it is in reality.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#372

Post by omega3 »

> It has been suggested that already-allocated funds from the €95.5-billion Horizon Europe budget could be re-purposed. EC president Ursula Von der Leyen has said that, in addition, she’ll find €12 billion from public/private sources.

The rich get richer and stay rich. It's hard not to get cynical about the fact that the whole of Europe is working so that a couple of countries ensure their continuing wealth.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#373

Post by pphysch »

tick_tock_tick wrote: post #341
pphysch wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Please don't make such generalizations. The average Chinese person is no more responsible for Chinese foreign policy than the average American is for American foreign policy.

What!!! The average American's views absolutely have a huge impact on foreign policy... Why would you assume it's different in China?

No post body was provided.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#374

Post by rat87 »

PKop wrote: post #156
ikinsey wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you mind explaining why you think this is the case?

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 wasn't thwarted at every turn. Maybe we should have but we didn't, at least not at every turn.

We did warn then it was a bad idea. Other countries especially countries in Eastern EU warned them it was a bad idea. And lo and behold trying to bring peace through trade didn't work with Russia.

Unless Germany wants to exit the EU like the UK it does have to take the interests of other EU countries into account, many of them are much more anti Russia then America for obvious reasons. And even if Germany were to leave, not sanctioning Russia now would still be bad even if only considering German interests

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#375

Post by FooBarWidget »

mschuster91 wrote: post #362
FooBarWidget wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human rights is more than just political rights or speech. Hundreds of millions of Chinese lifted out of poverty is a huge win for human rights. When you're poor, you're not free. Having grown up with dirty streets and beggars, you can't possibly imagine how big a deal it is for me to see my hometown transforming into a modern metropolis, and how my grandparents-in-law (in a different city, in a rural area) finaly ha…

> It's because Chinese define democracy by whether they believe their government works for their interest and whether they yield good results, not by how their government is elected. And here is the crux of China's zero-covid policy. Follow the Western lead and run covid run its course? That would be millions of deaths even with Omicron being not as deadly, simply because Sinovax is nowhere near as effective as the m…

Actually, Sinovac work as well as Pfizer when it comes to preventing hospitilization and death, but requires sufficient boosters. This is shown by this research paper: https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2022.03.22.22272769v...

The "Chinese vaccine don't work" talking point is a bad faith myth created by western mainstream media, which misrepresented this study by comparing single- or two-dose Sinovac with 3-dose Pfizer. This sort of misrepresentation is unfortunately common practice in mainstream western media.

What is true however is that Chinese population has less immunity against omicron due to lower vaccination rates, especially among the elderly. For one, the Chinese don't see vaccination as really necessary because lockdowns work. Second, the Chinese worry a lot more about vaccine side effects. Here in the Netherlands, vaccines are sold as "100% safe, everyone should get it", whereas in China doctors would recommend against getting a vaccine if you have another medical problem such as heart problems. My other grandparents in law choose not to get vaccinated because they have many other health problems due to old age.

Finally, the Chinese public is by and large very supportive of lockdowns despite the Shanghai mess. Rather than "don't lock down" they now just believe "lock down earlier, don't turn into the next Shanghai".

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#376

Post by k__ »

Panoramix wrote: post #315
alaricus wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Subsidizing an American company is not necessary for Germany's security. In fact, it undermines it.

That's a silly and naive take. This investment will tremendously boost the semiconductor ecosystem in Germany. In the long run, this will do wonders when German companies want to or have to expand their capabilities, find more employees, design, package or assemble chips, buy wafers, equipment, supply chain, you name it. It's about building an ecosystem, much like SV. People on HN of all places should know this.

Really?

I didn't read anything good about working for Intel.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#377

Post by FooBarWidget »

Matl wrote: post #367
FooBarWidget wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Human rights is more than just political rights or speech. Hundreds of millions of Chinese lifted out of poverty is a huge win for human rights. When you're poor, you're not free. Having grown up with dirty streets and beggars, you can't possibly imagine how big a deal it is for me to see my hometown transforming into a modern metropolis, and how my grandparents-in-law (in a different city, in a rural area) finaly ha…

> Human rights is more than just political rights or speech. > When you're poor, you're not free. I appreciate someone 'qualified' making this point. Whenever I tried to argue this in the past, I inherently got dismissed as being in a privileged European position not knowing what I am talking about, (even as an Eastern European), so thanks for your post.

Happy to hear this.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#378

Post by FooBarWidget »

christkv wrote: post #339
FooBarWidget wrote: post #279

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A connected world is not a guaranteed sufficient condition for peace. But that does not mean it's not a necessary condition for peace. One could argue that without economic interconnectivity, Europe could have fought WW1 much earlier, or would have had wars much more often.

Eh have you looked at the list of wars in Europe in the 19th century?

Well multiply that by 3x if there were no interconnectedness.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#379

Post by IfOnlyYouKnew »

explaingarlic wrote: post #364
mmastrac wrote: post #2

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.

Doesn't feel to me like microchips are in such short supply that any more would significantly contribute to the economy. Am I just unaware of the crisis going on all around me?

That wasn't the parent's argument. But, incredibly enough, there really is a shortage in microchips that has lead, among other problems, to shutdown of whole production lines for cars.

It doesn't necessarily matter to have local fabs: at least in the current situation, the worldwide chip production is still a mostly free market with products being sold to the highest bidder independent of location (as long as it's not Russia). But the confidence of this state continuing is certainly lower than it was a few years ago.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#380

Post by Dma54rhs »

colechristensen wrote: post #361
wazoox wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That was the main argument for global trade already in 1914. France was Germany's most important commercial partner, and vice-versa. All German rifles had stocks made from French walnut wood! All French locomotives had German-made tubing! This stupid mantra was repeated ad nauseam after 1991, too, with silly op-eds from Friedman and friends about how two countries with McDonald joints in both can't be at war and simi…

The economic sanctions against Russia really do seem to be creating quite a lot of internal pressure to stop the war in Ukraine which is not going so well. Without those sanctions, it is quite conceivable that a troubled war effort would not be nearly so much of a problem, but because of the trade dependency Russia feels quite threatened by the consequences of war. Not enough to have prevented it in the first place,…

Its the same for Ukrainians since EU big powers want the end of war because of economies even if it means Ukraine giving away their territories. You could argue without globalism and a lot of trade that pressure wouldn't exist.
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