Live data from Hacker News

Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

electronicsweekly.com

381–390 of 593 posts

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Europe having tight relations with Russia, economically especially energy-wise, is greatly beneficial to Europe You're once again excluding any calculations of Russia using the money to run around overthrowing democracies. "It's greatly beneficial if you ignore all the mass murder." The whole reason why they're now cancelling NS2 is because of this. Germany likes cheap energy, sure, but they're less than enthused a…

The world doesn't revolve around "America vs Russia". There are lots of other things going on. And if you are looking for a mass murderer, is there a bigger mass murderer than USA after 20 years of mass murder in the Middle East?

Yes it doesn't revolve around America vs Russia

You have to consider the EU vs Russia.

It's not in EU's or Germany's intrest to keep trading with Russia

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#382
post #372

> 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.

[deleted]

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#383
post #297

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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…

Why the false dichotomy? Does political freedom automatically contradict with economic prosperity for some reason now? Born and raised in China, I fail to see how the last 10 years of erosion in freedom has yielded any better results economically.

Please don’t buy the government propaganda that legitimizes everything from stupid to evil as a price that has to be paid to raise people out of poverty.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe more about AMD having had fabs there, which then transitioned into Globalfoundries?

Hm, "decades" implies GDR ... AMD eventually bought some of Robotron's facilities, though.

Possibly. But start of 2000 when AMD and Infineon in Dresden where in vogue is also more than a decade ago.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#386
post #246

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.

The point was that China’s leaders are emotional about it too. They grew up with the same propaganda.

Beijing's interest in Taiwan is not emotional. It's as realist as it gets.

During the Opium Wars, foreign invaders occupied many of the mainland's ocean ports.

Taiwan, as part of the First Island Chain, represents a critical strategic asset for those wishing to control mainland China.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#387
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds almost like a parody of an uninformed rant against capitalism. 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 p…

Subsidies are always bad for the common citizen so no, it is not acting in the interest of German/European citizen. Subsidies are the product of flawed economical thinking even when "national interest" is used as a BS justification.

Is it really necessary to establish the necessity of strategic domestic manufacturing capabilities in a post COVID world? We saw what happened when there was enormous need for masks, then later vaccines. The fact is that Germany as a nation that has so much of its economy linked to high tech manufacturing uniquely would benefit from securing a most domestic chip supply. The evidence for why it is necessary has already been laid bare in the past few years. The Chinese are already massively subsidizing their fabs. So is South Korea, Taiwan, and all the other major players. If you want fabs you must subsidize or die.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#388
post #171
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.

It is very important for national stability. A highly-interconnected global economy is arguably better at securing international stability.

I think the parent makes a better point in concrete terms. Geopolitically interconnected trade is all well and good in theory, but putting two superpowers at odds over the consolidation of oxygen right off the coast of one of them, with a long-standing grudge between them into the bargain has obvious implications for stability.

All of economics looks great on paper until basically any little happenstance quirk utterly breaks the whole thing.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#389
post #358
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…

If Taiwan didn't have the world's most advanced semiconducter industry, which China (and all other nations) rely on, China would have long ago attacked it. So that's an easy example of how trade helps keeps peace.

Counterfactual imaginings make for poor evidence. But ideology can make a fool of anyone.

Re: Germany paying $5.5B for Intel fab

#390
post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This sounds almost like a parody of an uninformed rant against capitalism. 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 p…

Subsidies are always bad for the common citizen so no, it is not acting in the interest of German/European citizen. Subsidies are the product of flawed economical thinking even when "national interest" is used as a BS justification.

Subsidies such as this are a net-loss for the average citizen of Germany and whatever country would have otherwise been host to this factory. It may well be in the interest of the German citizen, and it happening means that this is indeed the believed by people who studied the specifics.

A better example for wasteful subsidies may be the competition for their new HQ Amazon ran between US cities, only to place it where they wanted to go in the first place. There, as well as in the Intel case, a deal prohibiting competition by subsidy would be in everyone's interest.

Post reply on HN