Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips • Hacker News Board

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#461

Post by toolz » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:14 PM UTC

thereare5lights wrote: post #439

toolz wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you read the definition of the very lowest tier of "very low food security" metric? It's hilarious, 100 years ago people would laugh at such "hardships". Food availability isn't a problem in the U.S. for all but the extreme outliers. Now, education about nutrition is very likely a problem, but even the poorest of the poor can readily get the nutrition they need if they knew what they needed, but obviously even ou…

> It's hilarious, 100 years ago people would laugh at such "hardships". The metrics people used 100 years ago are of no concern to me and indeed the values those people held are more often than not abhorrent. > Food availability isn't a problem in the U.S. for all but the extreme outliers. When faced with data, you persist in this lie. > Now, education about nutrition is very likely a problem, but even the poorest of…

> One of the reasons people are obese is because all they can afford is the worst foods.

Obesity is caused exclusively by calorie surplus. You can literally eat pure sugar, twinkies, and sugary beverages exclusively at base metabolism maintenance calories and never become obese.

As for your ignorant assumptions, I've been homeless for short periods of time in my life (in between jobs moving to a different city) and lived far below the poverty line for like 8 years of my adult life. Frankly, you have no idea what you're talking about. You can eat far healthier than the average american on the lowest budgets in the US. At literally half the poverty line if you spend 30% of your budget on food that's $5 a day on food - now you've probably never been poor so you don't understand how far $5 can take you in america - here's a nice showcase of what you can eat for $3.33/day

https://stackyourdollars.com/eat-on-5-a-day/

that's bacon/eggs/toast for breakfast beef burritos for lunch chicken and vegetables for dinner

and that meat you're spending money on can all be replaced by far cheaper healthier alternatives like lentils or beans

So again, you've got no idea what you're talking about

yet another $5/day menu that includes snacks, with mostly healthy foods and surpasses most peoples calorie needs https://uhs.berkeley.edu/sites/default/files/sos-eatingwell5...

I could do this all day, honestly as it's not even remotely hard to eat very healthy and very well on $5/day

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#462

Post by Blackstrat » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 1:15 PM UTC

While unquestionably semis, etc. are of vital US concern. However, why should the companies be subsidized by the taxpayer? All of these companies are profitable. All are multi-national. All can sell every chip they make, etc. This smacks of Soviet style industrial policy or crony capitalism, if you prefer. And in the end, when the subsidies cease, they will again shop themselves to the highest bidder. Strikes me as extremely short sighted.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#463

Post by ElevenLathe » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 2:47 PM UTC

csomar wrote: post #399

jacobreg wrote: post #332

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The point isn't that its one or the other, the point is that spending on social programs is much cheaper than national security programs and makes a more meaningful difference in more peoples lives. The point is that either-or is a false dichotomy, we can have good social safety nets and still have robust national security. The reason we don't have both isn't that we can't afford both, its that much of this country v…

> the point is that spending on social programs is much cheaper than national security programs and makes a more meaningful difference in more peoples lives That's not the point presented by the OP. If he was to advance such a point, he'll have to cite a research that shows that investing in poorer families will lead to semi-conductor advancement in the country. Unless you think the US (or any reasonably advanced big…

It seems like the burden of proof should be the other way around. The proponents of this bill should have to prove to the hungry and poor that handouts to Intel are ultimately better for them than food in their mouths and money in their pockets.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#464

Post by toolz » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 2:58 PM UTC

sofixa wrote: post #436

toolz wrote: post #411

Earlier quoted context omitted.

did you read the definition of the very lowest tier of "very low food security" metric? It's hilarious, 100 years ago people would laugh at such "hardships". Food availability isn't a problem in the U.S. for all but the extreme outliers. Now, education about nutrition is very likely a problem, but even the poorest of the poor can readily get the nutrition they need if they knew what they needed, but obviously even ou…

> It's hilarious, 100 years ago people would laugh at such "hardships" And a 100 years ago a lobotomy against "mental illness" (like mood swings or chatty women) was considered acceptable. A high school diploma was an amazing achievement. What's your point and how does that relate to today?

if you read the rest of my comment I'm sure you'll find a point in there. Picking out a single comment you don't like and ignoring the context of the debate adds nothing to the conversation. I'm not about to debate the merits of diet 100 years ago vs today in a thread about whether or not people in the US can or can't get access to adequate nutrition.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#465

Post by toolz » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:16 PM UTC

mrep wrote: post #443

toolz wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

so many "think of the children" arguments without even addressing the fact that literally no one starves in the U.S. for lack of food availability (mental issues can and do lead to starvation though, unfortunately). I for one don't think the federal government should have anything to do with our school systems. That is not their expertise, not their domain and they don't need any temptations or distractions to use th…

> I for one don't think the federal government should have anything to do with our school systems. I wouldn't go that far. Federal and state governments provide about half of education funding [0] and the way they dish it out is basically inversely proportional to how much funding a school gets through their local property taxes. Without that, funding would be very unbalanced. Although I'd be fine with reducing feder…

Do you think areas that want to put more into education should be punished while areas that care very little to invest in education get equal funding?

If an area does well to foster profitable trade and wishes to utilize that profit to boost education, I feel like that's a good thing and ideally would result in massive migration to that area. Especially with utilities of the internet that make it not only possible, but very much in practice to share teaching for free from the best educators.

If you force every kid to be equally educated, I worry you'll end up with a bunch of highly capable kids getting bored (because they're getting the same education as the rest of the kids who don't care) while forcing kids who don't care to painfully spend their entire youth on a useless education that they don't see value in.

Sure, we all want disadvantaged people to have better opportunities but if we're forcing them to have better opportunities it seems unlikely to instill the most important aspect of those opportunities, which is that the people utilizing them actually want them.

Difficult problems, for sure, but I struggle looking at todays kids attitude towards school and seeing how this is the best path forward. Even as recent as just a few generations ago you hear stories about kids giving up a lot in order to be educated. I imagine classrooms full of only eager students would have its benefits, and maybe those would vastly outweigh the detriments.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#466

Post by JeremyNT » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:18 PM UTC

ren_engineer wrote: post #116

pm90 wrote: post #20

WaPo article, which has more details about the bill and less details about what different “personalities” are saying: https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/07/27/senate-ch... . Overall, it looks great. We absolutely need to fund more semiconductor manufacturing. Losing that ability to China/Taiwan was just a terrible strategic mistake. The US hasn’t lost this battle (over semiconductors) just yet. While curren…

main problem is that we are rewarding companies for being disloyal and offshoring in the first place, now they win again with free money after raking in profits for decades. We should have some funding for smaller companies and R&D but also massive tariffs to force companies to bring manufacturing back

> main problem is that we are rewarding companies for being disloyal and offshoring in the first place, now they win again with free money after raking in profits for decades. We should have some funding for smaller companies and R&D but also massive tariffs to force companies to bring manufacturing back

I'm no corporate apologist but the current mess is the result of a government policy designed to encourage globalization. An American company that builds stuff here will always be at a competitive disadvantage versus a foreign company that builds stuff using dramatically cheaper labor.

So I don't think it's really correct to think of these subsidies as "rewards" - it's done strategically to keep American manufacturing alive.

I would suggest that the real alternative is not to fund the smaller companies, but to simply nationalize Intel.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#467

Post by goatcode » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 3:21 PM UTC

01100011 wrote: post #425

goatcode wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>This is not the most cost effective way to do it. What would you recommend?

Opening up the possibility that other countries, friendly to the US, could also produce some of our semiconductors. We can work to expand S. Korean capacity, for instance. We also don't need to dump money on a problem that would respond to more gentle incentives like low interest rate loans, laws favoring government purchasing of chips from aligned nations, and incentives to boost the infrastructure needed to manufac…

Would there be a domestic target for the same ideas that you'd propose a foreign one(s), or do you believe there to be something more virtuous about South Korea et. al that'd make them better recipients of such things?

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#468

Post by djur » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 4:46 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #360

tacotacotaco wrote: post #339

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was at the house of the owner of a company I worked for. I mentioned my amusement at seeing a school bus in this very rural area on the way to his house. He complained that he didn’t have kids so he didn’t see why he should have to pay for that. I replied that, as my employer, he was benefiting from my public school education. That ended that conversation.

It’s not defunding education. It’s saying rather than waste money on something unnecessary over here (like free lunches for the wealthy) let’s spend it on something better (like teacher salaries).

If you have a progressive tax system, excess government aid used by wealthy families is more than made up for by the higher tax rates those families pay. In exchange, you end up with programs that are simpler to operate, have less red tape, and have a broader base of political support.

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#469

Post by jobgh » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 4:57 PM UTC

jobgh wrote: post #367

celdon25 wrote: post #355

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ll do you one even better. We have a two-chamber legislature, and here is a prime example of what that actually means. https://www.congress.gov/bill/114th-congress/house-bill/2187 Would have allowed for professionals in a given field to be accredited to make investments related to their profession. Or to put it another way, you would no longer need to already be rich to use the tools that the rich use to get richer…

Do you have data to substantiate a strong majority of support for this bill among voters, and adjusted for voting power? I'd assume a lot of voters would be indifferent to this issue. It seems quite complicated. It seems it's a tradeoff between freedom and saving uniformed people from losing their money. I'll have to look into it more though.

*uninformed

Re: Senate passes bipartisan bill to subsidize U.S.-made semiconductor chips

#470

Post by djur » Thu, Jul 28, 2022, 5:03 PM UTC

mathattack wrote: post #427

powerhour wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How much higher would their salaries be?

Order of magnitude calculation… Let’s say there is a 22 to 1 student to teacher ratio. And 20 don’t need the free lunch but you give it to them anyways. Let’s say you’re spending $5 per meal per kid. That’s $100/day. 180 days per school year. $18k per class. It could be higher, it could be lower. Certainly it’s enough to be out to good use.

The additional subsidy for free lunches in the US currently is closer to $3.60, and you are massively overestimating how many additional free lunches would be consumed. The majority of school lunches consumed are already free. In 2019[1], 20.1 million free lunches were served compared to 7.7 million full price (and 1.7 million reduced price). And even the "full price" lunches are partially subsidized. So even assuming that all of the students in that class are eating school lunches (they aren't; only about 60% of kids do), the difference is more like 5-6 "unnecessary" lunches, not 20. The real number would likely be significantly lower than that.

[1]: https://www.fns.usda.gov/pd/child-nutrition-tables