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Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

nytimes.com

21–30 of 657 posts

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#21

In the past 15 years Intel has spent almost $100 billion on stock buybacks. They don't need the money. This is a pure transfer of wealth from taxpayers to the rich. And they're getting more like $20 billion not once you include loans, etc. The wealthy make massive amounts of money, take it out for themselves, and then complain that they don't have capital. That's pure junk. And then we wonder why Biden's approval rat…

> In the past 15 years Intel has spent almost $100 billion on stock buybacks.

This is the main reason that I dislike stock buy backs, they reduce R&D investment.

If you want to give your investors a prize, pay a dividend. Otherwise, invest in your company!

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#22
post #16

I just don't get it - the country has over $34 Trillion in debt already and we are handing out money to mega-rich corporations who don't need the money (among other things we waste money on). This is not going to end well - our kids and grand kids will be paying for it.

It would extremely difficult to make an educated case that having domestic cutting edge semiconductor manufacturing ability is a "waste of money".

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#24
It's unlikely at this stage it's possible to bootstrap a company that makes CPUs, GPUs, etc, so it seems to me the US government wants to hedge their bets and keep Intel alive for now. $25B in total is a small price to pay for that.

That being said, I would've preferred it's not Intel that gets the life-line.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#26

It's unlikely at this stage it's possible to bootstrap a company that makes CPUs, GPUs, etc, so it seems to me the US government wants to hedge their bets and keep Intel alive for now. $25B in total is a small price to pay for that. That being said, I would've preferred it's not Intel that gets the life-line.

Intel is the only domestic candidate. Global foundries stepped back from high end semi production about a decade ago, leaving only Intel.

And besides Intel, there are only two other companies on Earth; TSMC and Samsung.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#27
post #3

Grants ?! Isn't that massively anti-competitive/entrenching a monopoly? I would've expected it to be at least disguised as a tax break or something. ('No tax on US-manufactured chips' or whatever.)

Absolutely. This is why Intel is basically nationalized and no different than an American Huawei.

Re: Intel to Receive $8.5B in Grants to Build Chip Plants

#30
post #16

I just don't get it - the country has over $34 Trillion in debt already and we are handing out money to mega-rich corporations who don't need the money (among other things we waste money on). This is not going to end well - our kids and grand kids will be paying for it.

If you're this worried about tens of billions of dollars going to Intel, I have some news for you about the military industrial complex.
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