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

Preparing for supply chain issues during wartime and peacetime look very similar other than defence spending. Simplifying supply chains and reducing dependencies helps whether your concern is war, a pandemic, or economic change.

We put chips in almost everything today. If we can live without chips them so be it, but assuming we'd rather not feel the full impact of have zero chips for whatever reason we'd be smart to start building some level of manufacturing capability at home.

We already saw toilet paper supply chains crumble and all it took was a (potentially over-) reaction to a potential global pandemic. It wasn't a war with China that made it clear we really could do some good with a simplified toilet paper supply chain, it was scientific concern amplified but scared/concerned politicians and herd mentality when the public realized they weren't prepared for such a possible future.

Find me a candidate that had any input on this Intel investment that campaigned on giving billions to Intel to onshore chip manufacturing.

Maybe they do exist, but I don't remember it coming up.

Also to clarify, local elections wouldn't have helped here. Congressional and presidential elections are a different beast, The Machine (reference to the University of Alabama) heavily influences elections and elected officials. I do vote, but I have little faith that such a massive and heavily funded political system allows my vote to count for more than winning a seat. I've been regularly disappointed by those I've voted for when they inevitably ignore or break promises they campaigned on and make decisions that often fly in the face of the very principles they originally claimed to stand for.

The fact that Trump and Biden are the two candidates we've been offered is a sign of a much more fundamental, and disappointing, problem.

I don't think anyone would agree that those two are the best candidates this country has to offer, and most people I've talked to about the election feel stuck picking between which one is less bad.

Hiding behind "it's complicated" is an over-used excuse to avoid a more critical look at a problem.

A one year point is a crude approximation, but it does illustrate the order of magnitude mismatch between what they could pay their employees vs what they actually pay them, which was the short point being made.

More broadly, TSMC had no problem shelling out $9.9 billion to shareholders that same year (or $123,000+ per employee). So the argument of saving every penny because of the "capital intensive" nature of their business is also out the door.

And complaining about a single year estimate in the case of TSMC is barking up the wrong tree. They've had net incomes in the billions at least since the beginning of the 2000s.

So no, in the case of TSMC, they have no reason to pay wages below what is considered a "living wage" in Phoenix, Arizona.

https://livingwage.mit.edu/metros/38060

> Say that to people with cystic fibrosis or muscular dystrophy who are getting real, lifesaving treatments now that were simply not available a few years ago.

Its an unfortunate fact of life that we can't build a utopia with no illness or suffering. We have developed many solutions for different medical conditions over my lifetime and I'm truly happy for those helped. Over the same time, though, we've discovered and named even more. We continue to develop new medications for diseases that didn't exist in text books not long ago, and there's good reason to believe that pharmaceutical companies invent new disease classifications to get fresh funding for a medication they already have on the shelves.

I'm not saying we shouldn't help those in need, only that we can't run down that path forever with a hope that if we can just solve one more condition we'll have it all licked.

> Making those worst off better without making everyone else poorer would be much faster with globalized trade.

I'm not actually sure if this is the worst answer. We frequently hear about the widening wealth gap, fixing that certainly would mean making some poorer.

> Never mind that the world is not constant - we need innovation on the climate front if we want to stay in a stable environment that doesn’t require more sophisticated adaptation.

I wholeheartedly agree with the sentiment behind this, I just start from a different point. I think our best chance of helping reverse the problems we cause to the environment is to first remove the worst offenders of what we do today rather than start from innovating and replacing them. I think a big mistake in the green energy movement had been assuming that it would be untenable to reduce total energy use and that we must instead replace all current use and match the current rate of growth in energy consumption.

> I am sorry you have become so skeptical of progress, but I and others will continue working so that a rising tide lifts everyone, including you.

I'm actually not skeptical of progress, I may need to rephrase things if it comes across that way. I just view progress differently than I think many do today. Progress is often talked about as starting with what we have today and adding to it to make tomorrow better, i.e. always intervening more and never questioning how we got here. Put another way, I view progress worth having as progressing towards specific goals whether that means innovating our way out of it or backtracking to find another path. I don't view progress as an incremental approach that must always push ahead without giving time and consideration to removing when we realize pur current path is fundamentally wrong.