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Intel might be too big to fail

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Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#101

Post by BadHumans »

quickthrowman wrote: post #50
stego-tech wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally my same conclusion since 2008. Hundreds of thousands of people without jobs? Let it fail. No more domestic semiconductor company? Let it fail. No more domestic aerospace company? LET IT FAIL. We keep avoiding making the hard policy decisions by funneling taxpayer money into the hands of the already-wealthy who promise that this time it’ll be different, this time they won’t give it to shareholders and payout…

> Let it fail. Once hundreds of thousands of Americans are jobless due to executive mismanagement and shareholder greed, will actually meaningful and impactful policy be made. There’s more at stake than money when it comes to companies like GM, Boeing, and Intel. Wipe out existing shareholders and management and start over like GM in 2008, letting Intel die would be a gift to our adversaries.

Then nationalize it. If it is genuinely so important to the country then we can't let it die then it should be nationalized if it needs to be bailed out.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#102

Post by rvz »

stego-tech wrote: post #19
exabrial wrote: post #9

Awesome, I can't wait for me the taxpayer to breathe life into the smoldering shell of a company where the executives and unlimited layers of useless middle management used financial engineering to fool investors about the internal situation while extracting as much money as possible and then bailing out on golden parachutes and landing in soft thick piles of bonuses. Remember when we did this in 2008 under the Obama…

Literally my same conclusion since 2008. Hundreds of thousands of people without jobs? Let it fail. No more domestic semiconductor company? Let it fail. No more domestic aerospace company? LET IT FAIL. We keep avoiding making the hard policy decisions by funneling taxpayer money into the hands of the already-wealthy who promise that this time it’ll be different, this time they won’t give it to shareholders and payout…

> Let it fail. Once hundreds of thousands of Americans are jobless due to executive mismanagement and shareholder greed, will actually meaningful and impactful policy be made.

Exactly.

Then we should have let all the startups that had their funds in SVB bank fail, instead of another pseudo-bailout that occurred in March 2023, given that FDIC insurance did not apply to them given the majority of their capital is over the limit.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#103

Post by sgarland »

vorpalhex wrote: post #56
insane_dreamer wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Capitalism raises everyone hopefully this is sarcasm

Every major communist country has been left in the dust by capitalist ones. Poverty is at a historical low. We have gone from people dying from starvation to complaining that not everyone can buy a house. Nearly everyone has a universally connected borderline supercomputer in their pocket.

Communism is so terrible as a system of government that the U.S. has seen fit to forcefully intervene every time it’s been attempted.

Everyone is free to their own opinions, of course – and I’m not wholesale defending communism as it has been attempted – but I find it odd that something which is supposedly so awful can’t just be left alone to wither on the vine, and prove their point.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#104

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #55
mrweasel wrote: post #24

AMD and Intel just switched places, before Ryzen AMD was a failing company, threatening to not one give Intel a near monopoly, but also handing Nvidia a true monopoly. If AMD can be turned around, why can't Intel, a much larger company with more diverse product lines (not as many as previous, but still). It's not even that Intel aren't selling chips, I'd guess that they are still massively outselling AMD. The fact th…

The problem is not that Intel sales are down. It's that it's spending a massive amount ($160B) on fabs. Fabs are expensive, and much more so if in the US than in Taiwan. It's costing TSMC $65B to build one on Arizona. https://finance.yahoo.com/news/intel-spent-over-160-000-1147...

Yes, every company should ditch their fabs it's not profitable. Oh wait...

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#105

Post by whatwhaaaaat »

BadHumans wrote: post #101
quickthrowman wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Let it fail. Once hundreds of thousands of Americans are jobless due to executive mismanagement and shareholder greed, will actually meaningful and impactful policy be made. There’s more at stake than money when it comes to companies like GM, Boeing, and Intel. Wipe out existing shareholders and management and start over like GM in 2008, letting Intel die would be a gift to our adversaries.

Then nationalize it. If it is genuinely so important to the country then we can't let it die then it should be nationalized if it needs to be bailed out.

Great idea. Let’s let the same people who built and managed healthcare.gov build bombs and airplanes.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#106

Post by jmclnx »

I do not understand this "Intel failing" meme. In 2022, 2023 Intel made a profit, but seems this year so far no profits.

In spite of that, I think this whole hand wringing is because "Intel is not Nvidia".

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#107

Post by tonyarkles »

gruez wrote: post #88
kevmo wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Billionaire philanthropy is just another tax-free way oligarchs manipulate our society.

How dare they "manipulate our society by"... reducing malaria and fighting climate change. We'd be far better off if we relied on our ineffectual and corrupt (in case of malaria) governments to do it instead.

If all charities were net-good I would tend to agree with you, but they’re not.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#108

Post by xhkkffbf »

insane_dreamer wrote: post #39
stego-tech wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally my same conclusion since 2008. Hundreds of thousands of people without jobs? Let it fail. No more domestic semiconductor company? Let it fail. No more domestic aerospace company? LET IT FAIL. We keep avoiding making the hard policy decisions by funneling taxpayer money into the hands of the already-wealthy who promise that this time it’ll be different, this time they won’t give it to shareholders and payout…

> Once hundreds of thousands of Americans are jobless due to executive mismanagement and shareholder greed, will actually meaningful and impactful policy be made. What policy would that be? Policy to stop large companies from mismanagement golden parachutes, and people losing their jobs due to shareholder greed? I'm all for it, but those are features, not bugs, of the rent-seeking capitalism on which the US is built.

Is there non-rent-seeking capitalism?

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#109

Post by dahart »

treis wrote: post #72
r053bud wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then why not nationalize it?

It's not like the nationalized companies do that great. The USPS is in perpetual crisis and eventually the Federal Government is going to be on the hook for 10s of billions in pensions.

Do you have any other examples? The USPS isn’t a nationalized company, it was always a branch of the government. It seems like the USPS is only in crisis because it has long been a political target with especially conservatives trying to sabotage it in order to demonstrate the downsides of public services. But the requirement to pre-fund retiree benefits was eliminated in 2022, is that what you’re referring to with the 10s of billions in pensions? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Postal_Service_Reform_Act_of_2...

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#110

Post by AtlasBarfed »

commandar wrote: post #79
stego-tech wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Literally my same conclusion since 2008. Hundreds of thousands of people without jobs? Let it fail. No more domestic semiconductor company? Let it fail. No more domestic aerospace company? LET IT FAIL. We keep avoiding making the hard policy decisions by funneling taxpayer money into the hands of the already-wealthy who promise that this time it’ll be different, this time they won’t give it to shareholders and payout…

The option is not a binary between "let it fail" and "no strings attached bailout." If things get bad enough for Intel, the precedent that makes the most sense is to follow the model that was used with GM: the company enters bankruptcy, existing investors and creditors are wiped out, and a new corporate entity backed by the fed.gov steps in and assumes the assets and operations of the company. Once things have suffic…

Sigh, I'm sure there is zero consideration for a antitrust-style breakup. All I saw on a quick scan was "hey does any other company want to acquire parts of them" which is just another way to say "does anyone want to reduce competition even more".

I get that there is probably only one top-end fab in Intel and that would be hard to split across two entities.

But if you split Intel into three entities, they might (gasp) hire a bunch of the engineers that have steadily fled intel or be chopped off in shortsighted layoff rounds. You might get (gasp) innovation.

If you give all three the access rights to Intel's IP, things would probably be FINE in the long run. Give three separate companies a couple fabs and the IP, and see what happens. Intel has FIFTEEN fabs. So hand five to each of them.

Intel is a shell because existing management is financial "wizards" and war-on-labor MBAs that are trying to manipulate the stock price to hit options targets.

If you split the companies, they have to compete on engineering, or they die. You can probably also wipe away a lot of the management because the companies will have to do "real work" in the medium run and their "skillsets" won't really apply.

The MBA types will all say that's impossible. IMO that's why we should do it, because all the people that failed the industry and company are opposed to it.

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