Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Intel might be too big to fail

tomshardware.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

241–250 of 253 posts

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#241

Post by inglor_cz »

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…

While I understand your argument, which is based on perverse incentives for management of failing firms ("Uncle Sam will bail us out!"), there is a nontrivial global dimension to the problem.

The US cannot afford to lose some capabilities, like spaceflight. Or production of certain hardware.

You can theoretically outsource them to allies, but some of those allies may be in strategically precarious situation. Like Taiwan and South Korea, the two giants of advanced semiconductor production. Or Finland, the only nation which is capable of producing advanced icebreakers for reasonable price and on reasonable schedule.

Also, an adversary like China may be able to kill a healthy US corporation by massive dumping. Then what?

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#242

Post by epolanski »

kevmo wrote: post #22
epolanski wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why can't foreign investors buy the ips, fabs and whatever's left? I really don't like those protectionist arguments they do nothing good for any of the parties involved, merely raise the prices to consumers and deprive them of choices.

Because at some point, you need domestically-owned manufacturing as a matter of national security.

I don't buy it, it's not like the military needs the latest bleeding edge semiconductors out there.

If they do, they shouldn't rely on publicly traded companies and put them on support line on taxpayer's money.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#243

Post by gjsman-1000 »

lostlogin wrote: post #236
gjsman-1000 wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

When advocating for SpaceX over NASA, Musks connections with countries like Russia must surely give you pause? And yes, the people in positions of power are exactly the ones that are concerning, in government and even more so in private enterprise.

I find them heavily exaggerated by a dishonest media.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#244

Post by ta1243 »

Clubber wrote: post #196
ta1243 wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How does this tax dodge work?

https://www.axios.com/2022/09/17/the-ultimate-billionaire-ta... https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffe...

OK, so rather than giving $50m to the government they give $100m to charity?

On the surface this seems reasonable. Give $50k gift to your local wildlife sancturary for example, and get invited to the annual fundraising meal.

Looks like the big loopholes involve things like 501(c)(4)s

Without spending too long trying to workout the loopholes, it seems the larger problem is with the definition of a charity in the first place?

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#245

Post by Clubber »

ta1243 wrote: post #244
Clubber wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://www.axios.com/2022/09/17/the-ultimate-billionaire-ta... https://markets.businessinsider.com/news/stocks/warren-buffe...

OK, so rather than giving $50m to the government they give $100m to charity? On the surface this seems reasonable. Give $50k gift to your local wildlife sancturary for example, and get invited to the annual fundraising meal. Looks like the big loopholes involve things like 501(c)(4)s Without spending too long trying to workout the loopholes, it seems the larger problem is with the definition of a charity in the first…

>OK, so rather than giving $50m to the government they give $100m to charity?

Any income the government doesn't collect is made up for by the middle and lower class and/or more debt which increases inflation, which is mainly a middle and lower class burden.

For a guy who claims everyone should pay their fair share, he sure takes advantage of a lot of loopholes which he probably helped pay to have written.

He's an OG corporate raider and should be thought of as such, rather than a benevolent capitalist.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#246

Post by nightowl_games »

EasyMark wrote: post #215
nightowl_games wrote: post #202

This is why I'm ultimately bullish on intel

lol given the nat sec issues with allow intel to fail, I agree with you, doesn't mean there won't be a bailout with forced bankrupcy like they did the automakers who wanted bailed out.

Only question is when to buy

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#247

Post by 2OEH8eoCRo0 »

scoofy wrote: post #173
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The point is that foreign fabs are a very real multi-national security risk. Even if we decide that friend-shoring is acceptable, the best 'we' (folks in the US or the 'west') can do outside of Intel is Samsung. Depending on TSMC in Taiwan is a disaster waiting to happen, and it also makes a great power conflict there more likely as the asymmetric advantages increase for non-western powers if they were to capture the…

> The point is that foreign fabs are a very real multi-national security risk.

Yes, I agree. I was joking that nobody wants the hard work of actually fabricating the chips though.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#248

Post by JohnBooty »

corimaith wrote: post #209
JohnBooty wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

geopolitical and military risk Yeah, I think that's what's largely missing from this discussion and why the auto industry bailouts of 2008 are a poor comparison point. There is a non-zero chance that China decides to simply seize Taiwan in the next decade or two. Militarily there's absolutely nothing to prevent that unless we're willing to go nuclear or launch a land invasion of China (lol) or something; the idea of…

Well you have to remember that it takes 8 hours to transport troops from China to Taiwan, and I believe the strait is only safely navigable for two windows in April and October. You're gonna need alot of boats and men to transport and occupy 23 million in an island. So if they are going to invade, we'll know for months beforehand. Which opens the question of the pre-emptive strike. So China dosen't have time on it's…

Yeah, I mean, is America willing to trade LA and Long Beach (where a significant % of goods enter the country) and Silicon Valley for Taiwan?

It would also be a world war at that point, so, I don't know that their plans would be restricted to US targets.

China knows that the cost would be devastating for them and the larger world economy as well, for the reasons you said. It would be at least a decade or two until the world economy recovered.

But China seems able and willing to play the long game in ways that the US (with our shorter election cycles) fundamentally cannot and if they are thinking strategically they know that this is one of their key advantages for this sort of conflict. I am not entirely sure that they wouldn't be willing to trade, say, 10-20 years of darkness (Cultural Revolution-style?) for 100 years of Chinese world supremacy atop a new world order.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#249

Post by JohnBooty »

corimaith wrote: post #209
JohnBooty wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

geopolitical and military risk Yeah, I think that's what's largely missing from this discussion and why the auto industry bailouts of 2008 are a poor comparison point. There is a non-zero chance that China decides to simply seize Taiwan in the next decade or two. Militarily there's absolutely nothing to prevent that unless we're willing to go nuclear or launch a land invasion of China (lol) or something; the idea of…

Well you have to remember that it takes 8 hours to transport troops from China to Taiwan, and I believe the strait is only safely navigable for two windows in April and October. You're gonna need alot of boats and men to transport and occupy 23 million in an island. So if they are going to invade, we'll know for months beforehand. Which opens the question of the pre-emptive strike. So China dosen't have time on it's…

Yeah, I mean, is America willing to trade LA and Long Beach (where a significant % of goods enter the country) and Silicon Valley for Taiwan?

It would also be a world war at that point, so, I don't know that their plans would be restricted to US targets.

China knows that the cost would be devastating for them and the larger world economy as well, for the reasons you said. It would be at least a decade or two until the world economy recovered.

But China seems able and willing to play the long game in ways that the US (with our shorter election cycles) fundamentally cannot and if they are thinking strategically they know that this is one of their key advantages for this sort of conflict. I am not entirely sure that they wouldn't be willing to trade, say, 10-20 years of darkness (Cultural Revolution-style?) for 100 years of Chinese world supremacy atop a new world order if (huge if) they thought it was achievable.

But they are also not dumb, and won't fight a war they can't win.

Re: Intel might be too big to fail

#250

Post by hollerith »

JohnBooty wrote: post #249
corimaith wrote: post #209

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well you have to remember that it takes 8 hours to transport troops from China to Taiwan, and I believe the strait is only safely navigable for two windows in April and October. You're gonna need alot of boats and men to transport and occupy 23 million in an island. So if they are going to invade, we'll know for months beforehand. Which opens the question of the pre-emptive strike. So China dosen't have time on it's…

Yeah, I mean, is America willing to trade LA and Long Beach (where a significant % of goods enter the country) and Silicon Valley for Taiwan? It would also be a world war at that point, so, I don't know that their plans would be restricted to US targets. China knows that the cost would be devastating for them and the larger world economy as well, for the reasons you said. It would be at least a decade or two until th…

>China seems able and willing to play the long game in ways that the US fundamentally cannot

I'm old enough to remember people's endlessly repeating this about Japan in the 1980s.

Post reply on HN