If 2008 didn't demonstrate that capitalism and market economics are a sham, then surely this type of market manipulation does.
US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
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Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
#302Earlier quoted context omitted.
While i take your point about playing nice, it has a lot to do with stupidity: specifically ignorance, intellectual laziness, lack of curiosity, bias, anti intellectualism, inability to think abstractly, lack of education, lack of critical thinking, ideology, and a host of other things. Almost all of which correlate in some way to 'stupidity'. I posit that your first line is wildly wrong, but your message is broadly…
Just because someone has a different point of view than yours does not make them stupid. I know plenty of people that have different views of mine that are much smarter than I am, and engaging with them leads to interesting conversations. I can still think they are "wrong" at the end of these conversations, but I'd never call them stupid. Hell, the lottery is often described as a tax on poor people. Yet the vast majo…
> Once they hear other viewpoints not from a single source, they typically admit they are taxes and do not argue against it.
I think you're being overly optimistic here.
Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
#303Tariffs kinda make sense when you have a deficit in a widely available item. Big trade deficit with Bangladesh? Sure you can buy cheap textiles from Thailand or Vietnam or something. Unfortunately this approach does not work when you lack a viable domestic alternative and you're up against a monopoly. What will the US do if TSMC does not blink? Not buy TSMC made chips? Obviously that is impossible, so the logical con…
“ What will the US do if TSMC does not blink? Not buy TSMC made chips?”
I think their assumption is that TSMC will certainty give in to any demands. Taiwan needs US support to defend against a much worse (and unfortunately just next door) adversary.. China.
Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
#304Earlier quoted context omitted.
In a way it kinda does though - like definitely the information ecosystem distorts things, but some people do not have (or do not exercise) the critical reasoning skills to decipher what's true from what's not. Or what issues are actually important from those that are meant to just distract - not everyone can tell the difference and see how the incentives actually point to what's going on. reply
The education system failing people is part of the issue. Why would you want people to have critical reasoning skills if you want to control their behavior through outrage.
Looking at the agenda of the party currently in charge, the system isn't failing people. It's performing as intended. When you do not want the masses to be educated, you defund those that are in charge of educating to the point it has no other outcome than to come to a grinding halt. As intended. After all, the numbers stop going up when you stop counting.
I'm often reminded of a conversation my arrogant younger self had with an Englishman I was having a bit of back and forth banter about Yanks vs the sun setting on the English empire. I asked if the Empire was so great, why did all of the colonies end up revolting? His answer was simply, "we taught them how to read." Once the masses can read and think for themselves in an educated manner, they tend to no longer put up with being trodden over for much longer. So the answer is clearly simple to stop educating the masses.
Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
#305Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just because someone has a different point of view than yours does not make them stupid. I know plenty of people that have different views of mine that are much smarter than I am, and engaging with them leads to interesting conversations. I can still think they are "wrong" at the end of these conversations, but I'd never call them stupid. Hell, the lottery is often described as a tax on poor people. Yet the vast majo…
> Once they hear other viewpoints not from a single source, they typically admit they are taxes and do not argue against it. I think you're being overly optimistic here.
You're leaving out my qualifier of the people I've talked with.
Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
#306Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just googled "How do tariffs work?" I got hit with several college level vocabulary words describing tariffs in both the AI summary and my first result. It might be less of a problem, if we had adequately funded schools.
The full AI summary from DuckDuckGo for "How do tariffs work?" >Tariffs are taxes imposed by a government on imported goods, making them more expensive to encourage consumers to buy domestic products instead. The costs of these tariffs are typically passed on to consumers, resulting in higher prices for imported items. I don't see any "college level vocabulary words" and it directly says that it makes goods more expe…
domestic looks pretty challenging. /s
Edit for the sarcastically challenged among us.
Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
#307How is this better? Smells like forcing Boeing to buy McDonnell Douglas.
Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
#308On the surface, buying 49 percent of Intel wouldn't infuse the company with any capital. It would just bail out investors.
It actually wouldn't. The sale price will be pretty close to the current market price, maybe %10 more. If the Government kicks in funds to underwrite the deal (say a loan to TSMC) then the deal would likely happen exactly at market price. That means investors who sell are getting the current low market price or a little bit higher--- they will still be down the massive amount. This is really bailing out current manag…
> This is really bailing out current management-- letting them be replaced by the more capable TSMC people
The trouble with a competent organization buying a decadent organization is that leadership at the decadent organization is often much better at winning political infighting (they have a lot of practice).
So it’s very easy to end up in a situation where the disfunction metastases up into the parent.
At the very least, executive attention is finite and splitting attention like this is distracting to the parent executives, which harms the parent organization.
Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
#309Earlier quoted context omitted.
It has nothing to do with stupidity. Stop painting people as idiots because they exist in one of the most information hostile environments in human history. This isn't some natural state that's unrecoverable. The people you describe have been given a highly addictive media environment tailor made to engender outrage and drive behavior. It shouldn't be a shock when most people cannot resist it. The first step to chang…
> most information hostile environments in human history Is it though? East Germany comes to mind as well as the rest of the Cold War countries behind the Iron Curtain. China seems to be pretty hostile as well. In the US, it is still much easier to find real information that counters the propaganda than it is in any of those other countries. There's no Great Firewall to bypass. You don't even need to do anything anon…
I mean, maybe this way is worse. I can see how it could be far more obvious that the propaganda is BS when it's being pushed at you from every outlet and every form of media. Makes it more clear that it's controlled.
Yet at the moment where there is still diversity, people can make the mistake of thinking that the propaganda is just a difference of opinion so perhaps trust it more.
Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief
#310It seems like they're asking the wrong company to take a stake in Intel. It would make more sense to try to get companies like Apple & Nvidia to take stakes in Nvidia - US based companies that need the product that Intel can supply.
Honestly AMD makes the most sense, given they sold off the foundry stuff years ago, which is the part of the process Intel will be doing next.
The board brought on a chop shop guy, you don't do that when there is a future, and TSMC would be smart to wait Intel out and pick it up cheap. The USA wouldn't last a month without TSMC chips, Tim Apple wouldn't let that happen. There is no way this demand has any teeth