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U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

cnbc.com

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Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#311

Post by mempko »

jjcm wrote: post #199

In general I would rather the government take a stake in corporations they're bailing out. I think the "too big to fail" bailouts in the past should have come with more of a cost for the business, so on one hand I'm glad this is finally happening. On the other hand, I wish it were a more formalized process rather than this politicized "our president made a deal to save america!" / "Intel is back and the government is…

On a related story. Tesla was saved by a $500 million bailout loan from the DEO loan office. Part of the agreement was that the US government would take a stake in Tesla UNLESS they pay back the loan ahead of schedule. That's why Tesla paid it back ahead of schedule, Elon didn't want the government to take a stake. But he spun it as a victory for the US tax payer.

EDIT: Before downvoting, tell me where I'm wrong.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#313

Post by foxglacier »

sergiomattei wrote: post #263
jjcm wrote: post #199

In general I would rather the government take a stake in corporations they're bailing out. I think the "too big to fail" bailouts in the past should have come with more of a cost for the business, so on one hand I'm glad this is finally happening. On the other hand, I wish it were a more formalized process rather than this politicized "our president made a deal to save america!" / "Intel is back and the government is…

What bothers me is the double standard. When the public asks for fully publicly-owned railways, universal healthcare, or any basic social safety assurances—“socialism”. When a megacorporation struggles, immediately to the rescue.

Bailouts aren't following some rules of fairness, they're for specific reasons like preventing greater economic problems (2008) or national security (probably Intel). You might disagree that those are the best ways to address those risks but that's why we elect the government to make those decisions and act on them instead of letting the country collapse - which is arguably more important than social services which won't really matter if there's no money to fund them or the country has been taken over by some hostile enemy.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#314

Post by JustExAWS »

fishgoesblub wrote: post #27
cuttothechase wrote: post #18

Genuine question- How does Govt picking winners and losers going to help? Intel is no Too big to fail Bank. Why save Intel of all chip manufacturers? Wouldnt it be like 25 years too late, with Intel and its heydays !? Would Govt now ensure parity by investing in "marquee" entities across different industrial domains?

I don't expect a good reason given the history of this Administration, but a reason in my mind to save Intel is there's only 3 license holders for x86 CPUs. Intel, AMD (American), and VIA (Taiwanese). A dead Intel leaves a single American company that is able to make x86 processors, and a monopoly for actually good x86 CPUs. But somehow I suspect there's no logical reason for this besides lining the pockets of those…

While there are other good reasons to save Intel, if it went under, someone could still buy the license. I can’t imagine why anyone would want a license to x86 in 2025. It’s not like all of the companies designing custom chips are going to be falling over themselves to design use the x86 ISA.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#315

Post by llllm »

hopelite wrote: post #281
sergiomattei wrote: post #263

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bothers me is the double standard. When the public asks for fully publicly-owned railways, universal healthcare, or any basic social safety assurances—“socialism”. When a megacorporation struggles, immediately to the rescue.

It’s not a double standard, you just don’t understand the standard.

It’s a triple standard you just can’t count.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#316

Post by charliea0 »

JustExAWS wrote: post #287
ch4s3 wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’d really rather we didn’t bail out these companies at all. It clearly creates moral hazard and makes it hard for better run companies to enter markets.

Chip manufacturing is too important for the US. We can’t be completely dependent on Taiwan. Nothing against Taiwan, it’s one attack away from being obliterated by China. No company is going to come out of someone’s garage and build a chip fab.

We can definitely offer subsidies for manufacturing in the US - we've already gotten TSMC to open several fabs.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#317

Post by Nevermark »

JackYoustra wrote: post #254
robotnikman wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It somewhat makes sense in terms of industries which are deemed strategically important. Intel needs to start thinking long term instead of short term profits.

if someone believes this, they should buy intel and just do it outright! But no one does because it's not as easy as "just think long term" - if it were, berkshire has the liquid money to buy intel several times over.

A large new powerful shareholder come in supporting long term thinking does make a difference.

Public shareholders are generally short term motivated.

One clear reason it doesn't make as much sense to Buffet is he wouldn't get the national security hedge that made the stock a buy for the government.

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#318

Post by beefnugs »

cuttothechase wrote: post #18

Genuine question- How does Govt picking winners and losers going to help? Intel is no Too big to fail Bank. Why save Intel of all chip manufacturers? Wouldnt it be like 25 years too late, with Intel and its heydays !? Would Govt now ensure parity by investing in "marquee" entities across different industrial domains?

Because Dump personally pictures being able to instruct all personal computers to "dont do woke"

The end result is more like all the rich people take their cash and jump off the top of the pyramid as it crumbles

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#319

Post by biophysboy »

etempleton wrote: post #291
cuttothechase wrote: post #18

Genuine question- How does Govt picking winners and losers going to help? Intel is no Too big to fail Bank. Why save Intel of all chip manufacturers? Wouldnt it be like 25 years too late, with Intel and its heydays !? Would Govt now ensure parity by investing in "marquee" entities across different industrial domains?

They are the only US company that can produce cutting edge chips now and realistically within the next 15+ years. It doesn’t matter that TSMC produces chips in the US. That is nice for the short term but doesn’t do much for the US in the long term if TSMC falls under China’s influence. Intel is in the midst of a dramatic turnaround and huge shift in strategy. It might fail. But if they succeed it puts Intel and the U…

It mattered for China to have Apple/Foxconn/etc assemble phones in China. By this same logic, won’t TSMC have more tacit knowledge to offer America than Intel, even if their independence is short-lived?

Re: U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

#320

Post by sigwinch »

JackYoustra wrote: post #248
torginus wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, this so weird coming from the US. The US government has a history of writing no-strings-attached blank cheques to people/companies just so avoid the stigma of government control in public companies. I wonder how the markets will react, will stocks go up because people will assume Intel's going to be a government mandated champion or will they go down because of the negative connotations government control bring…

Name one literal no-strings-attached blank cheque to a large company in the last 20 years

Any Federal corporate tax relief at all. They put the pedal down on accelerated depreciation after 2008, though it existed over 20 years ago.

Any swapping of Federal Reserve bonds for corporate bonds, say during the pandemic.

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