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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

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post #251
post #246

Earlier 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…

The LLM systems being what they are, you can ask google "how do tariffs work, using eighth grade words" and you get a very clear and correct explanation without the college level words.

In simple terms, think of a tariff like a special tax a country puts on goods it buys from another country. Here's how it works: When a country wants to import something, like cars from Japan or clothes from China, it has to pay an extra fee (the tariff) to its own government before those goods can come into the country. This extra fee makes the imported goods more expensive than products made in the country itself. Why do governments do this? To protect local businesses: By making foreign products pricier, the government hopes people will choose to buy things made in their own country, helping local businesses grow and create jobs. To make money: Tariffs can also be a way for the government to collect some extra cash. To get other countries to change their ways: Sometimes, countries use tariffs as a way to pressure other nations to follow certain rules or to stop unfair trade practices. Example Imagine a bicycle store in the US wants to import a bicycle from another country that costs $1,000. If the US has an 11% tariff on bicycles, the store would have to pay an extra $110 (11% of $1,000) to the US government, making the total cost to bring the bike in $1,110. This makes bicycles made in the US seem more affordable by comparison.

Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

#372
post #204

Tariffs 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…

>so the logical conclusion is that American consumers will end up paying the tariffs. That’s been the point all along… they are significantly raising taxes on the bottom 90% of Americans and most are too stupid to even understand it. Gotta pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy somehow.

This isn’t even accurate. So far, suppliers and middlemen have been absorbing most of the costs of the tariffs (look at CPI).

So basically the US government was able to take a slice of the profit from everyone but the consumer.

Seems pretty smart to me?

Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

#373

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If there's one product we have domestic alternatives to it's semiconductors. We're a couple nodes behind TSMC. Using US only foundries or paying a premium for TSMC is not the end of the world.

More people need to hear this. Similar argument when they tried to stop China from buying certain types of silicon - "Oh well... anyway!". I am not American, nor am I Chinese. Both of those countries have the capability to make enough compute to do whatever the hell they want. I am, however, European...

So is ASML. You guys hold the real keys to the kingdom :).

Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

#374
post #284
post #193

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Is “don’t buy stuff with TSMC chips” really a valid option we have? Isn’t that basically “stop buying high technology” to a large degree?

We can use older processes if we have to. We'd be taking a step back of... maybe 5-10 years? Computers 10 years ago were not that much slower than they are today. Volume would be a bigger concern than performance. Maybe it'd force the tech industry to start writing more efficient user-facing software instead of depending on the incremental advancements made by chip designers and semi fabs.

> We'd be taking a step back of... maybe 5-10 years? Computers 10 years ago were not that much slower than they are today

There’s more to the world of computing than your laptop.

Stepping back to 10 year old GPUs and server CPUs would be a massive handicap on the country.

> Maybe it'd force the tech industry to start writing more efficient user-facing software instead of depending on the incremental advancements made by chip designers and semi fabs.

It’s not about the speed of your laptop loading Slack. Large scale compute is already squeezing as much performance as we can out of server hardware.

Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

#375
post #246

Earlier 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.

Google, what's a "college level vocabulary word"? For crying out loud, information is so accessible. The inability to find and discern at least some level of truth (or at least gather multiple contrasting perspectives) is laziness, AND stupidity. I'm all for better schools, a better information ecosystem, and more tolerance, but why are we bending over backwards to tell malignantly underinformed people it's not their…

"malignantly underinformed" I like that phrase :)

I asked Google to "explain tariffs in simple terms" and it sure did. A sixth grader would easily get it. Here's the response (and now I'm wondering whether a GenAI system could create a short animated video or slide deck that could become a TikTok):

Tariffs in simple terms

A tariff is like a special tax that a country places on goods it buys from other countries.

Imagine this You're buying a toy made in another country.

The government of your country might add a tariff to that toy's price when it enters the country.

This makes the imported toy more expensive than a similar toy made in your own country.

The company importing the toy pays this tax to the government.

However, they might then pass some or all of that cost onto you, the customer, by raising the price of the toy.

Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

#376

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bernie was released a month before dying. Don't ask me how I had this fact in the back of my head (I looked at Worldcom and Enron a few weeks ago for another HN story).

madoff died in custody at FMC Butner. he was not released before he died.

I think you are confusing Bernie Ebbers (Worldcom founder/CEO in Clinton Mississippi) with Bernie Madoff (big ponzy scam in NYC)? Yes, they are both named Bernie.

Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

#377
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so the logical conclusion is that American consumers will end up paying the tariffs. That’s been the point all along… they are significantly raising taxes on the bottom 90% of Americans and most are too stupid to even understand it. Gotta pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy somehow.

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…

It's a good thing we, the enlightened of HN, can see through the bullshit clearly though. /s

With tariffs, it's entirely possible that the loss of blue collar jobs due to offshoring more than offsets the cheap toys those folks get to import in exchange. Especially when the cost of housing, education, and medical care is rising regardless. It's not uncommon to hear labor leaders rail against NAFTA and be pro-tariff[1] for this reason.

[1] https://uaw.org/tariffs-mark-beginning-of-victory-for-autowo...

Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

#378
post #204

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>so the logical conclusion is that American consumers will end up paying the tariffs. That’s been the point all along… they are significantly raising taxes on the bottom 90% of Americans and most are too stupid to even understand it. Gotta pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy somehow.

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…

[flagged]

Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

#379

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is it not a different point of view to think that healthcare should be tied to one's employment as opposed to all people should have access to affordable healthcare? We can discuss if Obamacare achieved what it wanted to do as I believe it was not very successful, but it at its core is a different view point. Yes, people believing other countries pay the tariffs are clearly not understanding of how tariffs work.…

That’s not what I was saying. Obamacare and the ACA are the same thing . The ACA is the official name and Obamacare is an attempt at a derogatory nickname which became common. Hating one and liking the other is an inherently contradictory position. And yet it’s one a lot of people hold. That’s not a different point of view, that’s not having even the most basic understanding of the thing you have an opinion about.

That’s democracy though, everyone gets a vote, even if you’re a doofus.

Re: US reportedly forcing TSMC to buy 49% stake in Intel to secure tariff relief

#380

Earlier 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…

> It has nothing to do with stupidity. In addition to being rude, its not a particularly clear word. So I coined "idiodidact", to specifically describe people who have personal selectivity with regard to being teachable. (Greek/English usage: "idios"/personal choice + "didact"/taught) Any resemblance, to any other word, would be a coincidence.

This guy insults.
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