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

Post by mallets » Thu, Aug 07, 2025, 10:30 PM UTC

croemer wrote: post #532

mallets wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It doesn't work if you don't have 1:1 product, which Intel foundry absolutely doesn't. Not in performance, price or just ease of use. No one is going to risk years and billions to get it working on Intel, that's a sure way to lose your edge. Companies (like Nvidia) will just raise prices and if demand drops they will divert more of it to countries like China and EU. And demand isn't going to drop much anyway for in-d…

Monopolists or companies with some degree of Monopoly will absorb some of the tariffs as opposed to passing on. Putting tariffs on monopolists makes some economic sense. Tariffs on commodities though don't.

Post by herbst » Fri, Aug 08, 2025, 7:00 AM UTC

croemer wrote: post #547

herbst wrote: post #542

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thanks for the insights! Obviously I am economy noob. > US has famously high drug prices due so cutting edge pharma makes much of its profits there That's still weird to me. Switzerland has a cutting edge pharma market too and health care is affordable.

Too many reasons for a reply here, but overall the common theme is lack of regulation giving pharma more power to play on their patent-derived monopolies. As for Switzerland, it's a small country with an economic model that doesn't scale/generalize. Even in Switzerland there's constant discussion about health care (insurance) being too expensive - though the biggest driver is wages not drug prices.

Post by JetSpiegel » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 8:02 AM UTC

throwup238 wrote: post #463

mlsu wrote: post #395

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s not as simple as just buying an ASML machine and make chips. Otherwise Intel would have already done that. For the cutting edge stuff TSMC is a monopoly.

TSMC certainly brings a lot to the table but if they were completely knocked out, it would just deprive the world of the top end of fab capacity for a while. On the other hand almost every fab in the world depends on ASML for parts and maintenance, even the old fabs on legacy nodes.

Post by trenchpilgrim » Sat, Aug 09, 2025, 1:51 PM UTC

delfinom wrote: post #554

trenchpilgrim wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My friends working in fabrication - experienced, competent engineers with years of work history in Intel and Micron factories - got laughably insultingly low offers from TSMC. Like, 50k, no PTO, weak or no benefits. They literally laughed the offers away and got cushy software jobs with minimal retraining. This was a few years back, maybe TSMC realized you can't pay Taiwan rates in the US.

They obviously changed things given the article lol

Post by Mariiyaah » Thu, Aug 14, 2025, 10:08 AM UTC

LexiMax wrote: post #442

nosignono wrote: post #207

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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…

> 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. Although I also take issue with labeling people "stupid," I also take issue with the blanket assumption that people are victims of the media environment. Both take away people's agency in their own way. Instead, I'll ask this unco…