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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

#651

Post by user____name »

ch4s3 wrote: post #273
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…

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.

I see two objections to this: The collateral damage to the surrounding economy (well ran companies might be dependent on Intel) and the loss of strategically important institutions and knowledge, especially in markets with a high barrier to entry. So I think bailing out can be justified, even if it is a clear moral hazard. The better solution I think is to prevent markets from becoming too oligopolistic and firms from becoming too big to fail. But this would require a government who isn't afraid of taking anti-trust measures to maintain market competition, but the US has been moving away from that model for decades.

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

#652

Post by sunaookami »

renewiltord wrote: post #302
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…

In the end, it turns out that people didn't dislike Chinese policies of nationalized industries. They only disliked that the Chinese were doing it. I can't wait for the "I don't think social credit scores are a bad idea. Cancel culture is good actually".

There is no social credit score system in China.

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

#654

Post by justonceokay »

treyd wrote: post #304
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…

If a company has truly become too big to fail that it makes sense for the federal government to bail them out, then why are we even leaving the welfare of the company up to private industry in the first place? It's just asking for ways to siphon taxpayer money out of the government through their willingness to buy shares. It inflates the stock price because it shows that the government might buy more share in the fut…

Maybe. I have worked in the corporate world for decades. My partner works in the government. My perspective is that the government office wastes so much time (and therefore $$) that I often have to keep my mouth shut to maintain peace in our relationship. There is no “disagree and commit” mentality. More like 9 months into a project and someone starts to feel “uncomfy” about something and we’re back to the drawing board.

I do believe the government is in a better position to provide services to the poor, but they are in no way going to be cheaper in the long run.

That being said, I do live in Seattle, which has a particularly “bogged down” government. Look up the “Seattle process” for some horror stories

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

#655

Post by sanex »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #646
sanex wrote: post #484

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is that not common/collective control of the means of production?

What would common or collective control mean? If everyone held "control" in common, it wouldn't be possible to do anything. It is possible to nationalize a company, though. For example, Saudi Aramco is owned by the state. How is that not common/collective control of the means of production?

1. A central government taking ownership of a company in lieu of everyone owning a share. 2. It is.

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

#656

Post by scarface_74 »

poslathian wrote: post #553
scarface_74 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So tell me your plan that would create a competitor for Intel from scratch that could be making decent chips in 5 years? 10 years?

Given the circumstances and the relatively low dollars involved, it would be interesting to see the experiment: $10B darpa program to establish a scalable fab ecosystem in 5 years via consortium. This was how the internet was created, darpa stitched together dozens of performers to get the key ingredients (eg bbn gateways, academic subnets, experimental applications, protocol research. They even led the last ditch ma…

$5B wouldn’t be nearly enough to create a leading edge fab. Estimated cost for TSMC is $20B.

China has been trying and failing to build a competitive fab for years, has the rare earth minerals in its back yard, etc and can’t do it.

The second issue is, who exactly is going to use these fabs once they are built. One issue that Intel has is that its “customer service” sucks. TSMC will bend over backwards as a partner. No one wants to work with Intel.

Can you imagine Apple or Nvidia wanting to work with a government owned chip fab?

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

#657

Post by JustExAWS »

bigyabai wrote: post #544
scarface_74 wrote: post #335

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So tell me your plan that would create a competitor for Intel from scratch that could be making decent chips in 5 years? 10 years?

Is it too much "magic" for the moneyed geniuses down at Apple? Or is technology not quite their wheelhouse anymore?

Do you apply the same standard to Nvidia, AMD, Microsoft, Amazon, Google and Tesla who are all trillion dollar market cap companies (besides AMD) who design their own chips and they are manufactured by TSMC - or for Tesla moving to Samsung

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

#658

Post by impossiblefork »

actionfromafar wrote: post #232
impossiblefork wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For me as a vague 1920s maybe-the-SocDems, I see this as vaguely positive. A return to pragmatism from market dogmatism. I see some of the tariff stuff and the US protectionism sort of the same way, although I don't approve, since I think the US uniquely benefits from this kind of thing due to that the dollar is such a predominant reserve currency and since I think it's badly done and will backfire, tarring what in p…

This seems more vaguely 1930s maybe-some-other-ism.

Maybe in this specific case, but I don't see this kind of policy as necessarily ideological.

It's just requires the government to not be totally market dogmatist.

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

#659

Post by tempodox »

sgnelson wrote: post #468

Everyone is talking about "bailouts" and "owning a company that the government funds." This isn't about that at all. This is about the breakdown of the rule of law, a unitary executive bypassing all other branches of government and demanding a private enterprise give itself over to the government. If you don't think there was an "or else" as part of this deal, you're largely mistaken. If you don't think that there wi…

> This is about the breakdown of the rule of law

Wherever Law ends, Tyranny begins.

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

#660

Post by rnrn »

Terr_ wrote: post #625
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 the other hand, I wish it were a more formalized process It must at least involve Congress ! What's happening here is crazy: It's the same as if Congress authorized $X for a city bridge and Trump comes in and holds up the funds demanding a cut/kickback of the tolls. The Constitution does not give the Executive the power to arbitrarily modify what Congress has authorized, converting between grants versus loans ve…

I thought this too, but after reading some of the other comments here I read some of the text of the chips act and the 2021 NDAA (mostly section 9902) and AFAICT Congress appropriated a bunch of money for financial assistance for semiconductor companies and gave the Dept of Commerce the authority to determine the funding type.

That they were grants instead of any other instrument appears to be a Biden Commerce decision, not a congressional one.

I’m no lawyer and could certainly be missing something i the law that says it has to be grants but from what I see it looks like figuring out what to do the the money was pretty much delegated to dept of commerce with limited direction about eligibility and review criteria.

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