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U.S. government takes 10% stake in Intel

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

#731

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I switched away from AT&T. You even keep your number. Switching govt services not an option unless you take more extreme measures. I can vote for a politician to fix the government services. And the local politicians know that keeping the government running well enough is needed to be re-elected. I have zero leverage on AT&T. Some services can be government-operated or private. Trash collection is one of them, for…

> I can vote for a politician to fix the government services. And the local politicians know that keeping the government running well enough is needed to be re-elected That is one issue among several reasons to pick a politician. Also politicians have limited powers to fire non-performers which gets bogged down in the court system to fire just one person. > I have zero leverage on AT&T. People can switch away easier…

How do you switch away from a company that has a monopoly in your area?

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

#732
post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is only 1 winner and 1 loser: Intel. It's the only chip manufacturer "left" in the US. The argument is national security: the US expects China to invade Taiwan and this will kill TSMC in the process. Whether this will happen or not can be debated, but this is what the government expects.

Texas Instruments and Microchip: Am I a joke to you?

Yes

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

#733
post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the US expects China to invade Taiwan and this will kill TSMC in the process. Would it though? The TSMC foundries are pretty much in every continent. Are they just going to stop operating if this happens? Because that seems akin to killing a golden goose. Also what is up with Global Foundries? I don’t hear a peep about them.

I believe the most modern TSMC fabs outside of Taiwan are in Arizona. They are just moving to 4nm which is nearly 5 years old and just a revision of 5nm which is getting close to 7 years old. TSMC aims to have N3 in Arizona by 2028 at the earliest which is 6 years after it first released. By that time, TSMC will have released N3X, N2, N2P, N2X, A16, and A14. TSMC is heavily sponsored by the Taiwanese government and w…

The Arizona fab has been mostly a letdown so far and it's not even doing e2e manufacturing - all parts get shipped back to Taiwan for final assembly.

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

#734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What Trump is doing is pure extortion. Intel gives up equity, and in exchange, Trump maybe doesn't use the massive power of the state to claw back billions of dollars that were legally awarded to Intel, and Trump stops pressuring Intel to fire their CEO (note how he now calls the CEO "highly respected"). The comparison to the GM bailout makes no sense. GM got something that it needed from the bailout. Here, all Intel…

>Maybe you just like being the "well actually" guy because you think it makes you sound smarter than everyone else. He's a lawyer at the Federal bar, so on the subject under discussion he is more knowledgeable than most of us.

Knowledge doesn’t override partisanship. Rayiner used to be a thoughtful voice here but, like many other Republicans, in the age of Trump personal fealty outranks knowledge or past principles.

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

#735

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government is paying about $9B to Intel for this (on top of the $2B already paid).

> "About $7.8 billion had been been pledged to Intel under the incentives program, but only $2.2 billion had been funded so far. Another $3.2 billion of the government investment is coming through the funds from another program called “Secure Enclave.”" The funds were already going to Intel. Trump just decided to demand 10% of the company for the already earmarked incentive programs. It was pure extortion.

> The funds were already going to Intel.

That's not a given - even under Biden: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44993388

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

#736

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Are you unfamiliar with the concept of cornering a market? Sure, uber was offering lower prices subsidized by VCs until taxis were driven off. After the fact they raised prices back up. Or what Amazon did with diapers.com? It is not wise to let your geopolitical foe gut the productive capability of your economy. It’s how America took over dominance from the UK by taking over the high tech business of the day back the…

Uber lost $31b. They make about $4b/year in profit now. It'll take them 7 years to make it all back assuming they don't grow anymore. $31b put into S&P 500 would have netted investors are more in return over the last 15 years. So honestly it was a bad deal. And let's not forget that Uber can be killed by self driving cars.

That’s like claiming that Amazon is a bad investment because they weren’t reliably profitable until 2015 and only had their first profitable year in 2003. The part you’d be missing is that they were reinvesting all their profits into the revenue growth machine. These past few years is actually the switchover point for Uber when growth seems to have leveled off more.

It’ll take them 7 years to make it back and keep generating for even longer. Whether or not self driving cars kills Uber will depend on how well or poorly they’ve diversified their business model.

But headwinds and risks are true of any business. You’re missing the larger point I’m making that investors and business people frequently do loss leading as a tactic to kill off competitors and once the competitors are gone they can milk the market. Whether or not it’s an effective strategy doesn’t matter - can companies are not coming back no matter what happens to Uber. Similarly, local industries that China kills won’t come back no matter what happens with China.

Also as a final nit - the data I’ve looked up suggests they only lost 16B since founding. This halves the payback time to a few years and then every year after that is many billions in profit.

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

#737
post #734

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Maybe you just like being the "well actually" guy because you think it makes you sound smarter than everyone else. He's a lawyer at the Federal bar, so on the subject under discussion he is more knowledgeable than most of us.

Knowledge doesn’t override partisanship. Rayiner used to be a thoughtful voice here but, like many other Republicans, in the age of Trump personal fealty outranks knowledge or past principles.

I've believed the administrative state is unconstitutional since I took admin law in law school (when I was a Democrat).

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

#738

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't care how nihilist or kafkaesque you want to take the conversation - the math won't check out. You can't sustain a third-sector economy on second-sector jobs while importing first-sector goods. The entire financial system in America won't survive that sort of transition, it would be the Great Leap Forward of the 21st century.

One of the things about the Great Leap Forward is that it happened. Just because a path of action will obviously lead to mass death and suffering while accomplishing nothing doesn't mean it won't be taken.

This point of view seems to bear repeating these days as the US leadership seems to be re-purposing Lysenkoism and its methods for the pro carbon burn movement and the anti-biological research movement.

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

#739
post #490

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You would think the US government would be interested in the US government's success, but the past eight months have proven starkly otherwise. What makes one think they will be looking out for Intel's interests any better?

How can you say they don't care about success? When they got bad numbers they immediately fired the person responsible.

Just in case you aren't joking, they did not fire the person responsible for the bad numbers. They fired the person responsible for observing and reporting them.

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

#740
post #700

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We are very close to being in a depression. Most of our money has nothing to do with actually feeding or housing people. If the wrong thing shifts, we're toast.

The unemployment rate is still near historic lows and while new job numbers are getting worse they're still positive overall. We aren't anywhere close to being in a depression currently.

The unemployment rate does not count people who stopped trying. We are far closer than you think.
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