Eric Schmidt: Semiconductor Dependency Imperils American Security

It's a healthy response to nearly every captain of industry speaking out in public.

I have the opposite reflex. Not with Eric Schmidt, with everyone. It's called "benefit of the doubt". Sometimes it goes by the name "presumption of innocence".

It's probably both. It's called a win-win. As annoyed as I am that Intel and the US semiconductor industry outsourced, off-shored, and declined, letting it get worse hurts everybody.

> I suppose it's a good way to spend money toward national security and job creation that doesn't go directly into a defense megacorp pocket.

I invite you to look up the term "prime contractor". Even outside the DoD, most contracts to small and midsize entities go through one of the major defense contractors like Lockheed or CSC.

Big companies like Intel and Google have Government divisions with things like segregated balance sheets and all the requisite tracking etc that the government requires. But small and medium companies can't really afford to do all that, unless it's 100% of their business and often not then.

Except for Taiwan. The semiconductor dependency gives them security, because they are the ones depended on.