U.S. chip revival plan chooses sites | Hacker News Reader

U.S. chip revival plan chooses sites

spectrum.ieee.org

177 pointspseudolus127 comments

Wolfspeed is building a fab in North Carolina that will make SiC based chips. They are receiving $750 million from the CHIPS and Science Act and will likely receive another $1 billion in tax credits.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CHIPS_and_Science_Act

SiC transistors and diodes are used in high power applications like locomotives, EV chargers and industrial motor controls. In their catalog they have a half-bridge power module rated for 1200V and 760A, which to me is amazing that a semiconductor can handle that much.

https://www.wolfspeed.com/products/power/sic-power-modules/h...

> which to me is amazing that a semiconductor can handle that much.

i'm also equally amazed at how much <5v can accomplish. 3.3v is common, but I also think back to the old NTSC video signal was 1v peak-to-peak. Of course, that was just the signal and not the voltage driving the CRT, but still impressive. I've done my own hobby electronics ala Arduino type stuff, and detecting voltage drops in analog of <1v can be challenging to do accurately.

The drive voltage of a modern desktop or server CPU is about 1V. Which means there's up to 300-400A flowing through through the motherboard and the pin sockets from the VRM to the CPU. Pretty crazy numbers!

(1V drop, though should be easy to measure. A badly noisy ADC would be at about 10mV. High-precision in analog starts at 10s of uV)

Basically any electroplating tank uses <5V, no matter how large it is. So are basically all line-level audio and most dynamic speaker drive signals: 5V at 4Ω is 6 watts, which is a fairly loud speaker.

Detecting 1-volt voltage drops is not at all difficult; that's enough to turn on any BJT, and any random opamp can measure voltage differences down to millivolts, often nanovolts. https://www.diodes.com/assets/Datasheets/AS321.pdf is a 50¢ random opamp, the one Digi-Key has the most in stock of at the moment; its offset voltage is specified as 5 millivolts max, but of course it can measure much smaller voltages than that if you null out the offset with a trimpot, or if you just don't care about it.

This is not Arduino's strong point, but it doesn't have any difficulty with that task either. The ADC in the ATMega328P used in most Arduinos has a resolution of about a millivolt when referenced to its internal bandgap https://ww1.microchip.com/downloads/en/DeviceDoc/Atmel-7810-..., and it also has an analog comparator with a maximum offset voltage specified as 40 millivolts. And any random cheap-shit multimeter can measure down to a millivolt or so. And, from the discussion above about audio line levels, it should be obvious that just about any dynamic speaker, and most headphones, can easily make millivolt-level signals audible.

Maybe you meant "detecting voltage drops in analog of <1 microvolt can be challenging".

It really bugs the hell out of me that we are constantly forced against our will to fund these companies for basically nothing. It’s an utterly insane model. Sure, we get to then give them yet more money to use those critical chips after the same people squandered the time and gutted the American economy and shipped it all overseas for decades prior; but can’t there be a rate of return and not just give, essentially executives huge bonuses forever?

There should be no such thing as free grants, if anything they should be ownership stakes by the U.S. people by way of the government if, e.g., we are handing them 700 Million dollars and then basically deferring on 1 Billion dollars which also has an additional opportunity cost and a cost of the money, i.e., inflation and interest.

I can’t tell you how many people have become extremely wealthy from nothing by getting government grants and contracts that built and funded their companies, paid for by you, with your tax money and inflation you pay at the grocery store.

> against our will

Let's not push that one too far, there is no "little guy" in these deals.

What does surprise me more is that we don't see "tax credits" in "pay your tax in shares". The amount would be higher then, probably - but many of these deals would in the end be profitable.

The whole point of an income tax is that it's paid in USD - basically this is what gives the USD its value, it has mandatory demand. (For sales taxes, it has a double effect where it encourages transactions being in USD.)

Public ownership of shares can be good too. That's a social wealth fund, but we have Vanguard and mutual funds instead.

> The whole point of an income tax is that it's paid in USD - basically this is what gives the USD its value

I'm not understanding correctly (not kidding): what gave the USD its value before the income tax in 1914 or thereabout?

Gold in a vault

Whats your solution then, when Taiwan falls to China tomorrow and the chips stop flowing in? The parasite execs are a problem, but a much smaller problem than if the Chinese blocks flow of essential chips. It will cause all kinds of cascading issues. Which we saw when supply chains from there, all shutdown during Covid.

Absolutely agree. We need chip supremacy as a home-soil tech asap. Jet engines are no longer the challenge they previously were for China, we can’t afford to let the same happen with chips.

> The parasite execs are a problem, but a much smaller problem than if the Chinese blocks flow of essential chips

how dumping money onto those parasites solves the problem of the Chinese blocking the chips? So far it looks like :

1. dump the [boatload of uncountable government] money onto the parasites

2. ...

3. chips!

Nature hasn't been able to get rid of parasites for billions of years. Why? The reason they exist is, there are always parts of ever changing complex systems that can be exploited, faster than any reaction is possible. Same story with people in large orgs. If you hire 1000 people tomorrow to run a factory, there is no 100% guarantee a few parasites won't enter the system. Add to that fact, our culture is built around people worshiping Status accumulation, Wealth accumulation, Consumption etc (with Media signalling it 24x7) it sets the Environment up for parasitic/exploitative activities. Some of it can be minimized by strong/respected leaders setting up a better environment, changing what signals people are getting etc but its never 100% perfect cause of rate of change. There is always a dance going on where balance is shifting back and forth. Covid appears. Causes Chaos. It gets beaten down. Then something else appears. Thats the nature of parasites.

They are not arguing for not funding these companies, they are arguing for not doing it without counterparts:

> There should be no such thing as free grants, if anything they should be ownership stakes by the U.S. people by way of the government

It's entirely possible for the government to pressure the corporations in the chip industry to move resources into research, development and manufacturing capacity.

What the government would have to do is increase corporate taxes and capital gains taxes but give various writeoffs and rebates for R & D and new factories. Essentially the government tells the corporation, "you can pay us this tax money, or you can put the money back into R & D and production starts, it's up to you."

This would probably upset the Milton Friedman neoliberalism proponents, but they've made a mess of things IMO. Regardless the shareholders and executives would have to take significant losses relative to their present situation under such new conditions. The money has to come from somewhere and fabs are expensive complicated beasts with demanding supply chain issues.

the other option would be cash for shares

> What the government would have to do is increase corporate taxes and capital gains taxes

Maybe if you put the executives under the lash, too?

> the Milton Friedman neoliberalism proponents, but they've made a mess of things IMO

Not hardly. The US is determined to tax and regulate businesses until it is cheaper to make things in other countries. That's the source of the problem.

> after the same people squandered the time and gutted the American economy and shipped it all overseas for decades prior

What same people? The ones who messed up US chips are Intel and the article doesn't show them getting any money. Theoretical neoliberals aren't really relevant here. China did not take the chip fab business - this isn't a deindustrialization issue.

(I believe deindustrialization was mostly Volcker and the 70s oil shock though, not the neoliberals.)

> I can’t tell you how many people have become extremely wealthy from nothing

Not to be rude, but you haven't told us that, that is true. The most important thing to remember here is that economic populism is wrong and you should never believe anything you hear like this because it's probably just made up.

Also, grocery prices are fine.

"… after the same people squandered … decades prior"

The same people? Decades later?

OR perhaps is new, younger people with better ideas who just happen to work at the same company?

And apparently they cancelled their fab in Germany.

It seems that the world is dividing into two camps- the ones who want to hunker down and bunker down into mini-empires, shunning globalisation. Expecting great rewards, by turning economics into trapdoor functions with loads of export and zero imports and tarifs as shield.

And the others, who don't want - because they can't. For some globalisation is a navel, a lifeline without which there countries economies would wither and die. The exact same layout pre-WW2.

The writing is starting to become quite stark on the wall, soon the only ones who don't see it are the ones intentionally turning their head away.

I’m just stupid, what’s on the wall?

Arguably the next world war. The vibes are very 1913.

Not necessarily a new world war, though the probabilities of that is definitely increasing.

This will be a big shift in power, and become a more inward focus globally.

If Trump starts more trade wars, we will all be worse off.

Did Biden start or continue any?

The fueling of war in Ukraine and Middle East (Israel vs other countries) is already as bad as it gets.

The idea that a king or monarch or president has the ability to alter any physical setting and circumstance is ridiculous. The us has been reacting more or less to the middle east turmoil ever since the cold war. And in syria in the end not even that. Events can happen outside the influence and outside of control of the most powerful nation on the planet. This paranoid "a power must be behind" it - is limiting the perception- that there is nothing there, just running out resources, human overpopulation and war and chaos and players stirring the pot of indigestible soups in the hopes that useful float some may come up with the bodies.

" The us has been reacting more or less to the middle east turmoil ever since the cold war."

Yeah, that is why the U.S. is still occupying Syria and stealing Syrian oil. Americans do love to pat themselves on the back when they invade other nations for resources.

There isn't an eye roll emoji big enough for this. With fracking, American domestic oil production is way up. It would make zero sense to go halfway around the world to steal Syrian oil, even if that were happening.

There isn't an eye roll emoji big enough for not understanding that stealing local oil is far cheaper than transporting it for supplying the vast number of U.S. forces in the middle-east.

You will never hear it from American media except for the one time they accidentally mentioned the U.S. contractor in charge of the occupied Syrian oil wells. I suggest speaking to a Syrian national - the theft of oil by the U.S. is a well-known fact there. It will never make it to the Western news except as propaganda to support the Kurds.

https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/us-occupation-l...

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/08/03/delta-crescent-ener...

I don't have any problem with the Kurds selling their oil to finance their fight against Assad. He's a murderous tyrant and if it weren't for Turkey's objections Kurdistan would already be an independent state.

As for "well-known facts" on the Syrian street, it's a "well-known fact" among Americans that their economy is trapped a disastrous inflationary spiral, it just happens not be a true fact.

Good job moving the goalposts now that you have acknowledged the theft of Syrian oil. You have now excused it as there is a "murderous tyrant". Standard NATO talking point for getting rid of anyone "we don't like". That "murderous tyrant" has murdered FAR fewer people than nearly all U.S. Presidents and was the bulwark that stopped the genocide of Syrians by Obama-Hillary sponsored "moderate rebels" - the folks who kept women chained in the basements of Aleppo. And who were busy slaughtering Christians and forcing their children to convert to Islam.

The vast majority of the same "moderate rebels" who metastasized into ISIS and then decided Syria was too tough of a nut to crack and Iraq looked far sweeter for their caliphate. All equipped with shiny-new American wargear. The same playbook played earlier in Afghanistan with Bin Laden repeated with the same disastrous consequences. I strongly suggest speaking to native Syrians, especially one from a minority religion, instead of getting a horrendous education through cherry-picked American propaganda.

Of-course, there are very special and differing American standards applied to so-called "murderous tyrants" - the Sauds get a free pass even if their citizens have lesser freedoms with no diversity permitted in religion.

Is it "theft" if the people living there sell their natural resources?

There's a huge amount of injustice in the world. The Saudi regime is awful, too. You're not going to convince me that Assad is a great guy, but also I'm not in charge of US foreign policy and my side just lost bigly.

You'll probably get the chance to see what an isolationist US looks like. Trump's impulses are to leave everyone in the mideast to their own devices and it's hard to even say he's wrong.

No, even then it does not make economic sense. I guess its a sort of hidden "refund" for turkey to take the refugee costs and stabilize it.

Maybe not oil, but poppy!

The current world war. It started ten years ago.

Without trade, war becomes more easy to justify as cost-effective.

Rebalanced local production isn't necessarily a rejection of globalization.

It is ridiculous to have a military, for example, depend upon supplies which may be cut off during conflict.

It is also ridiculous to have your entire economy dependent upon foreign powers which seek to subvert and destabilize you.

The US and most of the West undertook plans to "uplift" countries such as China in the 70s. The thought was that by opening up trade, prosperity would follow, a middle class would follow, an upper class, and democratic principles might follow.

This had not entirely failed, but at the same time that experiment has been taken too far, especially during the current climate.

Most specifically, China's refusal to sign on to a key, pivotal aspect of access to western markets, IP, eg copyright and patent law, means that their access to these markets is slowly being withdrawn.

What we granted 50 years ago, open, mostly tariff free access to our markets is being taken away, removed as conditions for that access are not being respected.

Only China is to blame for this. The rampant IP theft, the lack of respect for the collective market's rules, the flagrant and egregious espionage, have resulted in this fate.

The West will still trade with anyone that follows such common market principles. The West is not closing down international trade. The West is instead ensuring that when we completely cut off China, and its lack of regard for our common market rules, that we are not harmed.

Thinking this is all about a reduction in trade is wrong.

None of this new, or a surprise to anyone paying attention to geopolitical issues during the last 50 years. When the markets opened, when tariffs were dropped, China was told the rules for that access.

In the ensuing decades, attempts to negotiate and work with China over IP issues have seen zero progress.

We offer access with open hands under specific terms. We happily wanted to engage in profitable business ventures. China, its leadership perhaps thinking it is clever and somehow tricking us, did not realize that the West is very open, forgiving, and willing to discuss a lot prior to hitting an impasse. We believe in democratic principles after all, and try to negotiate.

But now that this next segment of the process has started, China has effectively shot itself in the foot. Like a noisy person repeatedly warned in a movie theater, it is being shown the door.

Access to our market is being withdrawn for China.

Expect this to hit the next level in perhaps 5 years, where all imports hit heavy tariffs... after we've ensured our stability in key areas.

Gradual increases in Chinese import tariffs will ensure local businesses spring up, replacing what will become more expensive Chinese alternatives.

It will be an economic boom for the West.

Does the US' engage with the repressive monarchies of the Middle East in the hope that they will democratize ?

It worked for (most of) Eastern Europe, South Korea, Taiwan, arguably Mexico.

No, they engage because they aren't omnipotent and surging oil prices can cause more damage elsewhere.

"The US and most of the West undertook plans to "uplift" countries such as China in the 70s. "

Aaah..where is this documented btw ? The "china uplift" program? I thought capitalists just wanted cheap labour and goods.

"attempts to negotiate and work with China over IP issues have seen zero progress."

China is just doing the same thing that the Americans themselves did in the past. Whats the big deal ?

https://apnews.com/general-news-b40414d22f2248428ce11ff36b88...

Mercantalism begets more mercantalism. Many of those who don't want the "end" of globalism are the same ones pursuing mercantilist policies despite decades of calls of reform from the developed import markets.

You can't run a massive trade surplus against USA, gouging their industries while simultaneously calling for the "fall of Westen hegemony" forever. "The Global South" had a chance for the last 20 years to peacefully rise up into the Liberal International Order, they blew it all for the sake their own pride and greed. When any sort of adherence of rules or frameworks is labelled as "imperialism" then unfortunately we'll all have to go back and suffer the 1920s to understand why those rules exist again.

The trade wars never stopped, some countries just took a break.

"The world under heaven, after a long period of division, tends to unite; after a long period of union, tends to divide."

- Romance of the Three Kingdoms

It's really is kind of inevitable that this will happen. We've had unprecedented peace and prosperity for many decades. Everyone is getting rich and fat (relatively speaking) and more capable of projecting their power and protecting their interests. The unification of Europe (rebuilding, euro EU), the rise of China, the nuclearization of North Korea, etc. There is no governing body above states - its an anarchic system in that regard. It's just not possible to achieve full globalization and keep it. We'd need something to fundamentally change the game like competition with another world. Im not sure if you've noticed but the world order has been degrading since the 90's.

Well the revival may be halted depending on the election:

> The US CHIPS and Science Act's future may depend on the outcome of Tuesday's Presidential Election after House Speaker Mike Johnson suggested the GOP would likely move to repeal the $280 billion funding bill if the party wins a majority in Congress.

* https://www.theregister.com/2024/11/04/chips_act_repeal/

but a little while later:

> Johnson, who voted against the legislation, later said in a statement that the CHIPS Act, which poured $54 billion into the semiconductor manufacturing industry, “is not on the agenda for repeal.”

* https://apnews.com/article/mike-johnson-chips-act-d5504f76d3...

so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Partisan scare tactics? Which outcome would result in loss?

Wasn't it Trump who popularized the pullback of Chip manufacturing to the US for security ad prosperity reasons.

Trump's tariffs were aimed at a lot of goods, but not chips. The push and subsequent law to get chip manufacturing back into the US was entirely a Biden project.

> Wasn't it Trump who popularized the pullback of Chip manufacturing to the US for security ad prosperity reasons.

And how's that Foxconn factory going?

* https://www.reuters.com/business/foxconn-sharply-scales-back...

In the end they created jobs and invested money, but both were less than expected. The subsidies were also contingent on performance, and negotiated down, so Foxconn didn’t the original amount. This also seems like purely a deal between the state and Foxconn, so it’s interesting it became so prominent, as if it were contingent on control of the White House.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/money/business/2023/03/23/wha...

Nah, it wasn't him.

I would trust his first statement more than his second. He only backed off after he faced criticism that could affect the congressman's election. The CHIPS act is a huge Biden policy win so you can bet the GOP will want to repeal it.

Here was his statement:

https://youtu.be/hzwQXL77VVA?t=64

My hunch is something like NAFTA -> USMCA would happen with CHIPS. Repeal and replace with basically the same to make it look like a GOP win.

Here's what he said about it last month when interviewed by Joe Rogan:

> We put up billions of dollars for rich companies to come in and borrow the money and build chip companies here, and they’re not going to give us the good companies anyway.

and

> When I see us paying a lot of money to have people build chips, that’s not the way. You didn’t have to put up 10 cents, you could have done it with a series of tariffs. In other words, you tariff it so high that they will come and build their chip companies for nothing.

That really doesn't sound like it is something he'd just do some minor tweaks to and change the name like he did with NAFTA.

If he does go through with the large tariff approach, something to keep in mind is that usually when you impose tariffs on imports there are retaliatory tariffs imposed on your exports. The US chip making industry makes 82% of its sales from exports.

Most of the factories are being built in Republican areas, so I'd be really surprised if they actually got rid of it. The rebranding seems more likely to me, but then the GOP have surprised me a lot in the last decade.

I wouldn't be too worried.

Sen. Bill Hagerty is in the running for Commerce Secretary (Commerce is the department that runs the CHIPS Act), and he crossed the aisle on a number of semiconductor related legislation.

> The CHIPS act is a huge Biden policy win

I'm a huge fan of the CHIPS Act, but most Americans have not heard of it [0].

That lack of noteriety is what protects it.

Doesn't hurt that most deal flow is in purple districts, so most shit-slingers tend to be far removed and shut up pretty quickly after a quick rebuke from Party Chairs about how close the election is.

[0] - https://www.politico.com/f/?id=0000018f-3fe4-dc61-adff-7fe53...

Protects it? I think it makes it even more of a ripe target since nobody's heard of it and won't get up in arms about something they've not heard of. It's a low cost in political capital for them to undo it. Plus, if nobody has heard of it, they can definitely claim it as something they created and claim the victory in their echo chambers

It's too niche to be a wedge issue nationally, but most investment is primarily in purple districts which makes it dangerous for either party to oppose it without having a downstream impact in donations and even a primary challenge in 2 years.

Same reason why Brandon Williams quickly shut up Mike Johnson even though Mike Johnson could make his life in the GOP and the House hell (not all offices in the CBO have air conditioning despite hellish humidity) - he'd rather keep his seat (NY-22) even if it meant undermining his boss.

>The CHIPS act is a huge Biden policy win so you can bet the GOP will want to repeal it.

It does seem like politics at the presidency now is less about what you'll do and more about undoing everything the other side did during their time in office, regardless of utility or popularity of what it is.

Is it me or is this worse now? Had it always been like that and I'm just now seeing it?

Everything is worse now.

It is mostly that way for the GOP since the Newt Gingrich era.

Not that the Dems don't undo things... But they add to policy as well.

GOP does culture war, tear stuff down mostly.

> Well the revival may be halted depending on the election

Not a fan of the GOP, but industry is operating on the assumption that most industrial policies under the Biden admin will continue to remain.

There's been a lot of policy research and lobbying on this front for over a year at this point [0]

Doesn't hurt that a number of major Trump-Vance donors have benefited from these industrial policies as well.

Sadly, most deal flow is anyhow locked up because the Commerce has been slow at disbursing funds due to bipartisan politicking (eg. GOP trying to undermine the CHIPS act due to pettiness, CPC affiliates trying to launch unnecessary NEPA and Labor fights)

That said, even companies knew that would happen - and a lot of deal flow was strategically placed in purple districts for that reason.

Foreign automakers and their supppliers used a similar strategy in the 1990s-2000s when entering the US market by opening factories in then-Purple Tennessee, Kentucky, WV, etc.

[0] - https://www.eiu.com/n/us-election-its-impact-on-industrial-p...

Which CPC affiliates?

Pramila Jayapal most notably.

Donald Norcross in the Labor Caucus has been a major blocker as well because most of these CHIPS projects are being built independent of AFL-CIO in a lot of cases.

According to Mark Warner Elon Musk should be on this list as well.

Elon Musk didn't have a say in disbursement - congressmembers do.

Micron is a defense critical company. They're getting their new fab no matter what because China can more readily target Boise.

What makes Boise a more readily available target for China?

Their medium range ICBMs, which they have greater inventory of, can reach the northwest.

Sorry, what decision are you saying is being made because China can nuke Boise more easily than other places? Are you envisioning a limited tactical strike by China that bombs half the country but leaves the Eastern seaboard militarily relevant?

If you have a limited number of long range ICBMs then you will likely prefer more directly military targets rather than a manufacturing facility which would likely only start to matter for a conflict months into combat, which itself is a scenario (drawn out conventional war) that is likely precluded by exchange of nuclear weapons in the first place.

> If you have a limited number of long range ICBMs

China has hundreds going on thousands of ICBMs. Nobody is creating redundancy from Boise to Albany and Sunnyvale to increase survivability in case of a nuclear exchange between America and China.

> Nobody is creating redundancy from Boise to Albany and Sunnyvale to increase survivability in case of a nuclear exchange between America and China.

Uh, lol?

FUD!.The total including SLBM is 442.

https://thebulletin.org/premium/2024-01/chinese-nuclear-weap...

Ooh if we go first we'd barely get our hair mussed!

> FUD!.The total including SLBM is 442

Sorry, I should have said hundreds going on a thousand. Glad we put that fab in Sunnyvale!

(442 is hundreds. Your own source says the "Pentagon also estimates that China’s arsenal will increase to about 1,000 warheads by 2030, many of which will probably be 'deployed at higher readiness levels' and most 'fielded on systems capable of ranging the [continental United States]'." By 2035 that could grow up to 1,500. These are MAD figures.)

You realize if China is launching ICBMs on US cities we are simultaneously deploying nuclear weapons against China and it’s the end of the world… right?

My understanding is that Micron only does R&D in Boise, they don't run any production manufacturing there.

They are building a new fab in Boise to return production to the US. That's in addition to the new fab in Syracuse. Any guesses why they need two new facilities in the mainland US when the bulk of their output is just going to be shipped to SEA? DRAM is a fully commoditized, low margin product. Kryptonite to MBAs, but someone convinced them to make the move to reverse their successful offshoring with a lot of promised benefits.

DRAM is expensive enough per kilogram that most of it has been shipped by air for decades.

Rebuilding our microchip manufacturing base is critical part of US national defense. Why in the world would Donald Trump and Speaker Mike Johnson want to repeal the CHIPS act?

https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/why-on-earth-does-trump-want-t...

China has a history of buying out its critics, and I do not doubt for a second that Donald Trump is for sale (notice how he changed his tune on TikTok?)

He changed his tune on electric vehicles after Musk started backing him.

There's been many complaints about DEI requirements in the CHIPS Act. Given that DEI is a favorite right-wing talking point, amendment or repeal+replace might be likely, but I doubt it would be scrapped altogether.

It's associated with a member of the opposing party, so it must be opposed. Especially since it has a chance to be successful.

Similar situation with the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) - it was opposed not on its merits, but because it was from the opposing side.

The Affordable Care Act came with a lot of baggage (as similar plans had been advocated for decades by various proponents), and President Obama was arrogant and dismissive of any need for Republican buy-in (telling them they could take a back seat). CHIPS seems much less divisive, though it seems stalled (at least based on recent statements by Intel and other CEOs).

> […] and President Obama was arrogant and dismissive of any need for Republican buy-in (telling them they could take a back seat).

That is not accurate:

> Not only were Republican senators deeply involved in the process up until its conclusion, but it's a cinch that the ACA might have become law months earlier if the Democrats, hoping for a bipartisan bill, hadn't spent enormous time and effort wooing GOP senators — only to find themselves gulled by false promises of cooperation. And unlike Majority Leader Mitch McConnell's semi-secret proceedings that involved only a handful of trusted colleagues, Obamacare, until the very end of the process, was open to public scrutiny.

* https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2017/08/01/set-health...

President Obama literally said the Republicans had to sit in the back seat: https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4748375/user-clip-obama-tells...

"If you want, you can ride with us, but you gotta sit in the back seat."

As in, "we have a majority so we drive the political clown-car. "

Entire transcript of the clip:

> We feel a tap on our shoulder and we look back, and who is it? It's the Republicans. And they say "Huh, excuse me, we'd like the keys back." And we have to tell them "I'm sorry, you can't have the keys back if you don't know how to drive". If you want you can ride with us but you have to ride in the back seat.

Further context: Oct. 22, 2010, in Las Vegas on behalf of Sen. Harry Reid's re-election campaign.

As a sibling comment notes: the Democrats had the majority at the time and were in charge of setting the agenda ("had the keys").

Further, Obama was willing to give the GOP a (figurative) ride if they wanted and were heading in the same direction.

Trump didn’t seem to disagree with the premise just the funding. His argument is that the US shouldn’t be funding it. His strategy is to put tariffs on chip imports and foreign chip manufacturers would have to build US based plants on their own dime.

Lol, yeah. They will not do that.

> His strategy is to put tariffs on chip imports and foreign chip manufacturers would have to build US based plants on their own dime.

The counter-argument (FWIW):

> Tariffs are paid by the importer and not the exporter. The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) claims that tariffs would not cause fabs to be built in the US, due to the cost of the factories, which can run from $18bn to $27bn.

> "No tariff amount will equal the costs of ripping apart these investments and efficient supply chains that have enabled current US industry leadership," SIA said.

> It added: "Moreover, chip tariffs will drive away manufacturing in advanced sectors that rely on semiconductor technology, such as aerospace, AI, robotics, next-generation networks, and autonomous vehicles. If the cost of key inputs like semiconductors is too high, tech manufacturers will relocate out of the US, costing jobs and further eroding US manufacturing and technological competitiveness."

* https://www.datacenterdynamics.com/en/news/trump-bashes-chip...

Foreign chipmakers would not pay the tariff (contrary to what Trump thinks) but their US customers, and what incentive to the foreign chipmakers to make changes? They're getting the same money and it's not costing them a dime. And where else are US businesses going to go for the product?

Even if the exporters are not directly paying the tariffs, their chips will cost consumers more, reducing the demand. So no; they’re not getting the same money.

your premise is that nobody else would by chips from them if the US demand lowered. I don't buy into that premise.

If you were talking about some discretionary thing, like magazines, I'd agree with you.

But customers don't buy chips, they buy stuff, and chips are in everything. There's the obvious (phones, tablets etc), but also everything else, like cars, washing machines, tvs, air fryers, plus more.

Clearly tarrifs drive (domestic) prices up, which will cause some level of inflation, but it will be across the board (not on "chips"). And clearly that will weaken demand.

But given global demand that will likely not be all that noticeable. Indeed it'll likely just result in US manufacturing being less competitive. Certainly it'll make US manufactured products more expensive on the world market.

Which likely leads to more American plants moving offshore, not onshore.

> Even if the exporters are not directly paying the tariffs, their chips will cost consumers more, reducing the demand. So no; they’re not getting the same money.

So the higher cost of cars—because they have chips in them that cost more and that is passed onto drivers—will stop people from buying cars?

The higher cost of microwaves will stop people from buying microwaves? And stop buying stoves? And refrigerators?

People will buy fewer smartphones? Businesses will buy fewer laptops and servers?

Depending on how bad the hike is, maybe? You're essentially arguing that consumers are unresponsive to price increases which just isn't true.

If the hike is bad enough we might see a return to kitchen electrics that don't use microcontrollers at all. Unironically good news if you want physical buttons again.

> Depending on how bad the hike is, maybe? You're essentially arguing that consumers are unresponsive to price increases which just isn't true.

I'm arguing there are items that are less elastic when it comes to prices:

* https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/priceelasticity.asp

Someone lives in the US, which is addicted to sprawling, car-centric suburbs. Car prices go up. What are they going to do? Walk? Bike? Take public transit? (Which is one of the arguments for (so-called) 15 minutes cities: it gives people more freedom to choose their mode of transportation instead of forcing one particular mode.)

Are you not going to buy a refrigerator when yours break down and food starts going bad?

While they can stretch out the depreciation/lifespan schedule, are business going to stop buying laptops and servers? If their (capex) costs go up, are the businesses going to eat that cost or pass it on to their customers?

As much as I don't think Trump thinks things out longer than it takes to say.

You can't be using the trade association's comment at face-value. Tariffs have absolutely caused factories to be build elsewhere (see car manufacturing) although where a chip site appears in the US or Mexico/Canada (NAFTA) is very arguable.

Surely HN of all spaces would understand why giving free money to Intel is a massive waste? Also if they genuinely need the money, they should be offering ownership in return.

Yes, we should be giving that money to Boeing instead!

That is not fair. They did not actively kill hundreds of people.

They just waste some energy on suboptimal chips and business decisions.

Surely HN of all spaces would understand there are far more chip manufacturers than just Intel.

Do you have some secret intel? They make the best chips in the USA.

TSMC makes the best chips in the USA now that they've started production.

The same reason he does half of the insane shit he does. Because it serves his own interests

He doesn't want to actually improve america, he just wants fox news to pay attention to him 24 hours a day

So they spent $13B + existing $25B in Albany = $38B

For scale comparison I checked TSMC and they will spend ~$35B in R&D and capex in 2024 and it will only grow.

Are them swing states?

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