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Comment by Dalewyn | Hacker News Reader

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The market already figured out that it doesn't want leading edge manufacturing in the US.

> The market already figured out that it doesn't want leading edge manufacturing in the US.

Exactly. The market figured out there's a lot of short-term profit to be made for shareholders in selling off the nation's industry, and moving it down the value chain. They're running the country like a legacy business they're winding down.

Give Wall Street a few more decades, and the US will have an agriculture and resource extraction economy.

National security (and other similar externalities) are not priced into stocks, which is why every trader will happily sell his own nation's defence in exchange for profit.

Politicians and the military disagree though. They can place plenty of pressure on the market to change the market's mind if they care to.

They’ll need to dump a lot more money than $8B to Intel to compete in all fronts of manufacturing with China, and focus on it for a decade. Those time horizons are politically impossible, since next elections are less than 4 years away. That being said, competition is good.

There are a number of things they are doing other than direct money. Buy American acts, sanctions (and other taxes/deductions). Even the threat to do something that isn't done is a powerful tool.

I have a sizeable bet that government spending will be higher after the term is up. I am not at all worried about losing the bet.

The market does whatever makes the market the most money. That is frequently not the best thing for you or your country.

That is still better than seeing my (our) tax dollars thrown down the figurative drain.

This is a very short-sighted point of view. $8B is about $50 per taxpayer; keeping the US semiconductor industry alive is a better investment - and more important - than whatever you'd spend it on.

I would wholeheartedly agree with you if my tax dollars were going to keeping the US semiconductor industry alive.

Instead we fed however many CHIPS' and other grants' billions of tax dollars to Intel and all we got were five digit layoffs and the ouster of the one CEO who ostensibly had the right idea.

Naw, fuck that. I want my tax dollars spent on anything else other than that or more wars.

Politicians love giving mega industries blank checks.

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