Intel is a great example of the fact that between stupidity and low-integrity behavior as a default, the people in charge fuck up in ways that the man on the street would get right.

Defense is starting to get a blank check with fairly bipartisan support for the first time in at least 30-40 years and it's centered on semiconductor supply chains. There has never been a better time to secure the fucking funding, have ASML send twice as many people as they already have, and power through it. The market is whatever you want and the margins are whatever you want: in a functioning system? You fucking do it.

And while I will believe that Intel has suffered serious attrition in key posts, there's no way that the meta-knowledge of how to debug "we don't have the fabs running right, who do we hire, what so we need to give them to get it done" has evaporated in 5-10 years from the singular source of this institutional muscle memory in the history of the world.

The failing here is more like a failing in courage, or stamina, grit, something. It's a failure of the will to do the right thing for both the shareholders and the country.