Biden Signs China Competition Bill To Boost US Chipmakers (cnbc.com) 78
President Joe Biden on Tuesday signed a bipartisan bill that aims to strengthen U.S. competitiveness with China by investing billions of dollars in domestic semiconductor manufacturing and science research. From a report: "Today is a day for builders. Today America is delivering," Biden said at the signing ceremony outside the White House. He was joined by a crowd of hundreds, including tech executives, union presidents and political leaders from both parties. The bill, dubbed the Chips and Science Act, includes more than $52 billion for U.S. companies producing computer chips, as well as billions more in tax credits to encourage investment in semiconductor manufacturing. It also provides tens of billions of dollars to fund scientific research and development, and to spur the innovation and development of other U.S. tech. The Biden administration also contended that the legislation will "unlock hundreds of billions more" in private spending in the industry. The White House said Tuesday that multiple companies, "spurred" by the chips bill, have announced more than $44 billion in new semiconductor manufacturing investments.
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the potato has gotten more legislative accomplishments done in two years than the previous guy's 4 and with a smaller senate majority.
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Ironic, the "potato" has been more fruitful than the orange.
Re: Rubber Stamp (Score:1)
Re: Rubber Stamp (Score:2)
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A lot of this is political spin, and some of it in bills co-sponsored by Democrats. Because I don't have time to deal with a Gish Gallop, here are selected replies:
> Trump finalized the creation of Space Force as our 6th Military branch.
It already existed, he just renamed it.
> Violent crime has fallen every year heâ(TM)s been in office after rising during the 2 years before he was elected.
Same trend-line for 2+ decades.
> Moved U.S. Embassy in Israel to Jerusalem.
Israel are land-thieves, like P
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the 50% the IRS currently takes from my income
The top marginal rate for the US is 37% but I am glad to see you support moving that back to it's pre-1980 levels.
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If all your tax burden is leading up to 50% of total income going to taxes than congratulations, you are in the top 10% of earners in the United States since the top bracket of 37% applies to a single filer making over $523K or married over $628K and living in CA with it's 13% tax and the 37% only applies to the money over that amount.
Since you are apparently making over $500K per year maybe talk to your accountant, seems like he should be taking better care of your money, long term capital gains is only ma
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Being this is income tax an accountants knowledge/skill has little to do with it. On pay day the government says "gimme" and just takes it. And, at the end of the tax year, I have to pony up more, because that same government says what they initially took wasn't enough. This is the problem with people who advocate for high taxes, no amount of tax is ever enough.
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Accountants have tons to do with income tax for the wealthy. The amount of deductions, carveouts, investments, interset payments to combine into a return is huge compared to your average 1040 who come in under the deduction limit.
Look, there is probably quite a bit of tax reform we would agree on but no need to make stuff up to make your case.
We all live in a Democracy, we all vote for the people who set the tax rates, the top rate used to be 70%+, it got dropped a bunch in the 80's, it has led to negative
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"no need to make stuff up to make your case"
You didn't even read what I wrote. Or you didn't understand it. Here, I'll make it easy for ya. Paycheck comes in, earnings are X, taxes withheld are 50% of X, amount on check is X-50%. The only thing I can do at this stage of the game is change the number of my dependents. The deductions you're talking about are done at yearly tax time. Yeah, I use as many deductions as I'm allowed, but, am still required to hand over more of my money to the government. My money.
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Holy shit, if you are being withheld at 50% you did that yourself and you must be getting a huge return at the end of the day, or again, you are earning ell over $600K per year which begs the question why are you arguing with me? You have not disputed that fact at all, go look up the withholding and tax bracket charts my friend, it's all there
https://www.irs.gov/publicatio... [irs.gov]
It's called Representative Democracy [wikipedia.org]. Do you vote for your representatives both state and federal? Do they then pass the laws includi
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LOL You're obviously either not getting it or are being deliberately argumentative. You can't attack my statement that the government taxes us too much and spends too much (obvious to everyone except people like you) so you seek to tell me it's *my* fault they take what they take. Tell ya what, next time you file your taxes, try not doing so or giving them a check for less and see where that gets you. Post again from prison, I'll make sure to laugh at you.
What I have I've spent 40+ years building. You can b
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Most congressional careers last about a decade. If they can buy favors now and dump the bill on the next generation, they will because that's how the incentives are. I'm for a balanced budget amendment, but it should kick in slowly and allow for stimulus during slumps.
But taxcuts for the rich is just a side-effect of being a plutocracy. The rich have too much political power.
Re: Rubber Stamp (Score:1)
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I think you're giving potatoes a bad name here.
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A start, but done wrong. (Score:1)
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The USA produces billions of dollars of screws! (Score:3)
Meanwhile we don't produce essentials like toothbrushes and screws anymore.
I was just at the hardware store this morning. Most of the fasteners on display were USA made from companies typically in the midwest. We make good screws. It's very easy to make and makes little sense to ship from overseas when you can make them locally and cheaply. I don't know what percentage of toothbrushes are made here, because I don't care about that market, but I do love tools and can tell you most are NOT made in China.
The major vendors make a lot of power tools in Mexico, but China doesn't
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Everything sold at WalMart may be Chinese, but most of what is sold at HomeDepot is still made in North America.
The Home Depot house brand is Husky [wikipedia.org]. According to Wikipedia, "Husky hand tools were formerly manufactured exclusively in the United States but are now largely made in China and Taiwan."
I have no way to check "most of what is sold".
Home Improvement Stores sell a lot of home stuff (Score:2)
Everything sold at WalMart may be Chinese, but most of what is sold at HomeDepot is still made in North America.
The Home Depot house brand is Husky [wikipedia.org]. According to Wikipedia, "Husky hand tools were formerly manufactured exclusively in the United States but are now largely made in China and Taiwan."
I have no way to check "most of what is sold".
Yeah, Husky tools are the cheapo brand. Klein tools, for example, one of the top screwdriver makers is made in the USA. A socket set has many pieces that have to be put together precisely. TMK, most robots cannot do this (put a size 8 socket in the size 8 hole, but not any others, for example). It's also something the size of a briefcase that sells for $50 to $300. You can cut costs with that more easily than a refrigerator or washing machine. It's not the overwhelming majority and the numbers tend t
Re: A start, but done wrong. (Score:2)
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I saw a video that indicated we can't even make surgical masks in the U.S. anymore. Companies werer given millions to ramp up mask production during Covid and theyt failed miserably. No supply chain, no ability to manufacture a simple mask. No confidence in customers that were used to dealing with China.
I used to work in tech manufacturing and saw our CEOs piece by piece dismantle our ability to make things, sending them overseas. Now we "want some of it back".
Good luck with that. We'll spend billions
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I saw a video that indicated we can't even make surgical masks in the U.S. anymore.
"DemeTECH's [demetech.us] Surgical Face mask is FDA cleared, manufactured using the highest quality of American-made materials, and 100% manufactured in The United States." I use the NIOSH N95 masks.
"We can out-subsidize you!" (Score:5, Funny)
How dare they socialize chip making to compete with China's socialization of chip making!
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Need to keep that corporate wellfare train going!
Re:"We can out-subsidize you!" (Score:5, Insightful)
They are key components to many products. It's exchanging average lower price for stability of supply.
Re:"We can out-subsidize you!" (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems very likely that tensions are rising and globalization is being rolled back. This will entail economic inefficiencies, and curtailed growth or even in a reduction in standards of living (which we have already experienced slightly since the Russian invasion of Ukraine). It sucks but markets will never be free of human conflict and politics and this sort of thing is the result.
I want a hybrid approach (Score:3)
Since the gov't isn't buying chips here they get stock. And not the cheap stuff. My taxpayer dollars are valuable. I want voting shares and a place on the board for my elected representative (or more likely a regulator).
That seems pretty reasonable to me.
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The government could achieve what you want by incentivizing domestic pro
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Presidents or leaders of states generally don't have direct involvement with these types of things. Handled more by a nation's Treasury or Finance department or a specific created agency to run them and usually the idea is to be somewhat hands off as the focus is to seek long term stability in the companies themselves: Sovereign Wealth Fund [wikipedia.org]
That won't work (Score:2)
The only other option would be for the gov't to either buy a stock pile, which isn't all that useful with how tech changes, or to build their own fabs and use eminent domain to seize patent rights (which has all sorts of problems I'm not going to get into here).
That's why stock
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Since the gov't isn't buying chips here they get stock.
That's an investment, not an incentive. Simply investing in companies does not incentivise them to do anything differently.
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Well, if we could cancel subsidizing fossil fuels, that would help. The "fiscal conservative" party still loves to subsidize things despite claiming that the government is wasteful; they just prefer wasting the money in a different way. The fossil fuel industry doesn't need any incentive boosts, we'd do better by reducing dependence on those products so that we're not beholden to it. Then after wringing hands about needing to be energey independent they keep pushing for a pipeline so that Canada can get it
Must be nice to be a giant corp (Score:4, Insightful)
Have to say it must be nice to be a giant corporation getting bailout after bailout, under both Republicans and Democrats....
Of course all of this is massively inflationary, and as always the poor will end up paying the brunt of this spending. But I'm sure as they are eating only the castoffs from grocery store dumpsters they will sleep easy knowing Intel was able to buy back more shares with the money the government deprived them of.
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Nothing quite like taxing the poor to make the rich richer.
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Call your Senator and Representative and ask them to co-sponsor this bill: S.3494 - Ban Congressional Stock Trading Act [congress.gov]
Right now it sits at 15 D and 0 R
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Have to say it must be nice to be a giant corporation getting bailout after bailout
To you I'm sure every piece of government spending looks like a bailout for someone. What next, council fees are just bailing out your neighbour who can't be arsed building his own road?
Just what do you propose the government do to secure supplies during global tensions? Nationalise the company? Send in the military and force them to build a fab? Or maybe we don't need government, fuck it all, let the people make their own chips.
Nothing brings people together (Score:5, Insightful)
Like handouts of taxpayer money. Since it's bottomless, the handouts can go on forever.
If you don't like it change how you vote (Score:2)
Maybe you don't, but I bet your friends and family do. And when was the last time you voted in a primary election? How about your best friend? or your SO? How do you're parents vote (assuming they're still around, folks here are getting kind of old)?
We need to get voters to stop treating politics like reality TV.
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I vote in every election.
How do you're parents vote (assuming they're still around, folks here are getting kind of old)?
They're still around and vote in every election as well.
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Americans vote based on 2 things: Name Recognition and Entertainment value.
Are you honestly saying that anybody thought Biden would be more entertaining than Trump?
Re:If you don't like it change how you vote (Score:4, Funny)
The entertainment value there for many people was kicking Trump in the nuts.
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Trump kicked himself in the nuts. I know, it's hard to do, I tried, I had to get someone to help. And yet that nimble giant of a man managed it. All he had to do was not be an idiot, act like a traditional conservative, campaign to people on actual issues rather than his constant brag-fest rallies to people who were already going to vote for him. Hillary screwed herself over too, she really had only herself to blame, and you'd think that Trump would have learned that lesson - his team probably did but Tr
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We got Trump because he was the "anti-Hillary". The Dems shot themselves in the foot with that one. Now we have a guy that would likely die in office should he get a second term, only to be replaced by an imbecile that got in to office by screwing Willie Brown.
The next election will likely be won by a "Anti-Biden" vote. That's a dangerous setup. We're screwed either way.
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Hillary almost won, but she took some states for granted and didn't campaign there. She did the calculus wrong. Yes it's true that she also underestimated how much she was disliked, and stuck her foot in her mouth sometimes.. Balanced by how often Trump said incredibly stupid things, and how many republicans distrusted him and voted D for the first time in decades.
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Our "choices" are usually between two people. Select one: Chucko or Bozo the clown.
That's democracy in the U.S. Very few thinking people run for office and if they did, no one would vote for them due to the variables (name recognition and entertainment value) that you mention.
We had a quiz show host for our last "choice. We've had a "Bedtime for Bonzo" star running the nation once also.
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The choice is always between a giant douche and a turd sandwich [wikipedia.org], but you gotta support your team! Everybody knows that!
The mainland is already a decade behind (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The mainland is already a decade behind (Score:4, Insightful)
Taiwan Is Doomed Act (Score:3, Insightful)
Taiwan is doomed and anyone that doesn't have a head full of shit knows it. We're 3-5 years from the blockade and submission of Taiwan to China and all those Taiwanese fabs will be PRC holdings. And so the fab companies that get to wallow in this new Federal debt spending have already been building out their non-Taiwan plants, including TSMC. Perhaps a few plants that might have landed in Europe or S. Korea will end up in the US instead. That's about the only meaningful value I can see.
Re:Taiwan Is Doomed Act (Score:5, Insightful)
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China plans long term. They won't just invade Taiwan. They'll enact a naval blockade first. The rest of the world will send angry diplomatic protests and impose sanctions, but won't dare to intervene militarily, for the same reason they won't directly intervene in defending Ukraine: Because protecting one ally isn't worth the risk of escalation into a nuclear WW3. And you're right, Taiwan is an island: They are not self-sufficient for even basics like food. How long would they hold out?
The sanctions would
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Yet China took effective control of South China Sea, illegally, and no navy stopped that. China is a lot like Russia, in that they've been learning the lesson that no one really pushes back very hard, just delay things with diplomats and soon attention will change. The Ukraine invasion/war has perhaps changed the calculus perhaps, to be "invade and exploit third world countries only, never countries with people that the western middle class cares about".
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Well we can talk about how many soldiers China has but one area where the United States absolutely still reigns supreme today is on the naval front so China knows that risking actual retaliation almost certainly means at the very least a very hard and protracted struggle for them.
The Ukraine invasion showed it takes far more than large numbers to invade and hold a nation today, much less one that is an island, with much more modern armaments and even more western support. It's a big, big, big risk with hon
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It doesn't matter who has the stronger navy: In any serious US-vs-China war, both sides lose. And the governments of both side know it. Top priority for both will be to avoid an actual war, while also using the possibility of that war to achieve their objectives. For China, that means they can predict the US response should they invade Taiwan: Economic and diplomatic, but not military.
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Wouldn't loosing supply chains mean that it's spread around in other locations and be a good thing?
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Do you really think CCCP just gonna roll up on Taiwan and not expect a struggle?
I think, since you've asked, China will blockade Taiwan until it negotiates, at which point China will win. The key word there was "blockade." Did you catch it that time? Good. Precedents: Blockade of Cuba during the "Cuban Missile Crisis." Belin Blockade and Airlift.
Taiwan is an ideal candidate for this approach. China will soon have sufficient carriers to secure airspace around Taiwan. It will also soon have sufficient anti-ship weapons to keep all opposing powers and their capital ships away. W
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Unlikely. CCP is not bound by the election cycles as we are. They can afford to be patient.
There is no reason for China to expend military might and face economic disaster from international sanctions in order to take Taiwan. They can use soft power. In a few generations, the citizens may feel more like one nation than two.
The CCP waited for Hong Kong, they can wait another hundred years for Taiwan.
not enough (Score:3, Insightful)
It's not enough to hand a bag of goodies to a few companies. The US needs a well-thought-out industrial policy that is not driven by which of your buddies you want to funnel money to. That means it should not be in the hands of Congress. If the govt weren't both corrupt and incompetent, the right place would be the dept of commerce to figure it out, then get it ok'd by the congress.
In the cold war, industrial policy was driven by the pentagon. That's why we have microprocessors, semiconductor memory, the internet, and jet engines, and rockets, to name a few. These days, pentagon works on finding correct pronouns, and doing sex-change surgery.
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This. Intel's fabs are useless to everyone except Intel. Even Intel has a hard time using them, and most of the non-CPU parts are designed for TSMC. What a lot of the news reporting misses is that fabs are completely incompatible. If you have a chip in Tower Jazz it has to be fully redesigned to move to TSMC, or GF. Hell, it is a nightmare anytime they fiddle with the foundry. Even when a process from moves to a larger wafer size (say 8" to 12") and is claimed to be unchanged you still have to hold on
This wouldn't have been neccessary if.... (Score:2)
CEOs "sold fhe farm" to China, Taiwan and Malaysia with respect to integrated circuit manufacturing. CEOs wanted to make their profits look good and did anything to meet those goals.
So, what is to prevent CEOs from once again farming out I.C. manufacturing to foreign countries? Can they be throttled by the government when they attempt to farm out I.C. manufacturing again?
We've been here before.
Japan and Europe tried this years ago and failed (Score:2)
My memory is hazy on this but Japan and Europe have tried subsidizing chip and other high tech industries and failed.
The big companies will benefit in the short term and in due course the market will move things back to where ever works.
Invest $52B, get back $44B ?!?!?! (Score:1)
Seems it'd be better to raise tariffs on companies producing in third world countries where labor is sweat-shop cheap.
Dear Intel, Qualcomm, AMD, Apple,