US chip group: $52b is not enough, we need an extra $30b in federal funding America's top booster for federal semiconductor aid is arguing that the country needs to spend tens of billions more in silicon incentives to ensure it doesn't lose leadership in chip design to other countries. In a report released on Wednesday, the Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) said the US should invest roughly $20 …
Shareholders: 28 B (in form of stock price pumping, totally legal and tax free)
Top brass: 2B in bonuses
People doing the work? Lay offs.
Of course Intel doesn't have hundreds of billioins in profits which they could use for investing ... but why would they do that when there's free money on the table? They aren't stupid, they are greedy assholes.
The taxpayer ponies up the cash and the corporations use the free capital instead of having to borrow or use their profits to invest. From a corporate perspective what's not to like?
Back in the bad old days of the 1970s governments had got wise to this wheeze and insisted on getting equity for our cash. A great move until you buy the appropriate shade of government and it doles out ("privatizes") the asset at cut rate.
Companies like Intel have made untold billions out of us. Now they're all crying poverty.
The taxpayer ponies up the cash and the corporations ...
Should pay it back in 10/20 years from profits made instead of dishing out absurd shareholder dividends and huge payouts to CEOs, CFOs, etc.
This scheme would, quite obviously, need of careful vigilance of the accounts by regulators on behalf of the taxpayers.
Which would, also quite obviously, be adamantly rejected by the corporations as interference in their affairs.
That's Communism, not free-market Capitalism, they'd say. 8^D !!!!!!
This hoax has been going on for the longest while and just what has the taxpayer received in return?
No, never mind ...
O.
Trickle down economics is a con. It has never actually happened.
If a government want to stimulate the economy, it should give the money to the poorest. They will spend it on real stuff they actually need, they won't send it overseas via share buybacks and the like.
>That's Communism, not free-market Capitalism, they'd say. 8^D !!!!!!
Capitalism is the poor giving money to rich
Communism is the rich giving money to the poor
Or is that Christianity? - I always get them confused. Which one has the founder with the big beard and the book that everyone quotes but nobody has read ?
"Should pay it back in 10/20 years from profits made instead of dishing out absurd shareholder dividends and huge payouts to CEOs, CFOs, etc."
Or, at the very least, the cash injection is in exchange for shares, maybe non-voting, so when those share dividends get paid out, the government gets it's share too. Maybe have a contractual agreement that the Government cannot sell it's shares unless certain conditions are met so as to minimise any perceived "government interference". If and when it comes time for the Government to sell it's shares, the company gets first dibs at current market rates. That's also an incentive to not overvalue the shares.
"Or, at the very least, the cash injection is in exchange for shares, maybe non-voting,"
ISTR that the US did something along that line 15 years ago when General Motors and Chrysler went under. I don't recall all the details, but I think it worked out not too badly. The car companies are still in business and not too unhealthy. And unless I misremember, we taxpayers got our money back after a few years.
Might be worth considering.
"Should pay it back in 10/20 years...This scheme would, quite obviously, need of careful vigilance of the accounts by regulators on behalf of the taxpayers."
Not saying you're wrong, but that's possibly 10 new House of Representative sessions, 3 new Senates, and 5 new Presidents. Nobody in DC has an attention span that long anymore, although corporate does. Any long-term regulation setup in the past (ie - now) to "monitor" such a thing going-forward would probably die quietly in some future urgent omnibus budget crisis deal (on page 342 of 739). Because nobody in 2032 really remembers the Great Chip Handout of 2022-23. That's all old news, we're past it. And Intel doesn't have to pay back the remainder of the $40 Billion they were given, of which they made the first repayment installment in 2025 for the amount of $1.
Isn't shoveling government money into private industry the sort of thing that we cry foul on when other countries do it, as it gives them an unfair advantage in the market place?
I'm thinking Chinese solar panels or steel, over the past 10-30 years.
Then after they can undercut domestic pricing, we impose an import tariff to "level the playing field". That money, of course, goes into the government slushfund budget.
If the Quebec pension fund invests in Bombardier that's illegal government funding and the competitor to the 737 gets a 300% import tarrif.
This is OK because none of the $Bns of government money are ever going to produce any actual product and CEO bonuses and share buy backs don't attract tarrifs.
> Isn't shoveling government money into private industry the sort of thing that we cry foul on when other countries do it
Do as I say, not as I do. We're extremely honest and ethical and committed and whatever, except when it doesn't suits us too much.
This post has been deleted by its author
Depends on how you look at it eg remove your cycnics hat and try to assume everyone is playing fair, being honest and open. Those 23,000 jobs are not in isolation. There are support industries which also expand, local towns and their shops or stores which see an uptick in footfall and need more staff, haulage companies bringing in materials and taking away product, savings in import costs on finished product now made locally, likely some export revenue.
Getting back to reality, those 23,000 jobs likely already includes all those ancillary jobs etc because the marketing and PR people will be involved and the number of directly employed people is likely significantly fewer than 23,000, not least because many jobs are counted twice, eg it takes 300 people to build the place who then all leave and 300 work there making stuff. In PR speak that's 600 jobs, just not all at the same time. Gross versus net :-)
> try to assume everyone is playing fair, being honest and open
You could also assume Santa exists and he will reward the children being nice... Seriously, assuming such ridiculous things doesn't help. In reality nobody plays fair unless coerced to do so, and honesty is something business leaders need to look up first.
You're right about the affected population being way bigger than just the people actually working in this specific sector, but still, giving them billions without any control of how they will spend them is a sure invitation for managers to stuff their pockets with as much as they can get away with (and squirrel it away in some offshore accounts).
"Depends on how you look at it eg remove your cycnics hat and try to assume everyone is playing fair, being honest and open. "
I'm still not seeing any justification for using taxpayer money to fund companies that should use their own funds and access to capital if they are the people that will reap the rewards. I've never received a check from the IRS that wasn't just them returning the money they had taken from me earlier.
I expect that if there is a market for something and the government has gotten well and clear out of the way so it can happen, business will come in and fill the need. If those companies need to be paid to do it, it's highly unlikely that it was worth doing in the first place (or it isn't time to railroad). I wish there was free government money for me when I had a small manufacturing company. It was very hard to get a loan as I didn't fit within any oppressed category. I would have charged much less per job than the big players and I needed to hire people to fill orders.
"$30 billion for 23,000 jobs is well over $1M per job."
If you really believe any of that, I've a bridge to sell to you.
It's 28 billions to stock price pumping and 2 billions in bonuses to top management for pumping the stock price and making owners *really happy*.
Not a cent goes to peons. Ever. There's literally no reason on Earth for them to do so, so they won't.
Which number will likely be reduced to something smaller, let's say 5-10000, by the time of the actual opening, due to automation and reduction in scale of the actual project. Obviously there are no skeptics in congress.
So best case that's more like $3m per job. Probably more like $6m in reality.
Once the handouts begin...
These were 6 year Biden Schumer handouts to convert Columbus Ohio into the FAB CENTRE of the UNIVERSE... But now this Modern Day Supercollider, just months from passing IS NOW SUDDENLY NOT ENOUGH MONEY...
Leave us not forget the great Trump Trade War... Trump tweeted that The US GOV would backstop any losses from Soy sold to Chiner... In doing so this moron triggered Force Majeure and made all the 65 MMT of soy contracts VOIDABLE by the CHINESE. There were 300,000 US Soy farmers that had worked decades for this, the largest US AG Export. And it took that orange idiot and his patent ignorance of the commodity market to destroy it all in mere seconds.
So what was the outflush? Murican Soy farmers went from 300,000 soy farmers to 100,000 Soy farmers. They went from 109 MMT of soy production before Trump to 34 MMT post trump. The field was decimated. But it got worse... Brazil and Argentina, in a sought managed to produce roughly 200 mmt of Soy to sell to the Chinese markets. 'The US now makes almost no ecportable soy.
But last month Trump bragged that he had given the US farmer 80 Billion in farm welfare. A lot of bass boats were purchased.
Take home message.. in Murcia there is no longer a need to farm or fab... just latch on to the Gov Welfare System and go fishing. BTW, the US lost almost all of its AG exports under Trump. China took over the US Strawberry exports to Japan. Brazil and Argentina are growing even more soy, so the US Export market of the formerly largest AG export is DEAD... Thantks to the stable genius.
Joe and Schumer have done the same to the semiconductor markets, now in recession. China is working around all of it as they did with Soy.
But but but... Welfare means you really don't have to work at all... just learn to collect and learn how to lobby political idiots.
None of that is welfare.
It's an orange idiot, followed by someone trying to clean up at least some of the mess, hamstrung by an opposition who wants to make more mess.
The Democrats probably would have have done things differently if the GOP were genuinely capable of making the compromise necessary for democracy to work, but as the GOP are more interested in stamping on women, getting backhanders and gerrymandering than governing, that doesn't happen.
Sorry, I hold no favour with any political parties anywhere in the world including the USA. I see them as the Incumbent party and as Ayn Rand referenced them... the Intellectual bottom rung.
Biden kept Trump Tariffs even though they have been devastating to the US supply chain. And they are tax deductable in the US so they accrue no tax benefit to the Gov... just more red tap, more Customs headaches. It is just pathetic. Biden is a UNION man so he continues this hot mess. The Taxpayer takes it on the chin. That is the whole of both your political parties and the same in the UK. Please this is not unique.
It is most assuredly WELFARE. When you tap the intellectual bottom rung over a mere 1.2% of the US GDP, you have already made a losing bet. The US WILL NEVER regain its chip supremacy of the 1970s. Fab is a manpower-intensive low-margin business with a shelf life similar to bananas. It is incompatible with the Murdican or UK work ethic.
Biden and Schumer want to buy you an Electric Car. These are not ready for prime time. They burn houses down. They short in high rains, and they continue to lose range over time then you have to replace the batteries and you can't do it.
Give me a nice diesel engine that runs for 500,000 miles or a Toyota that runs for 300,000 and call it a day. The latest studies on Ozone BTW indicate that without carbon dioxide, you can have no Ozone protective layer. So perhaps Dems and the GOP are equally out to lunch with their moronic gov winner picking. Name one winner please. I have asked this before and experienced nothing but SILENCEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE.
(from "All The Trouble In The World." by P.J. O'Rourke)
"1) You spend your money on yourself. You're motivated to get the thing you want most at the best price. This is the way middle-aged men haggle with Porsche dealers.
2) You spend your money on other people. You still want a bargain, but you're less interested in pleasing the recipient of your largesse. This is why children get underwear at Christmas.
3) You spend other people's money on yourself. You get what you want but price no longer matters. The second wives who ride around with the middle-aged men in the Porsches do this kind of spending at Neiman Marcus.
4) You spend other people's money on other people. And in this case, who gives a s**t?
Most government spending falls into category four. Which is why the government keeps buying us Hoover Dams, B-1 bombers, raids on Waco cults, and 1972 Federal Water Pollution Control Acts."
And, of late, just giving it to the richest corporations who make the most noise, it seems.
The Register 
Biting the hand that feeds IT
Copyright. All rights reserved © 1998–2024
