How Trump could potentially claw back CHIPS funding

Chipmakers fear Trump may rescind CHIPS Act funding, report says.

See full article...

 

[stormcrash]

Even a dementia riddled president gets one right once in a while.

CHIPS is just a massive subsidy to semiconductor firms, esp. Intel. Pat Gelsinger knew that fabs are a really tough business that require enormous capital, and he simply didn't want to take the risk. So he offloaded the risk on to taxpayers by lobbying hard for CHIPS.

Its a really huge and dumb diversion of resources when our main competitive advantage is in chip designs, not fabrication. He should have been focusing on fixing x86s terrible performance per watt before it costs Intel not just laptops but also the server market. TSMC does a fantastic job at fabrication, and its even building a massive new plant in Arizona.

Arguments for CHIPS are straight from the Military-Industrial complex handbook. "What if china invades taiwan", the country that has been blustering about Taiwan for 75 years is finally going to conduct the bloodiest amphibious assault in history (10x more difficult than the 100k casualty Okinawa where we had full air and sea supremacy), and cut itself off from international trade due to closing South China sea to commercial traffic for years due to active anti-ship military attacks and sanctions?

And if so, so what? World-wide fabs will take a couple years to replace the missing production from the demolished fabs as massive new investment will flow into the business naturally, without subsidies, political donations, bribes, skimming, etc.

In the meantime, lets keep our engineers working on far more productive things, like designing powerful and valuable new chips for TSMC, Samsung, etc and even Intel to fab.

Yes it is a subsidy, a subsidy to make up for the more expensive cost of building the fabs HERE in the US vs abroad. That's literally the point, to take away the pain of locating the fabs domestically so that we can build up our domestic capability and get the fly wheel turning. Because it turns out once you have the industry established it's much easier to drive economies of scale and drive costs down and efficiency up on materials and training and degrees once you get over that hump. And protecting our domestic chip capacity is in the national interest both economically and militarily. The funniest thing about the repubs bashing this while lauding the military is that they will be sabotaging the military long term and making them dependent on foreign manufacture for advanced weapon components if we don't maintain domestic capacity at the cutting edge.

 

[Sajuuk]

The way he instantly vanished from the public eye gives credence to a lot of what the right-wingers have been espousing about him.

But not like Harris didn't instantly skip out too on permanent vacation once she lost.

We all got so railroaded from both sides.

Vote for the impressively credentialed Black lady who I don't vibe with or the, uh, Nazi con-artist nepobaby? God, why do you give me the hardest choices!?

 

[stormcrash]

Vote for the impressively credentialed Black lady who I don't vibe with or the, uh, Nazi con-artist nepobaby? God, why do you give me the hardest choices!?

The most embarrassing "reason" I've seen yet from a right wing turd justifying why they couldn't possibly vote for Harris was ironically that she was "too tough/too much" on drug prosecutions as attorney general in california. It's quite pathetic how far over they'll bend to justify or hide their outright sexism and racism against her

 

[J.C. Helios]

Those changes reportedly came after the Commerce Department laid off 40 workers in the CHIPS office through a "demeaning" process that forced workers to prove their intelligence by providing SAT or IQ scores...

My understanding is that the reason employee IQ testing is not more common is because the courts have found that it often violates the Civil Rights Act.

As such, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act prohibits employment tests (when used as a decisive factor in employment decisions) that are not a "reasonable measure of job performance," regardless of the absence of actual intent to discriminate.

Although, it might not actually be illegal here, since the Commerce Department is a public employer.

Although private employers with 15 or more employees are subject to Title VII of the Civil Rights Act, it was held in Washington v. Davis (1976) that the disparate impact doctrine does not apply to the equal protection requirement of the Fifth and Fourteenth Amendments. Thus, lawsuits against public employers may be barred by sovereign immunity.

(Not that it being illegal would matter to the Trump administration.)

 

[rfcavity]

Even a dementia riddled president gets one right once in a while.

CHIPS is just a massive subsidy to semiconductor firms, esp. Intel. Pat Gelsinger knew that fabs are a really tough business that require enormous capital, and he simply didn't want to take the risk. So he offloaded the risk on to taxpayers by lobbying hard for CHIPS.

Its a really huge and dumb diversion of resources when our main competitive advantage is in chip designs, not fabrication. He should have been focusing on fixing x86s terrible performance per watt before it costs Intel not just laptops but also the server market. TSMC does a fantastic job at fabrication, and its even building a massive new plant in Arizona.

Arguments for CHIPS are straight from the Military-Industrial complex handbook. "What if china invades taiwan", the country that has been blustering about Taiwan for 75 years is finally going to conduct the bloodiest amphibious assault in history (10x more difficult than the 100k casualty Okinawa where we had full air and sea supremacy), and cut itself off from international trade due to closing South China sea to commercial traffic for years due to active anti-ship military attacks and sanctions?

And if so, so what? World-wide fabs will take a couple years to replace the missing production from the demolished fabs as massive new investment will flow into the business naturally, without subsidies, political donations, bribes, skimming, etc.

In the meantime, let’s keep our engineers working on far more productive things, like designing powerful and valuable new chips for TSMC, Samsung, etc and even Intel to fab.

This is completely backward. Anyone can design a chip. Very few can fabricate them.

It’s like saying ordering off a menu is the secret sauce to running a restaurant.

 

[Borillion_star]

"....sent shockwaves across the industry and has even given some Republicans whiplash." - People are still surprised by this person's actions?

 

[mozbo]

Biden's silence has stunned even some Republicans,

Excuse me, what?

The guy is 82 years old and firmly retired. Why is it Biden's job to speak out against this nonsense?

 

[GreyAreaUK]

Excuse me, what?

The guy is 82 years old and firmly retired. Why is it Biden's job to speak out against this nonsense?

Yeah, I was thinking that. Pretty sure that neither Biden nor Harris owe anybody so much as the time of day.

 

[mozbo]

Those changes reportedly came after the Commerce Department laid off 40 workers in the CHIPS office through a "demeaning" process that forced workers to prove their intelligence by providing SAT or IQ scores or solving math problems like doing long division or calculating "the value of four to the fourth power," sources said.

This is particularly ironic because a huge number of MAGA are unable to perform woke calculations like 4⁴.

 

[Dioptase]

It's easy. First and foremost, everything that Joe Biden and the Democrats did is wrong, evil, must be undone, destroyed, etc. All else comes after that prime directive.

The saying "never ascribe to malice what can be explained by stupidity" and the meme "Why not both?" come to mind.

 

[emag]

Excuse me, what?

The guy is 82 years old and firmly retired. Why is it Biden's job to speak out against this nonsense?

This article is in desperate need of another editing pass.

 

[PsychoArs]

I've coined a new word

Or he is incompetent.
Or he suffers from increasingly severe mental issues.

It's Narcissistic Asshole Syndrome.

I don't genuinely think Trump's got a mental illness. It's just greed and ego. As in... he's just a bad person and more power is enabling him to be worse, 'cuz lulz.

 

[stormcrash]

Fabs cost more to build here because its not the best economic use of our resources. Fabs aren't a flywheel, they aren't going to spin off anything, they are low level manufacturing plants, essentially large building shells converted to clean rooms and filled with equipment made in the Netherlands.

Fabs exist worldwide from South Korea, Japan, to Europe and guess what? The US too. There is no "national interest" argument that stands up to scrutiny.

This is just the government attempting to pick winners and using military-industrial propaganda to justify it.

If they're "picking winners" they're doing a terrible job of it considering pretty much everyone got some of the pie. Seems more likely that it's not about "picking winners" but about encouraging domestic manufacturing, you know, like the bill says, and something that is both good for our economy and for the communities that will be home to those projects. Seriously, the scale of these projects are economic game changers for those regions. We need manufacturing jobs in our economy, so deriding them as "low level manufacturing" and therefore somehow unworthy is not only asinine but an actual harm to the robustness of our economy and our political stability (or the hope of getting back to stability)

 

[J.C. Helios]

...

Fabs exist worldwide from South Korea, Japan, to Europe and guess what? The US too. There is no "national interest" argument that stands up to scrutiny.

This is just the government attempting to pick winners and using military-industrial propaganda to justify it.

Fabs aren't interchangeable; they do different things, with different levels of sophistication. And the most sophisticated ones are in Taiwan, which can get invaded on Xi Jinping's whim.

If taking out an insurance policy against geopolitical risk is "propaganda," then let that idea propagate to every American's heart!

 

[mozbo]

No, CHIPS is not a subsidy," Ezell wrote. "It’s an attempt to convince semiconductor firms to invest in a place where few would normally invest: the United States. Few rational firms would invest here because costs are higher and government incentives are lower than they are in other markets.

Also:

1. Training workers is more expensive here because the educational system is devolving and under constant attack.*
2. Keeping a healthy workforce is more difficult and sick time is more costly. The healthcare system is terrible and under constant attack. Threats of disease outbreaks are real and growing. The extra administrative costs of dealing with business-administered health insurance doesn't help either.
3. Facism and xenophobia.

The list of reasons a company would not want to invest here long-term is impressive in a very bad way.

* top-end (MS / PhD) level is still quite good, but below that it's turning into a real mess.

 

[mozbo]

It's those around him that are using him to enrich themselves and screw over the rest of us. Trump is just a moron.

A vicious, vengeful, cruel moron.

 

[Cat_Herder]

Trump has criticized the CHIPS Act, telling Congress last week that companies "take our money" and "don't spend it."

You mean like when rich bastards get yet more tax breaks?

 

[theSeb]

It's almost like he's making calculated decisions to weaken America and reduce our stability on the orders of some outside influences...

This fine article explains a lot and is very prescient considering it was written in 2024 when taken in context of the last few weeks.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/10/28/fiona-hill-explains-trump-musk-putin-00185820

 

[Sajuuk]

Fabs cost more to build here because its not the best economic use of our resources. Fabs aren't a flywheel, they aren't going to spin off anything, they are low level manufacturing plants, essentially large building shells converted to clean rooms and filled with equipment made in the Netherlands.

Fabs exist worldwide from South Korea, Japan, to Europe and guess what? The US too. There is no "national interest" argument that stands up to scrutiny.

This is just the government attempting to pick winners and using military-industrial propaganda to justify it.

Ah, a classic view from the throne capitalist. Widgets? We got widgets at home! All widgets are the same, right?

 

[Martin123]

A few days ago Trump, when asked by a reporter whether he still considers Zelensky a dictator, responded, "Did I say that? I can’t believe I said that." So he can't even remember what he's said day-to-day. He's in decline, possibly somewhat rapid [...]

As much as I believe that Trump is currently up there with Putin as one of the two most dangerous and morally depraved individuals on earth, I don't believe that this has anything to do with cognitive decline. He knows very well what he said a few days earlier, but he just doesn't give a shit and utterly enjoys toying with journalists and being able to bend reality on a whim. In fact, this is arguably worse than cognitive decline in terms of what it says of him as a person...

 

[stormcrash]

Ah, a classic view from the throne capitalist. Widgets? We got widgets at home! All widgets are the same, right?

What's a widget cost anyway Michael? 10, 20 dollars?

 

[GreyAreaUK]

What's a widget cost anyway Michael? 10, 20 dollars?

Good grief - you could almost buy an egg for that!

 

[MilesArcher]

"in theory," Trump could "use rescission or impoundment measures to go after duly Congressionally appropriated and obligated funds," Ezell suggested that seemed "unlikely."

Has this guy been paying attention?

 

[MysteryMii215]

Instead of awarding subsidies, though, Trump wants to punish chipmakers who do business outside the US, threatening to impose tariffs on semiconductor imports potentially as soon as April 2. But that plan may be shortsighted, as the NYT pointed out that "lawyers and industry executives have said that tariffs on chips themselves are not very effective because the United States imports few chips directly." Instead, chips are usually placed into electronic devices and appliances in factories in Asia before the consumer tech is imported into the US.

This is actually a good thing to bring up for people fearful that a semiconductor tariff will raise prices on stuff like electronics even further. Placing a tariff on semiconductors themselves is likely not going to do much since the US doesn’t really manufacture a lot of the stuff they’re used in, and it’s a lot harder to tariff the individual components and materials used inside of a finished product being imported since they don’t usually list where everything comes from. Even stuff like individual desktop CPUs aren’t usually assembled in the same place where the dies are diffused (AMD Ryzen desktop CPUs actually used to mention where their dies were diffused in addition to where they were assembled, but has stopped doing that since 2022).

If there’s one industry that may be impacted the most by that, it’ll likely be the one that’s already facing the most headwinds by all of the tariff threats: auto manufacturing.

 

[Sajuuk]

Has this guy been paying attention?

Object permanence is not a current virtue of ours.

 

[ZippyPeanut]

Excuse me, what?

The guy is 82 years old and firmly retired. Why is it Biden's job to speak out against this nonsense?

I think that's a typo. Maybe she meant to write "Trump's."

If not, then I'm just as flummoxed as you are.

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

Even a dementia riddled president gets one right once in a while.

CHIPS is just a massive subsidy to semiconductor firms, esp. Intel. Pat Gelsinger knew that fabs are a really tough business that require enormous capital, and he simply didn't want to take the risk. So he offloaded the risk on to taxpayers by lobbying hard for CHIPS.

Its a really huge and dumb diversion of resources when our main competitive advantage is in chip designs, not fabrication. He should have been focusing on fixing x86s terrible performance per watt before it costs Intel not just laptops but also the server market. TSMC does a fantastic job at fabrication, and its even building a massive new plant in Arizona.

Arguments for CHIPS are straight from the Military-Industrial complex handbook. "What if china invades taiwan", the country that has been blustering about Taiwan for 75 years is finally going to conduct the bloodiest amphibious assault in history (10x more difficult than the 100k casualty Okinawa where we had full air and sea supremacy), and cut itself off from international trade due to closing South China sea to commercial traffic for years due to active anti-ship military attacks and sanctions?

And if so, so what? World-wide fabs will take a couple years to replace the missing production from the demolished fabs as massive new investment will flow into the business naturally, without subsidies, political donations, bribes, skimming, etc.

In the meantime, lets keep our engineers working on far more productive things, like designing powerful and valuable new chips for TSMC, Samsung, etc and even Intel to fab.

I'm impressed. It's actually impossible to tell whether you're shilling for China or are an american who chugged the PRC agitprop.

Let me break this down into crayons for you. Lately the US discovered that it has ZERO fiscal leverage on China. Any sanction hitting China is a torpedo into the waterline of western economies because the chinese build all our shit.

CHIPS is an attempt to ensure the US is not utterly powerless to use more thsn strong words against a nation which currently holds the jugular of the global supply chain and can thus dictate terms without any need for real negotiation - because any strain on their economy reflects straight back at us. To the point where, if the chinese economy begsn collapsing the OECD countries would have to pull a 2009 bailout package and save it, in sheer self defense.

So no, this isn't a moron coming up with a good thing by chance.
This is said moron shitting his diapers extra hard.

Edit: I thought i recognized that particular rhetoric from somewhere. The libertarian religion of magical thinking. The ideology behind Galt's Gulch, Bear Town, and the 2008 shadow banking crash, is it?
At some point you jokers will need to realize that Rand was fundamentally wrong. About literally everything.

 

[stormcrash]

This is actually a good thing to bring up for people fearful that a semiconductor tariff will raise prices on stuff like electronics even further. Placing a tariff on semiconductors themselves is likely not going to do much since the US doesn’t really manufacture a lot of the stuff they’re used in, and it’s a lot harder to tariff the individual components and materials used inside of a finished product being imported since they don’t usually list where everything comes from. Even stuff like individual desktop CPUs aren’t usually assembled in the same place where the dies are diffused (AMD Ryzen desktop CPUs actually used to mention where their dies were diffused in addition to where they were assembled, but has stopped doing that since 2022).

If there’s one industry that may be impacted the most by that, it’ll likely be the one that’s already facing the most headwinds by all of the tariff threats: auto manufacturing.

Exactly, tariffs on semiconductors would only work AFTER we have the domestic capacity to protect and advantage. If the only option is imports then the import fees will have to be paid because the chips aren't optional, and that cost will get passed on down the chain to end consumer prices

 

[a pizza bagel?]

256. Now where is my gov't job

 

[Zilveari]

It's easy. First and foremost, everything that Joe Biden and the Democrats did is wrong, evil, must be undone, destroyed, etc. All else comes after that prime directive.

But The Prime Directive is based in non-interference...

 

[gsgrego]

Its just a handout to semiconductor firms, a terrible investment that will help create a massive glut of new fabs just as prices crash in the boom/bust world of semiconductor fabs. That diversion of valuable resources and engineers will hurt our economy terribly, esp. as shiny new fabs it funded get shuttered in the glut.

Oh lord.

Alright. Let's end the subsidies for:

• Gas
• Oil
• Coal
• Cars
• Power plants
• And on and on

Or do you only have an issue with subsidies that don't go to nazi worshiping rich people?

 

[a pizza bagel?]

I would encourage Trump to prove his intelligence by trying to do this on a live Fox broadcast. Popcorn time!

I highly doubt he could even calcualte 4+4+4+4, let alone multiply them.

 

[6GT5sGlow]

It's almost like he's making calculated decisions to weaken America and reduce our stability on the orders of some outside influences...

Putin himself could not do a better job if he was here guiding Trump...

 

[Scary Devil Monastery]

Oh lord.

Alright. Let's end the subsidies for:

• Gas
• Oil
• Coal
• Cars
• Power plants
• And on and on

Or do you only have an issue with subsidies that don't go to nazi worshiping rich people?

Well, let's be fair. The man may be a libertarian in which case he'd happily end the subsidies and taxation on everything.

And when 300 million people are knifing each other in the street over cans of dog food he'll be among those shouting about the successes of libertarianism eliminating the need for government.

 

[stormcrash]

Well, let's be fair. The man may be a libertarian in which case he'd happily end the subsidies and taxation on everything.

And when 300 million people are knifing each other in the street over cans of dog food he'll be among those shouting about the successes of libertarianism eliminating the need for government.

Or he imagines he's one of the privileged that will escape on their luxury yacht and totally not be betrayed by their security forces and servants that are no longer getting paid

 

[SirBedwyr]

This fine article explains a lot and is very prescient considering it was written in 2024 when taken in context of the last few weeks.

https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2024/10/28/fiona-hill-explains-trump-musk-putin-00185820

Jonathan Rauch has the corollary to this: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2025/02/corruption-trump-administration/681794/

The essence is that the king is the state and the king’s will is the will of the country and its people. From this point of view Trump has few peers and Putin and Xi are at the apex. In respect to their power as kings, Trump basically cedes their sections of the hemisphere as their arena which the US won’t interfere with (Europe belongs to Russia, in other words, and Taiwan belongs to China). By contrast, the Americas are the hegemonic possession of his kingship and so he exercises dominion over them (Canada, Panama, Greenland). That’s basically the sum of it.

 

[ajmas]

Previously I would have said he was simply focusing on helping his billionaire "friends". Now I'm not sure of anything. The more things drag on, the more he feels like a Marvel villain looking for a scorched earth destruction of the US and everything it stood for, helped by his cult members, who still don't seem to have woken up to what he is doing (or they are so desperate to be recognised by someone who doesn't care about anyone else).

BTW I'm not a cultured reader of "Hustler", but I was pointed towards an article in the October 1990 issue, entitled "Asshole of the Month". So much foreshadowing of what was to come.

 

[GWO123]

I highly doubt he could even calcualte 4+4+4+4, let alone multiply them.

6+6+6 though?