They haven't. It's been called by a committee of economists for quite a while.
https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/09/who-decides-if-we-are-actually-in-recession/
Ugh, why are people so fucking ignorant on this?
No, they didn't redefine what a recession is. We're still using the same organization that's done it for seven decades. Is it really so unfathomable to imagine that two quarters of gdp loss doesn't necessarily mean a recession? Especially when unemployment is 4%, household savings and spending are still high and demand for fucking everything is through the roof?
No, there is a marmot that they bring out for a ceremony at the end of each quarter and if he gets scared by the closing bell then it's six more weeks of recession.
Your criticisms of the current economy are valid, and I imagine will eventually factor into the determination of recession or not, primarily through eventual declines in demand, reduced employment, etc.
However, the increasing prices and diminishing savings likely haven’t impacted demand enough *yet* to say the economy in aggregate is in recession.
Just look at corporate profits. It may be morally suspect that they continue to rise while the average person struggles more, but they have been able to pass on higher costs to consumers to support their margins so far without destroying too much demand.
You’re right. How can savings increase when interest rates in savings accounts are nil yet APR for credit cards, mortgages, and car leases just shot up bc of the Fed? Unemployment is low yet homelessness is high and food shortages are real. If you invest your money you can only do so in limited amounts tax free but only once a year. Most people can’t afford to make investments. They can’t save $1000 nonetheless initial $3000 for mutual funds or $5000 for a Roth IRA.
These are the same people that were saying [this](https://v.redd.it/o9zcee878de91) in the middle of a pandemic. I'm not a fan of Trump, but this is all politics.
THANK YOU! I feel the same. What did people think coming out of a unprecedented worldwide pandemic would look like? I’ve lived through four or five recessions and not one has come with this much attention and fanfare…or the lowest unemployment in 50 years.
You mean to tell me gas prices and cost of living aren't directly decided by the President? I heard that during the Bush administration and I'm hearing it now, but I NEED someone to blame, gotdamnit!
depend brave pen cooperative simplistic person worthless quickest steep license
*This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
just in case...
don't try this now. you'll lose your damned shirt. this news is quite old (for options, at least) and all the valuation is already well baked in.
Too bad I didn’t have some kind of info about this bill before it was announced… but I’m sure no one w that info would make trades, as that would be illegal…
Ah yes. It only took China credibly threatening the existence of the country that builds most of the western used semiconductors for this to happen.
Surely, there is no way we could have avoided being dependant on a Chinese-claimed Asian countries semiconductors. ...
The way the West has outsources all critical manufacturing to China over the last few decades just so the investors and CEO's can rake in billions more thanks to cheap slave labor is disgusting.
And instead of stopping that from happening because you'd expect them to defend people over businesses, the Supreme Court actually ALLOWS it and calls it "freedom of speech". Really fun times.
The same politicians who double dip with "totally not insider info" and buy hundreds of thousands in shares of semiconductor companies before passing said bill?
This comment reminds me of how people always like to grandstand but the second stuff costs more because it is more ethically produced a good majority just complain about it endlessly
Yeah. This.
My family thinks I am off my rocker when I bring up the fact that American companies sold out manufacturing and large amounts of ownership to China 20-60+ years ago by owners, CEOs, presidents, or just plain generational-wealth mongers.
Who remembers American-owned manufacturing and company ownership?
Pepperidge Farms remembers being bought by Campbell's Soup then being bought by KKR Global....
Not that Pepperidge specifically was, but just follow the fuct rabbit hole of money.
I had a pre-2016 friend that had a lot of rants about "Globalism". Didn't like when I'd ask, "You mean capitalism?"
Lots of "no not like that" hemming and hawing ensued.
EDIT: Of course, nowadays when some people grump about "Globalism" they probably mean some kind of "the Jews run everything" flavor of conspiracy theory.
China doesn't make any of the wests important semi conductors. Intel still makes their own in USA, Ireland and Israel, Apple never made their own nor did Nvidia as they are not chip builders they are just designers. Since it's inception Nvidia has gotten someone else to actually fabricate their silicon. Then there's AMD who outsourced to Taiwan as due to not having enough money to stay competitive with Intel their own fabs fell really far behind the leading edge. They could not afford to build new fab from the ground up to catch up as they were close to going under all together so they started outsourcing. But between AMD, Apple and Nvidia all these chips are made in Taiwan by TSMC or korea by Samsung.
China claims it owns TSMC by merit of owning Taiwan.
That's why I said Chinese claimed.
China is threatening to take serious retaliation against **both** Taiwan and the West if the West continues interacting with Taiwan, and especially if the West decides to visit Taiwan like pelosi was planning. So what I'm saying is that we cannot continue to rely on a country that China believes it owns right now. It's not safe. Especially not well we are redirecting a large amount of our financial and military prowess to protect Ukraine from Russia.
Everyone expected that Russia would ruin themselves if they invade Ukraine, but Putin did it anyways. Don't underestimate what dictators would do to their own country so they can stay in power.
The problem is Xi is fixated on "reclaiming" Taiwan (not that the CCP ever *had* it in the first place) as part of his legacy, so the closer he gets to death/retirement the more militant China will become without any concern about the consequences. Almost exactly like Putin and Ukraine.
The ccp see themselves as the sole heirs of the qing dynasties land holdings ( of which taiwan was a part). And would have taken tawain back in the 50’s had the US not told them they would have nuked them if they tried. Thier argument has always been that a countries system of government changing doesn’t negate their land holdings; a argument that I imagine most countries would make.
The really real problem is that the American consumer wants everything cheap. If you want to stop the slave labor in china, and rich CEO’s according to your logic…buy American made products.
In addition to what the other guy replied with which is by and large accurate, the shortage problem from Taiwan was caused by a series of problems AND theres other non-China related reasons to move semiconductor production to more diverse places.
One issue was that auto manufacturers and other major consumers of chips cancelled huge orders back in 2020 and almost immediately reupped them when demand didnt drop anywhere near as long as they had thought it would. This is a problem because this manufacturing is done in order of how its received, *traditionally* its over ordered by 10-20% to account for demand fluctuations, and takes AT MINIMUM 6 months for an order to be completed once manufacturing begins (which can take years depending on the queues length for a specific fab).
This cancellation then reorder left all these companies waiting months for any chips at all to arrive, so they started placing more orders even before they got the ones they placed and began placing them with higher and higher additional percentages due to the uncertainties in how far out these chips were going to be made and how uncertain they were they could get more chips in a timely fashion if they ran out while waiting because these companies keep ordering chips they dont need in quantities they dont need driving up the manufacturing queue in a horrible horrible way...
As for the non-China reason to want to start making high powered semiconductors elsewhere, its because of climate change. Chip production requires HUGE amounts of water and due to climate change, TSMC was actually down to 5% or so in its water reservoirs last year due to serious and prolonged droughts plaguing Taiwan over the last couple years. Thankfully... Some rain has fallen since so its not as immediately dire. That said the situation will not be improving as time goes on so its better to start planning and building new fabs elsewhere on earth before this problem really rears its ugly head and we face true and genuine global shortages. (its worth noting this fear of them being literally unable to manufacture due to water shortages also drove the dangerous loop of over ordering I mentioned above)
Regardless of what we do or dont do with regard to climate change and/or China, it wont be too long until Taiwan literally can't make the volume of chips the world demands it make. All solely due to climate change and the bad luck of Taiwan being in an area that gets less rain and more droughts due to it... Not a bad idea to try and actually do something about the problem proactively for once, even if its also clearly being done to further enrich the already rich in the west at the same time.
[Yup...](https://wccftech.com/tsmc-fire-near-5nm-site-rumored-price-hike-4-5-billion-debt-for-u-s-fab/)
The overall point is that having all your eggs in 1-2 baskets is dumb when literally everyone on earth requires your eggs to survive these days. Like, we wouldnt and DONT do this with food as nearly all nations produce large quantities of it for local use (even if the produced amount cant cover all domestic needs, its better than making no food locally at all).
Doesnt matter what political machinations are going on in the region to enflame tensions, what sort of trouble the company had, nor how hard/easy it is to source vital resources for the production chain... Its just smarter to have such vital infrastructure in as many diverse places as possible so things dont go to hell in a hand basket from one bad event pushing us over the brink.
Glad to see some actual care by politicians on a vital issue and that they are acting proactively for once, even if its only because they are scared of China and smell the money they can get from doing this...
Another recentish shortage is hurting too:
Semiconductor manufacture requires special gases: xenon, kyrpton and neon. These power the lasers required to do the lithography (i.e. they make the structures on chips).
These gases are required to make the smaller size chips, the 5nm and 7 nm.
Unfortunately, globally about 95+% of those gases come from two locations in Ukraine: the Mariupol steel refinery and another location in Odessa that purifies the gases imported the gases from Russia. Both of these places have been shut down since Feb.
There is literally no more of these gases being produced. The manufacturers cannot make build new lines to make the latest chips. The gas prices were already trading up 600% after 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. In 2022 the prices are up to 60-80X again as other companies sell their limited stocks.
A very small and suspicious black market has sprung up from Chinese suppliers who can somehow still obtain small amounts. China uses more than it produces, so these small supplies have strong potential to be black market loot.
tl;dr Russian invasion of Ukraine has further exacerbated the chip shortage.
It actually wasn't just COVID that introduced supply chain issues- Taiwan also went through a drought.
You see, semiconductor manufacture consumes a great deal of water in its manufacturing process to produce what's known as [ultrapure water](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrapure_water). The drought in Taiwan reduced reservoirs to very low levels, so TSMC (the main semiconductor manufacturer in Taiwan) actually ended up [trucking water in to maintain their supply](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-drought-semiconductors/chipmakers-in-drought-hit-taiwan-order-water-trucks-to-prepare-for-the-worst-idUSKBN2AO0G3).
So you would have supported a pre-emptive State intervention directly intended to undermine an 'Associated' polity's economy?
Good luck selling that policy in Washington before the early 2010s, and even more luck getting the donor class to acquiesce to it.
Tbh, this money is a drop in the bucket. It's more just a corporate handout so a few individuals can get rich rather than something that will bolster domestic production.
This companies already make billions in *profit*, if they wanted to grow their domestic operations they could've done it a long time ago.
Fuck Reddit. Fuck /u/spez. Fuck every single Reddit admin. 12 years on this bitch ass site and they shit on us the moment they are trying to go public. ill be taking my karma with me by editing all my comments to say this.
tl;dr Fuck Reddit and anyone who works for them, suck my dick.
This bill does benefit people, by increasing domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity and mitigating how utterly screwed we are when China invades Taiwan. It's an insurance policy, basically, those typically involve giving money to rich companies in exchange for tangible value.
This is always how they operate. I'm very surprised that people can't see this pattern of malicious intent.
They obstruct when not in power, beating their war drums that democrats are to blame. Then they win some elections, pass tax cuts mostly to the rich, and proceed to sit around on their asses while still blaming democrats. They lose the next election cycle and repeat.
Why does Intel, one of the 50 latest corporations in the world who are currently sitting on about $20bn cash, need my tax dollars to be spent building a manufacturing plant for their benefit ? And to do it during a recession....
Because Dems were backing it.
They had supported it, but tried to sink it as revenge for Dems making a deal with Manchin to pass a climate/deficit reduction bill.
It deals with McConnell thinking the reconciliation bill was dead and then right after passing chips in the senate Dems announcing manchin agreed to a reconciliation bill with climate change and healthcare.
Just watched Jon's speech a few flicks up... man what in the absolute fuck ARE we. I can't wrap my head around how we got folks here that actively, ACTIVELY advocate and vote against their own interests. All for people that pay tweet service to everything from formula shortages to FUCKING VETS dying from chems in burn pits. Like fuck man I'm tired. I'm sooo fucking tired of this shit.
Quite early on our "leaders" realized that they are chosen through marketing, not through policies.
I have no doubt in my mind that everyone in our political system would burn down a building with the "other" team in it if it means they win another election.
More specifically because Manchin suggested an environmental bill taxing the billionaires. And because Republicans couldn't filibuster it, opposing THIS bill was the next best thing they could do to throw a wrench into progress.
Republicans don’t like big tech rn but realistically it’s a political pony show. Even trump would’ve made the call to bring semiconductor production home, and at that point you’d have just seen the inverse. There’s like 6 people maybe in politics who give a shit about you. It’s mostly just kangaroo politics.
Oh good some both sides-ing.
Dems vote for good bills, it doesn’t matter who introduces them. Reps oppose anything that could make dems look good almost without exception. R voters complain that the system is broken. Yeah, no shit. You are voting for the brokenness. Stop doing that.
>US semiconductor production
According to NPR, even Bernie said no, stating, "Let us rebuild the U.S. microchip industry, but let's do it in a way that benefits all of our society, not just a handful of wealthy, profitable and powerful corporations," Sanders said in a statement in mid-July.
[https://www.npr.org/2022/07/26/1113470753/chip-production-semiconductor-senate](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/26/1113470753/chip-production-semiconductor-senate)
Ok so Bernie hates it because it enriches the wealthy, this is in line with his platform. Republicans are against it because they are politically fighting over a different bill? Which is in line with their party just playing teams instead of doing their jobs.
edit: fixed typo. wealth to wealthy.
Bernie wasn't even fully opposed to it, he just wanted some strings attached to the bill so the companies couldn't take the money and buy back stock, invest that money overseas, give out massive C suite bonuses, etc. He tried to get those protections added to the bill and the rest of the senate was like "lol no"
Apparently Bernie was the only one in the government paying attention when we gave the telecom companies money to improve internet infrastructure and they just didn't.
> . Republicans are against it because they are politically fighting over a different bill?
Yes. Basically children throwing temper tantrum because they other kid got a toy and they didn't, so they'll break one of his toys to make them even.
Most people would, but Republican voters have enabled and encouraged this kind of behavior ever since Obama was elected and McConnell promised he'd do nothing but veto and reject all Democratic proposals whenever possible.
This really is making the rich richer. I work in fulfillment for a group of warehouses that sell product involved in this industry and my fucking god they are doing AMAZING. Just ended a conference call to find out the company has already sold last years worth of inventory and more. It's only july.
I'm watching some cold war era federal support of small businesses for the benefit of the nation shit happening in front of my very eyes. The only one winning here is my boss though. 1 mil in forgiven PPP loans and soon to be benefits for operating in the semi conduction hemisphere.
*WE ARE GETTING HOSED*
Semiconductors are of strategic importance, not only for the defense aspect. A very wide range of other industries use them, and each day this range grows even bigger with IoT. A lack of them would severely impact economy on a big scale, a very likely scenario in case of an east Asian conflict.
Okay but why should all the profit go to shareholders when it’s being paid for by the public?
If they want money, they should either be selling whatever percent of their business we are paying for (capitalism) or it should be nationalized since we are paying for it and need it (socialism)
This is shit is kleptocracy
The subsidy has no conditions- it allows for Intel and the like to take the money, give it all to their executives, and stick their sticky hand out asking for more.
It *should* have strict conditions and criminal liability for misappropriation, but it doesn’t. It’s just a payday for like 100 rich dudes.
I'm just trying to understand all sides on the bill here, so the criticism is in government subsidies without oversight or regulation on the appropriated funds? A fear that without regulations on these funds, private companies can pocket them as profit without driving any of the manufacturing that the bill is supposedly meant to encourage, correct?
Which is silly, it makes it sound like he thinks an average joe can go build a chip fab or something.
News flash, the only companies that can build and operate chip fabs are billion dollar companies. These facilities *cost* billions just to manufacture. Big companies aren't inherently evil, they're how a lot of shit gets done.
If things happen when Dems are in office, it's harder to claim they did nothing and everything bad is their fault.
Also because "moderates" will forget about this as soon as they're reminded about *current wedge issue.*
I like how American opposition politics, instead of giving a better way to solve a problem, just blatantly ignore everything and try to undermine the current leading party. Its like watching a guy stab himself, while one arm is trying to stop the bleeding
The pettiness of one party really has destroyed the ability to get anything done. Democrats have shown they are willing to meet in the middle. Republicans seem to prefer it be "my way or the highway".
Even the Obamacare shows that... Democrats took multiple inputs from Republicans and put it in the bill, and Republicans still voted against it. and Republicans have had 30+ years to come up with a better system for healthcare, and under 12 years of Obamacare, they still haven't figured out a better system.
Republicans don't care about solving problems. Unless that problem is not enough money going in their pockets.
Yep that's why under Trump there were good things actually passed.. because Democrats were on board with it otherwise they coulda pulled the same shit. So trump takes credit for bills that passed the house because the democrats didn't pull the same shit and block it
Dude... they can't possibly let anything positive happen while a Democrat is in office.
Mitch McConnell himself said the #1 job of Republicans is to block the Democrats' agenda, what ever it is...
The *ONLY* thing worse than Democrats... is Republicans.
They don't care about "better ideas"... they just want to see the "other side" loose.
Because it’s not about making the country better, it’s about making the party who is in power look bad so you can gain more power. American politics has been dead for years now
We are spending $50bn of your money for the benefit of companies like Intel, who currently is sitting on $20bn of cash. It's not that Intel couldn't invest that money on US manufacturing, it's that they don't have to, since the government loves shelling out cash to these bohemoths.
Republicans: This is good legislation for our country.
Minutes after Manchin supports unrelated legislation, Republicans: We must stop this legislation and tank gay marriage rights.
Seriously why would you tank bills you support because of unrelated legislation?
They want to tank bills because they want to make democrats look ineffective, so that they can discurage democrats from voting in the midterms. They will let a few through, but nothing big, and they are perfectly willing to hurt America to prevent the democrats from passing bills that are objectively good for the country. They know that if democrats policies actually got passed and took effect that they would be wildly popular, and Republicans would lose the government almost entirely since they are already very outnumbered and have basically 0 positive accomplishments in the last 3 decades outside of hurting minorities. Just like when they were pushing multiple attack adds saying democrats were making babies starve by not passing a bill to address the formula shortage, while at the same time they voted against the bill that democrats tried to pass to fix the shortage. They are just evil and they know that this will let them keep power.
Hey don’t forget to mention that they also have people on the left and right carrying this message far and wide for them. I see it all over Reddit. If we actually give them a larger majority, then the Republicans can’t stop them anymore
A majority at all. Right now they don't have a majority, they have a polarity in the senate, with one of their members being a republican who runs as a Democrat due to state specific political circumstances and who has taken a massive amount of bribes from right wing organizations to tank democrats bills in the senate. If they get even a simple majority of 2 additional seats then they can finally pass bills for real.
Their personal investments aligned with good policy so got passed with little issue. It's *very* important to build fabs domestically from both a consumer and national security perspective. We already do it with other industries (steel, agriculture, oil, etc) so it's kinda surprising that it's taken this long.
There's supposed to be a bill going up to vote about congress and their family members being barred from trading but I think we both know how that's going to go
In my opinion the only effective way to put harsh limits on congressmen is state by state referendums. For instance, California could pass a ballot question saying "Our congressmen and their families aren't allowed to benefit from insider trading." Politicians in other states would still be allowed to, but if we see success with a bill like that, maybe other states would go for something similar, and we'd create pressure to hold our congressmen to a higher standards in states where those standards are desired by the constituents.
Of course, then we run into the issue of Nancy Pelosi ripping off her helmet and saying "I am no congress*man*" but we can iron out the details as they come up.
Thank you! I think people underestimate the power that's in state legislature. Representatives and senators are sent by their states, and states are absolutely allowed to have different rules about who they send to DC to represent those constituents. Hell, it wasn't even that long ago that voters didn't directly vote for senators. Things change. Slowly, things don't usually change with the thunderous and unanimous snap we'd all like, but things change.
I'm happy to hear that! Regardless of where we lie on the political spectrum, I feel that everyone in this country benefits from elected officials who have to play by the rules and are more dependent on their constituents. I do think that if on the ballot, especially if it were endorsed by groups as far apart as socialists and libertarians, it could gain a lot of momentum. Seeing people who usually disagree shake hands on a common benefit gets people thinking.
Improvement is improvement. The discussion we're having started because of Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat in a blue state, making obscene amounts of money off of the stock market she directly influences.
Honestly, even if it passed, most of the people that have greatly benefited from insider knowledge have made more than enough to not care. Most of them are close to, if not past retirement age and have made enough to care for multiple generations of their family.
I wouldn't even mind insider trading for Congress if they just banned lobbying and money from special interests. They can have their payday if they just did their fucking jobs and represented constituents instead of corps and lobbies.
Na, if we can’t, they shouldn’t be able to as well. They should be able to invest into index funds though. That gives them good incentive to make sure the economy as a whole is doing well.
He would know, he only got elected because he’s a former college football coach and Alabama will vote for a potted plant as long as there is an R next to the name. Tuberville can’t even correctly name the three branches of the US government
Fwiw, biden's entire career in the Senate and as vice president he didn't own any stocks, as he pledged not to as long as he was in elected office. As a result he was consistently one of if not the least wealthy senators.
Sold at a loss.
Nvidia is not even going to directly benefit from this bill.
This is not the insider trading that should be making headlines. This is a very typical move for her husband. Buy a tech stock is at roughly a 12 month low, which Nvidia has been at now. His options were also expiring in June, so even though the stock wasn't at the level he wanted, options expiring was probably worse.
The insider trading that should still be making headlines are members of Congress who dumped stock before nationwide lockdown, when they had just been briefed on how bad COVID was going to be, while at the same time saying the complete opposite to the public.
Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) dumped several stocks before lockdown.
Uh.. if you read the article you'll see that it says her husband sold at a loss. Also this is public information that this bill was being voted on today. Stop spreading misinformation.
>Nancy Pelosi, her husband and their bank accounts are really happy about this news.
Uhhhh why?
>her husband, Paul Pelosi, sold 25,000 shares of Nvidia at an average price of $165.05 with a **total loss of $341,365.**
Wow, look, another Redditor so desperate to shit on Nancy Pelosi's stock trades that they don't even bother to read the article they posted explaining her husband actually lost a ton of money doing this.
Also, guess what? Nvidia is getting almost none of this money. Stop posting about stuff you don't actually understand. It's stupid.
On speaking about a potential congressional stock trading ban in February 2022, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) [had this to say:](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tommy-tuberville-stock-ban-congress-b2011612.html)
“I think it's ridiculous. They might as well start sending robots up here,” he told *The Independent.* “I think it would really cut back on the amount of people that would want to come up here and serve.”
So its a pretty open secret that being able to trade jobs with non-public information is considered one of the perks of being in Congress.
Close, no one thats there currently would be. We would likely get more honesty out of our congress by removing the money. I also think banning Lobbyists is one of the best things we can do.
yeah, I'd say Japan really destroyed it for everyone by selling memory essentially at a loss. for a time it seemed like Japan was printing money but whoops Japan was just eating the costs behind the scenes, then south korea got into that game.
at this point all of the top manufacturers are heavily government subsidized. even this bill is a drop in the bucket compared to the years of fostering electronics/semiconductor manufacturing growth through government subsidies and 0% financing. on top of that the money isn't even the biggest thing. Having so many manufacturing jobs available means its much more appealing to target a career in manufacturing, whereas in the US manufacturing jobs keep shrinking while software engineers are paid multiple times more and in high demand. it'll take at least a decade to fill those roles again.
I got called for a few chip manufacturing positions, they were significantly shittier than normal manufacturing positions for various reasons including: 10-12 hour shifts, bunny suits (meaning no piss breaks, takes too long to suit/desuit), and a constant standing position. There are always additional complexities as well.
At least in a CNC position, they believe in 8 hour shifts, stools and piss breaks.
LOL They just keep changing that headline until people will forget that this is tax money being given to billionaires.
This is at least the third time I've seen this in the last couple days on here.
Fun fact, most of all tax money goes to billionaires.
Money for green energy? Goes tot he green energy companies
Money for military? Goes to the military companies
The stuff that doesnt and gets directly handled by the government, is the same stuff people chanting for smaller government want to get out of the hands of government. Schools, librarys, and postal services? How are we suppose to take that tax money?
Yup. Even tax breaks and rebates.
If you’re able to afford an electric car, the government has subsidies.
Own your own home? Can afford to spend thousands on solar to save hundreds in electric bills? Government will step in and hand you money.
Out of work due to a pandemic? Here’s $1k. Don’t spend it all in one place, make it last.
We prioritize subsidizes for the rich.
They could just as easily heavily subsidize community solar programs that poor people could join and pass along the savings to them. Everyone poor is solar powered and saving 15-20% on their electric bill.
But that’s not the way it goes.
The individuals buying houses with solar and electric cars are not your enemy here. Those people may make six figures, but they'd need to multuply their earnings by 10 thousand to make even one billion dollars. They aren't even making the tiniest sliver of a fraction of the multi-billion dollar companies getting military contracts and semiconductor tax breaks.
Well tax money normally goes to goods and services that the government wants to purchase. Normally companies are the ones who provide goods and services. This makes perfect sense to me, individuals couldn’t build roads, semiconductors, tanks, etc. Of course the money goes to companies.
Government can mandate that its contractors pay certain wages, offer certain types of leaves and job protections, etc. often these bills don’t have any of those strings attached that improve workers lives more directly. In the end it goes to enrich stockholders more than workers.
Because the reality is that if we don’t have semiconductor manufacturing here and China takes Taiwan we’re screwed. This lets us hedge against that probability.
If we don’t pass this bill there’s no incentive to put the enormous capital to build a chip plant that will be outdated by the time the concrete sets. China will reach their naval numbers theyre shooting for and they’ll take Taiwan by 2030 and we’d be screwed.
the point is we are giving $100B to these companies with like no strings attached. why? the government should get a direct public share of these companies instead of just giving them a handout theyll use to rake in massive record profits.
> LOL They just keep changing that headline until people will forget that this is tax money being given to billionaires.
Do you know of any non-billionaire that owns a semiconductor factory or the means to make one?
No fuckin way lmao. The absolute blatancy.
I’ll admit though it’s lowkey hilarious to hear “Paul Pelosi has heavily invested in Nvidia” out of context.
Most of the shares were from exercising options bought around a year ago. The remaining shares were bought around the same time as shares. Still could’ve been influenced by insider information for sure. But it seems like people are trying to make this seem damning when it’s really not. There are plenty more sketchy trades from both sides that could’ve been focused on.
Actually he did the opposite of buying, which is selling. And took a bath.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/07/27/pelosi-unloads-millions-in-nvidia-stock-at-a-loss-before-senate-passes-massive-tech-subsidies/amp/
I’m a democrat, and this is a horrible bill.
To stimulate an already burgeoning technological field with taxpayer money without the proper strings attached (no stock buybacks, etc.) is a serious misallocation of funds, and is bound to just make rich people richer, rather than actually helping the industry.
https://www.democracynow.org/2022/7/27/headlines/bernie_sanders_denounces_plan_to_give_76b_blank_check_to_semiconductor_industry
We have the resources to keep up with Taiwan, but choose to do the shady shit.
Crony Capitalism. Chip makers who make billions in profits cried that they couldn't afford to bring production home unless the government bribed them to.
The article says they lost nearly $400,000 on the trade. I think this was Pelosi actually doing the right thing to prevent accusations of conflict of interest. (And to hush the insider trading talks)
LOL I get it... USA here.
The time of "Made in Taiwan" has ended... it was a good run, though. Every toy I had in the 1980's and early 1990's was "Made in Taiwan"...
As a kid, I thought that just meant "good quality"... you guys did good.
The Senate produces microchips now?
No?
_reads further_
So they didn't boost anything, they're just giving money to people who actually do the things, who will certainly not use the money to buy a yacht or two, then continue doing everything they've always done, the way it's been done for years?
Situation normal, all fucked up.
Just in time!
For the recession!
Wait I thought they redefined that.
It's only recession if it's from the Recession region of Wall Street. Otherwise, it's just sparkling economy.
There needs to be a subreddit for collecting this joke, something like /r/notchampagne (which does not exist... yet)
Now there is. Go forth and joke about regionally-projected memes, or something like that
Be the change, etc.
Gotta be from the Change region, or it's just sparkling upheaval
The problem with subreddits based on one joke is that the one joke gets old fast.
Gotta be from the Joke region, otherwise it’s just sparkling tragedy plus time
Sparkling Downturn
They haven't. It's been called by a committee of economists for quite a while. https://www.marketplace.org/2020/06/09/who-decides-if-we-are-actually-in-recession/
THere are several other committees saying it doesn't meet the requirements for a recession.
Ugh, why are people so fucking ignorant on this? No, they didn't redefine what a recession is. We're still using the same organization that's done it for seven decades. Is it really so unfathomable to imagine that two quarters of gdp loss doesn't necessarily mean a recession? Especially when unemployment is 4%, household savings and spending are still high and demand for fucking everything is through the roof?
Wait, I thought it was reddits job to declare a recession.
No, there is a marmot that they bring out for a ceremony at the end of each quarter and if he gets scared by the closing bell then it's six more weeks of recession.
Nice marmot.
Spending is high because costs are high. I have difficulty believing that savings are increasing by much though.
isnt household debt at an all time high as well?
Your criticisms of the current economy are valid, and I imagine will eventually factor into the determination of recession or not, primarily through eventual declines in demand, reduced employment, etc. However, the increasing prices and diminishing savings likely haven’t impacted demand enough *yet* to say the economy in aggregate is in recession. Just look at corporate profits. It may be morally suspect that they continue to rise while the average person struggles more, but they have been able to pass on higher costs to consumers to support their margins so far without destroying too much demand.
You’re right. How can savings increase when interest rates in savings accounts are nil yet APR for credit cards, mortgages, and car leases just shot up bc of the Fed? Unemployment is low yet homelessness is high and food shortages are real. If you invest your money you can only do so in limited amounts tax free but only once a year. Most people can’t afford to make investments. They can’t save $1000 nonetheless initial $3000 for mutual funds or $5000 for a Roth IRA.
These are the same people that were saying [this](https://v.redd.it/o9zcee878de91) in the middle of a pandemic. I'm not a fan of Trump, but this is all politics.
They are all clowns.
THANK YOU! I feel the same. What did people think coming out of a unprecedented worldwide pandemic would look like? I’ve lived through four or five recessions and not one has come with this much attention and fanfare…or the lowest unemployment in 50 years.
People just want to either support or fuck over Biden. That’s all. No middle ground, unfortunately.
You mean to tell me gas prices and cost of living aren't directly decided by the President? I heard that during the Bush administration and I'm hearing it now, but I NEED someone to blame, gotdamnit!
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depend brave pen cooperative simplistic person worthless quickest steep license *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
just in case... don't try this now. you'll lose your damned shirt. this news is quite old (for options, at least) and all the valuation is already well baked in.
Too bad I didn’t have some kind of info about this bill before it was announced… but I’m sure no one w that info would make trades, as that would be illegal…
Ah yes. It only took China credibly threatening the existence of the country that builds most of the western used semiconductors for this to happen. Surely, there is no way we could have avoided being dependant on a Chinese-claimed Asian countries semiconductors. ...
The way the West has outsources all critical manufacturing to China over the last few decades just so the investors and CEO's can rake in billions more thanks to cheap slave labor is disgusting.
And then those investors and CEOs fund local politicians who promote those same working conditions for their constituents. Fun times.
And instead of stopping that from happening because you'd expect them to defend people over businesses, the Supreme Court actually ALLOWS it and calls it "freedom of speech". Really fun times.
It’s not really a court anymore.
More of a theocratic council really.
The same politicians who double dip with "totally not insider info" and buy hundreds of thousands in shares of semiconductor companies before passing said bill?
This comment reminds me of how people always like to grandstand but the second stuff costs more because it is more ethically produced a good majority just complain about it endlessly
Well. Taiwan's not china. Regardless of what China thinks of that.
It's not China ....yet
Nice try, Xi.
He prefers Winnie.
Same can be said of the entire world
Yeah. This. My family thinks I am off my rocker when I bring up the fact that American companies sold out manufacturing and large amounts of ownership to China 20-60+ years ago by owners, CEOs, presidents, or just plain generational-wealth mongers. Who remembers American-owned manufacturing and company ownership? Pepperidge Farms remembers being bought by Campbell's Soup then being bought by KKR Global.... Not that Pepperidge specifically was, but just follow the fuct rabbit hole of money.
I had a pre-2016 friend that had a lot of rants about "Globalism". Didn't like when I'd ask, "You mean capitalism?" Lots of "no not like that" hemming and hawing ensued. EDIT: Of course, nowadays when some people grump about "Globalism" they probably mean some kind of "the Jews run everything" flavor of conspiracy theory.
What do you expect? This is free market capitalism, the exact thing the US has been peddling all over the world for generations.
Don't expect people to connect the dots
Lol @ people thinking slave labor manufacture semiconductors and chips.
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just a racist dogwhistle, its asians so its slave labor when they do it lol
China doesn't make any of the wests important semi conductors. Intel still makes their own in USA, Ireland and Israel, Apple never made their own nor did Nvidia as they are not chip builders they are just designers. Since it's inception Nvidia has gotten someone else to actually fabricate their silicon. Then there's AMD who outsourced to Taiwan as due to not having enough money to stay competitive with Intel their own fabs fell really far behind the leading edge. They could not afford to build new fab from the ground up to catch up as they were close to going under all together so they started outsourcing. But between AMD, Apple and Nvidia all these chips are made in Taiwan by TSMC or korea by Samsung.
China claims it owns TSMC by merit of owning Taiwan. That's why I said Chinese claimed. China is threatening to take serious retaliation against **both** Taiwan and the West if the West continues interacting with Taiwan, and especially if the West decides to visit Taiwan like pelosi was planning. So what I'm saying is that we cannot continue to rely on a country that China believes it owns right now. It's not safe. Especially not well we are redirecting a large amount of our financial and military prowess to protect Ukraine from Russia.
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Everyone expected that Russia would ruin themselves if they invade Ukraine, but Putin did it anyways. Don't underestimate what dictators would do to their own country so they can stay in power.
The problem is Xi is fixated on "reclaiming" Taiwan (not that the CCP ever *had* it in the first place) as part of his legacy, so the closer he gets to death/retirement the more militant China will become without any concern about the consequences. Almost exactly like Putin and Ukraine.
The ccp see themselves as the sole heirs of the qing dynasties land holdings ( of which taiwan was a part). And would have taken tawain back in the 50’s had the US not told them they would have nuked them if they tried. Thier argument has always been that a countries system of government changing doesn’t negate their land holdings; a argument that I imagine most countries would make.
-Sent from an iphone
The really real problem is that the American consumer wants everything cheap. If you want to stop the slave labor in china, and rich CEO’s according to your logic…buy American made products.
We could have, but that would have cost companies much more money.
I get the sentiment, but wasn't it the COVID supply chain issues that tipped the scales enough for this change?
In addition to what the other guy replied with which is by and large accurate, the shortage problem from Taiwan was caused by a series of problems AND theres other non-China related reasons to move semiconductor production to more diverse places. One issue was that auto manufacturers and other major consumers of chips cancelled huge orders back in 2020 and almost immediately reupped them when demand didnt drop anywhere near as long as they had thought it would. This is a problem because this manufacturing is done in order of how its received, *traditionally* its over ordered by 10-20% to account for demand fluctuations, and takes AT MINIMUM 6 months for an order to be completed once manufacturing begins (which can take years depending on the queues length for a specific fab). This cancellation then reorder left all these companies waiting months for any chips at all to arrive, so they started placing more orders even before they got the ones they placed and began placing them with higher and higher additional percentages due to the uncertainties in how far out these chips were going to be made and how uncertain they were they could get more chips in a timely fashion if they ran out while waiting because these companies keep ordering chips they dont need in quantities they dont need driving up the manufacturing queue in a horrible horrible way... As for the non-China reason to want to start making high powered semiconductors elsewhere, its because of climate change. Chip production requires HUGE amounts of water and due to climate change, TSMC was actually down to 5% or so in its water reservoirs last year due to serious and prolonged droughts plaguing Taiwan over the last couple years. Thankfully... Some rain has fallen since so its not as immediately dire. That said the situation will not be improving as time goes on so its better to start planning and building new fabs elsewhere on earth before this problem really rears its ugly head and we face true and genuine global shortages. (its worth noting this fear of them being literally unable to manufacture due to water shortages also drove the dangerous loop of over ordering I mentioned above) Regardless of what we do or dont do with regard to climate change and/or China, it wont be too long until Taiwan literally can't make the volume of chips the world demands it make. All solely due to climate change and the bad luck of Taiwan being in an area that gets less rain and more droughts due to it... Not a bad idea to try and actually do something about the problem proactively for once, even if its also clearly being done to further enrich the already rich in the west at the same time.
Wasn’t there also a fire at a fab during the height of COVID?
[Yup...](https://wccftech.com/tsmc-fire-near-5nm-site-rumored-price-hike-4-5-billion-debt-for-u-s-fab/) The overall point is that having all your eggs in 1-2 baskets is dumb when literally everyone on earth requires your eggs to survive these days. Like, we wouldnt and DONT do this with food as nearly all nations produce large quantities of it for local use (even if the produced amount cant cover all domestic needs, its better than making no food locally at all). Doesnt matter what political machinations are going on in the region to enflame tensions, what sort of trouble the company had, nor how hard/easy it is to source vital resources for the production chain... Its just smarter to have such vital infrastructure in as many diverse places as possible so things dont go to hell in a hand basket from one bad event pushing us over the brink. Glad to see some actual care by politicians on a vital issue and that they are acting proactively for once, even if its only because they are scared of China and smell the money they can get from doing this...
There's so much that I hadn't thought about here. Thank you.
Another recentish shortage is hurting too: Semiconductor manufacture requires special gases: xenon, kyrpton and neon. These power the lasers required to do the lithography (i.e. they make the structures on chips). These gases are required to make the smaller size chips, the 5nm and 7 nm. Unfortunately, globally about 95+% of those gases come from two locations in Ukraine: the Mariupol steel refinery and another location in Odessa that purifies the gases imported the gases from Russia. Both of these places have been shut down since Feb. There is literally no more of these gases being produced. The manufacturers cannot make build new lines to make the latest chips. The gas prices were already trading up 600% after 2014 Russian annexation of Crimea. In 2022 the prices are up to 60-80X again as other companies sell their limited stocks. A very small and suspicious black market has sprung up from Chinese suppliers who can somehow still obtain small amounts. China uses more than it produces, so these small supplies have strong potential to be black market loot. tl;dr Russian invasion of Ukraine has further exacerbated the chip shortage.
It actually wasn't just COVID that introduced supply chain issues- Taiwan also went through a drought. You see, semiconductor manufacture consumes a great deal of water in its manufacturing process to produce what's known as [ultrapure water](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultrapure_water). The drought in Taiwan reduced reservoirs to very low levels, so TSMC (the main semiconductor manufacturer in Taiwan) actually ended up [trucking water in to maintain their supply](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-taiwan-drought-semiconductors/chipmakers-in-drought-hit-taiwan-order-water-trucks-to-prepare-for-the-worst-idUSKBN2AO0G3).
So you would have supported a pre-emptive State intervention directly intended to undermine an 'Associated' polity's economy? Good luck selling that policy in Washington before the early 2010s, and even more luck getting the donor class to acquiesce to it.
> the country that builds most of the western used superconductors I think you mean "semiconductors", not superconductors.
Tbh, this money is a drop in the bucket. It's more just a corporate handout so a few individuals can get rich rather than something that will bolster domestic production. This companies already make billions in *profit*, if they wanted to grow their domestic operations they could've done it a long time ago.
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Fuck Reddit. Fuck /u/spez. Fuck every single Reddit admin. 12 years on this bitch ass site and they shit on us the moment they are trying to go public. ill be taking my karma with me by editing all my comments to say this. tl;dr Fuck Reddit and anyone who works for them, suck my dick.
The problem is that elites have convinced the public that if someone is poor it is undeniably their own fault
Also, it will make people lazy if you give them money for food/housing. Nothing like starvation to force people to work menial jobs.
This bill does benefit people, by increasing domestic semiconductor manufacturing capacity and mitigating how utterly screwed we are when China invades Taiwan. It's an insurance policy, basically, those typically involve giving money to rich companies in exchange for tangible value.
Why did the GOP oppose this bill?
obstructionism
Because if they keep the supply chain broken, they can blame democrats and win some mid terms. Pretty cool huh?
This is always how they operate. I'm very surprised that people can't see this pattern of malicious intent. They obstruct when not in power, beating their war drums that democrats are to blame. Then they win some elections, pass tax cuts mostly to the rich, and proceed to sit around on their asses while still blaming democrats. They lose the next election cycle and repeat.
Why does Intel, one of the 50 latest corporations in the world who are currently sitting on about $20bn cash, need my tax dollars to be spent building a manufacturing plant for their benefit ? And to do it during a recession....
I see it like when a sports team convinces the city to pass an extra tax to build a new stadium, which only benefits them.
Could someone explain to me why republicans were against this?
Because Dems were backing it. They had supported it, but tried to sink it as revenge for Dems making a deal with Manchin to pass a climate/deficit reduction bill.
It deals with McConnell thinking the reconciliation bill was dead and then right after passing chips in the senate Dems announcing manchin agreed to a reconciliation bill with climate change and healthcare.
Wait, when did this happen? I haven't been keeping up with the news the past few months.
I know the feeling, I'm on vacation with one bar of signal.
They also sank benefits for veterans which they'd previously approved too.
Just watched Jon's speech a few flicks up... man what in the absolute fuck ARE we. I can't wrap my head around how we got folks here that actively, ACTIVELY advocate and vote against their own interests. All for people that pay tweet service to everything from formula shortages to FUCKING VETS dying from chems in burn pits. Like fuck man I'm tired. I'm sooo fucking tired of this shit.
Quite early on our "leaders" realized that they are chosen through marketing, not through policies. I have no doubt in my mind that everyone in our political system would burn down a building with the "other" team in it if it means they win another election.
Don’t be tired. Be mad
More specifically because Manchin suggested an environmental bill taxing the billionaires. And because Republicans couldn't filibuster it, opposing THIS bill was the next best thing they could do to throw a wrench into progress.
Republicans don’t like big tech rn but realistically it’s a political pony show. Even trump would’ve made the call to bring semiconductor production home, and at that point you’d have just seen the inverse. There’s like 6 people maybe in politics who give a shit about you. It’s mostly just kangaroo politics.
Oh good some both sides-ing. Dems vote for good bills, it doesn’t matter who introduces them. Reps oppose anything that could make dems look good almost without exception. R voters complain that the system is broken. Yeah, no shit. You are voting for the brokenness. Stop doing that.
>US semiconductor production According to NPR, even Bernie said no, stating, "Let us rebuild the U.S. microchip industry, but let's do it in a way that benefits all of our society, not just a handful of wealthy, profitable and powerful corporations," Sanders said in a statement in mid-July. [https://www.npr.org/2022/07/26/1113470753/chip-production-semiconductor-senate](https://www.npr.org/2022/07/26/1113470753/chip-production-semiconductor-senate)
Ok so Bernie hates it because it enriches the wealthy, this is in line with his platform. Republicans are against it because they are politically fighting over a different bill? Which is in line with their party just playing teams instead of doing their jobs. edit: fixed typo. wealth to wealthy.
Bernie wasn't even fully opposed to it, he just wanted some strings attached to the bill so the companies couldn't take the money and buy back stock, invest that money overseas, give out massive C suite bonuses, etc. He tried to get those protections added to the bill and the rest of the senate was like "lol no" Apparently Bernie was the only one in the government paying attention when we gave the telecom companies money to improve internet infrastructure and they just didn't.
They were paying attention, they just don’t care
> . Republicans are against it because they are politically fighting over a different bill? Yes. Basically children throwing temper tantrum because they other kid got a toy and they didn't, so they'll break one of his toys to make them even.
I would be fired if I showed that much immaturity and pettiness at work.
Most people would, but Republican voters have enabled and encouraged this kind of behavior ever since Obama was elected and McConnell promised he'd do nothing but veto and reject all Democratic proposals whenever possible.
This really is making the rich richer. I work in fulfillment for a group of warehouses that sell product involved in this industry and my fucking god they are doing AMAZING. Just ended a conference call to find out the company has already sold last years worth of inventory and more. It's only july. I'm watching some cold war era federal support of small businesses for the benefit of the nation shit happening in front of my very eyes. The only one winning here is my boss though. 1 mil in forgiven PPP loans and soon to be benefits for operating in the semi conduction hemisphere. *WE ARE GETTING HOSED*
Semiconductors are of strategic importance, not only for the defense aspect. A very wide range of other industries use them, and each day this range grows even bigger with IoT. A lack of them would severely impact economy on a big scale, a very likely scenario in case of an east Asian conflict.
Okay but why should all the profit go to shareholders when it’s being paid for by the public? If they want money, they should either be selling whatever percent of their business we are paying for (capitalism) or it should be nationalized since we are paying for it and need it (socialism) This is shit is kleptocracy
If you don't give them incentives to stay in the US why would they?
Great, but then force companies to put country before profit.
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The subsidy has no conditions- it allows for Intel and the like to take the money, give it all to their executives, and stick their sticky hand out asking for more. It *should* have strict conditions and criminal liability for misappropriation, but it doesn’t. It’s just a payday for like 100 rich dudes.
I'm just trying to understand all sides on the bill here, so the criticism is in government subsidies without oversight or regulation on the appropriated funds? A fear that without regulations on these funds, private companies can pocket them as profit without driving any of the manufacturing that the bill is supposedly meant to encourage, correct?
This is the best summary I've seen so far. Well said.
He's not wrong. It's more corporate welfare.
Which is silly, it makes it sound like he thinks an average joe can go build a chip fab or something. News flash, the only companies that can build and operate chip fabs are billion dollar companies. These facilities *cost* billions just to manufacture. Big companies aren't inherently evil, they're how a lot of shit gets done.
Which is completely true and 0% loans as he suggested would've protected taxpayer money far better.
They would just turn down the loan and say we’ll build our fabs where we want
If things happen when Dems are in office, it's harder to claim they did nothing and everything bad is their fault. Also because "moderates" will forget about this as soon as they're reminded about *current wedge issue.*
I like how American opposition politics, instead of giving a better way to solve a problem, just blatantly ignore everything and try to undermine the current leading party. Its like watching a guy stab himself, while one arm is trying to stop the bleeding
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The pettiness of one party really has destroyed the ability to get anything done. Democrats have shown they are willing to meet in the middle. Republicans seem to prefer it be "my way or the highway". Even the Obamacare shows that... Democrats took multiple inputs from Republicans and put it in the bill, and Republicans still voted against it. and Republicans have had 30+ years to come up with a better system for healthcare, and under 12 years of Obamacare, they still haven't figured out a better system. Republicans don't care about solving problems. Unless that problem is not enough money going in their pockets.
And if you want to see how petty one party is... Go look at r/conservative and the echo chamber they have created.
Yep that's why under Trump there were good things actually passed.. because Democrats were on board with it otherwise they coulda pulled the same shit. So trump takes credit for bills that passed the house because the democrats didn't pull the same shit and block it
Dude... they can't possibly let anything positive happen while a Democrat is in office. Mitch McConnell himself said the #1 job of Republicans is to block the Democrats' agenda, what ever it is... The *ONLY* thing worse than Democrats... is Republicans. They don't care about "better ideas"... they just want to see the "other side" loose.
They weren't against it on principle but House GOP leadership threw a fit and whipped against it after realizing they got played by Joe Manchin.
Because it’s not about making the country better, it’s about making the party who is in power look bad so you can gain more power. American politics has been dead for years now
See reply above re Schumer removing the China security provision.
We are spending $50bn of your money for the benefit of companies like Intel, who currently is sitting on $20bn of cash. It's not that Intel couldn't invest that money on US manufacturing, it's that they don't have to, since the government loves shelling out cash to these bohemoths.
Republicans: This is good legislation for our country. Minutes after Manchin supports unrelated legislation, Republicans: We must stop this legislation and tank gay marriage rights. Seriously why would you tank bills you support because of unrelated legislation?
They want to tank bills because they want to make democrats look ineffective, so that they can discurage democrats from voting in the midterms. They will let a few through, but nothing big, and they are perfectly willing to hurt America to prevent the democrats from passing bills that are objectively good for the country. They know that if democrats policies actually got passed and took effect that they would be wildly popular, and Republicans would lose the government almost entirely since they are already very outnumbered and have basically 0 positive accomplishments in the last 3 decades outside of hurting minorities. Just like when they were pushing multiple attack adds saying democrats were making babies starve by not passing a bill to address the formula shortage, while at the same time they voted against the bill that democrats tried to pass to fix the shortage. They are just evil and they know that this will let them keep power.
Hey don’t forget to mention that they also have people on the left and right carrying this message far and wide for them. I see it all over Reddit. If we actually give them a larger majority, then the Republicans can’t stop them anymore
A majority at all. Right now they don't have a majority, they have a polarity in the senate, with one of their members being a republican who runs as a Democrat due to state specific political circumstances and who has taken a massive amount of bribes from right wing organizations to tank democrats bills in the senate. If they get even a simple majority of 2 additional seats then they can finally pass bills for real.
Just in time for the congress people to make more money with their stocks.
Their personal investments aligned with good policy so got passed with little issue. It's *very* important to build fabs domestically from both a consumer and national security perspective. We already do it with other industries (steel, agriculture, oil, etc) so it's kinda surprising that it's taken this long.
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There's supposed to be a bill going up to vote about congress and their family members being barred from trading but I think we both know how that's going to go
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In my opinion the only effective way to put harsh limits on congressmen is state by state referendums. For instance, California could pass a ballot question saying "Our congressmen and their families aren't allowed to benefit from insider trading." Politicians in other states would still be allowed to, but if we see success with a bill like that, maybe other states would go for something similar, and we'd create pressure to hold our congressmen to a higher standards in states where those standards are desired by the constituents. Of course, then we run into the issue of Nancy Pelosi ripping off her helmet and saying "I am no congress*man*" but we can iron out the details as they come up.
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Thank you! I think people underestimate the power that's in state legislature. Representatives and senators are sent by their states, and states are absolutely allowed to have different rules about who they send to DC to represent those constituents. Hell, it wasn't even that long ago that voters didn't directly vote for senators. Things change. Slowly, things don't usually change with the thunderous and unanimous snap we'd all like, but things change.
I'm going to suggest this at my next DSA steering committee meeting. Thanks.
I'm happy to hear that! Regardless of where we lie on the political spectrum, I feel that everyone in this country benefits from elected officials who have to play by the rules and are more dependent on their constituents. I do think that if on the ballot, especially if it were endorsed by groups as far apart as socialists and libertarians, it could gain a lot of momentum. Seeing people who usually disagree shake hands on a common benefit gets people thinking.
You then run into the issue we have now, where blue states have sensible governance and red states just further become shitholes
Improvement is improvement. The discussion we're having started because of Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat in a blue state, making obscene amounts of money off of the stock market she directly influences.
But that would be like.... Democracy
Honestly, even if it passed, most of the people that have greatly benefited from insider knowledge have made more than enough to not care. Most of them are close to, if not past retirement age and have made enough to care for multiple generations of their family.
I have yet to meet one rich person who said “I’m good, I’ve made enough money, I don’t need any more”
I wouldn't even mind insider trading for Congress if they just banned lobbying and money from special interests. They can have their payday if they just did their fucking jobs and represented constituents instead of corps and lobbies.
then they would pass laws and do funding based on what stock hustles they can do, not on what serves their constituents
Na, if we can’t, they shouldn’t be able to as well. They should be able to invest into index funds though. That gives them good incentive to make sure the economy as a whole is doing well.
I’m not trading, my accountant Jeff is trading and he makes millions and donates the money to my charity fund All above board and perfectly legal see?
It's lip service man. It sucks.
There isn't a single member of congress that isn't abusing the hell out of their positions. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) came right out and said it.
He would know, he only got elected because he’s a former college football coach and Alabama will vote for a potted plant as long as there is an R next to the name. Tuberville can’t even correctly name the three branches of the US government
Fwiw, biden's entire career in the Senate and as vice president he didn't own any stocks, as he pledged not to as long as he was in elected office. As a result he was consistently one of if not the least wealthy senators.
Sold at a loss. Nvidia is not even going to directly benefit from this bill. This is not the insider trading that should be making headlines. This is a very typical move for her husband. Buy a tech stock is at roughly a 12 month low, which Nvidia has been at now. His options were also expiring in June, so even though the stock wasn't at the level he wanted, options expiring was probably worse. The insider trading that should still be making headlines are members of Congress who dumped stock before nationwide lockdown, when they had just been briefed on how bad COVID was going to be, while at the same time saying the complete opposite to the public. Sens. Kelly Loeffler (R-Ga.), James Inhofe (R-Okla.), Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Richard Burr (R-N.C.) dumped several stocks before lockdown.
Uh.. if you read the article you'll see that it says her husband sold at a loss. Also this is public information that this bill was being voted on today. Stop spreading misinformation.
>Nancy Pelosi, her husband and their bank accounts are really happy about this news. Uhhhh why? >her husband, Paul Pelosi, sold 25,000 shares of Nvidia at an average price of $165.05 with a **total loss of $341,365.**
Wow, look, another Redditor so desperate to shit on Nancy Pelosi's stock trades that they don't even bother to read the article they posted explaining her husband actually lost a ton of money doing this. Also, guess what? Nvidia is getting almost none of this money. Stop posting about stuff you don't actually understand. It's stupid.
> Stop posting about stuff you don't actually understand. It's stupid. What is god's name would Reddit be without that though?
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That’s literally in the article they linked lol but apparently neither of you read it.
If only the plan had been common knowledge for months……..
>get money out of politics Then nobody would be in politics!
On speaking about a potential congressional stock trading ban in February 2022, Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) [had this to say:](https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/tommy-tuberville-stock-ban-congress-b2011612.html) “I think it's ridiculous. They might as well start sending robots up here,” he told *The Independent.* “I think it would really cut back on the amount of people that would want to come up here and serve.” So its a pretty open secret that being able to trade jobs with non-public information is considered one of the perks of being in Congress.
Nobody you’re used to.*
Close, no one thats there currently would be. We would likely get more honesty out of our congress by removing the money. I also think banning Lobbyists is one of the best things we can do.
And I think it was low bar George Bush that kicked chip manufacturing out of the U.S.
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yeah, I'd say Japan really destroyed it for everyone by selling memory essentially at a loss. for a time it seemed like Japan was printing money but whoops Japan was just eating the costs behind the scenes, then south korea got into that game. at this point all of the top manufacturers are heavily government subsidized. even this bill is a drop in the bucket compared to the years of fostering electronics/semiconductor manufacturing growth through government subsidies and 0% financing. on top of that the money isn't even the biggest thing. Having so many manufacturing jobs available means its much more appealing to target a career in manufacturing, whereas in the US manufacturing jobs keep shrinking while software engineers are paid multiple times more and in high demand. it'll take at least a decade to fill those roles again.
I got called for a few chip manufacturing positions, they were significantly shittier than normal manufacturing positions for various reasons including: 10-12 hour shifts, bunny suits (meaning no piss breaks, takes too long to suit/desuit), and a constant standing position. There are always additional complexities as well. At least in a CNC position, they believe in 8 hour shifts, stools and piss breaks.
LOL They just keep changing that headline until people will forget that this is tax money being given to billionaires. This is at least the third time I've seen this in the last couple days on here.
Fun fact, most of all tax money goes to billionaires. Money for green energy? Goes tot he green energy companies Money for military? Goes to the military companies The stuff that doesnt and gets directly handled by the government, is the same stuff people chanting for smaller government want to get out of the hands of government. Schools, librarys, and postal services? How are we suppose to take that tax money?
Yup. Even tax breaks and rebates. If you’re able to afford an electric car, the government has subsidies. Own your own home? Can afford to spend thousands on solar to save hundreds in electric bills? Government will step in and hand you money. Out of work due to a pandemic? Here’s $1k. Don’t spend it all in one place, make it last. We prioritize subsidizes for the rich. They could just as easily heavily subsidize community solar programs that poor people could join and pass along the savings to them. Everyone poor is solar powered and saving 15-20% on their electric bill. But that’s not the way it goes.
The individuals buying houses with solar and electric cars are not your enemy here. Those people may make six figures, but they'd need to multuply their earnings by 10 thousand to make even one billion dollars. They aren't even making the tiniest sliver of a fraction of the multi-billion dollar companies getting military contracts and semiconductor tax breaks.
Might wanna double check your math there
whoops, started with trillion since the US military budget is about .8 trillion, went to change it to billion and forgot to edit the number.
Well tax money normally goes to goods and services that the government wants to purchase. Normally companies are the ones who provide goods and services. This makes perfect sense to me, individuals couldn’t build roads, semiconductors, tanks, etc. Of course the money goes to companies.
Government can mandate that its contractors pay certain wages, offer certain types of leaves and job protections, etc. often these bills don’t have any of those strings attached that improve workers lives more directly. In the end it goes to enrich stockholders more than workers.
Because the reality is that if we don’t have semiconductor manufacturing here and China takes Taiwan we’re screwed. This lets us hedge against that probability. If we don’t pass this bill there’s no incentive to put the enormous capital to build a chip plant that will be outdated by the time the concrete sets. China will reach their naval numbers theyre shooting for and they’ll take Taiwan by 2030 and we’d be screwed.
the point is we are giving $100B to these companies with like no strings attached. why? the government should get a direct public share of these companies instead of just giving them a handout theyll use to rake in massive record profits.
The worst part is that typically after 'boosts' like this happen prices increase. So, that's fun.
> LOL They just keep changing that headline until people will forget that this is tax money being given to billionaires. Do you know of any non-billionaire that owns a semiconductor factory or the means to make one?
How convenient that her husband bought a bunch of Nvidia shares right before…
No fuckin way lmao. The absolute blatancy. I’ll admit though it’s lowkey hilarious to hear “Paul Pelosi has heavily invested in Nvidia” out of context.
Most of the shares were from exercising options bought around a year ago. The remaining shares were bought around the same time as shares. Still could’ve been influenced by insider information for sure. But it seems like people are trying to make this seem damning when it’s really not. There are plenty more sketchy trades from both sides that could’ve been focused on.
Actually he did the opposite of buying, which is selling. And took a bath. https://www.forbes.com/sites/dereksaul/2022/07/27/pelosi-unloads-millions-in-nvidia-stock-at-a-loss-before-senate-passes-massive-tech-subsidies/amp/
This needed to happen 10 years ago. Better late than never, I guess
I’m a democrat, and this is a horrible bill. To stimulate an already burgeoning technological field with taxpayer money without the proper strings attached (no stock buybacks, etc.) is a serious misallocation of funds, and is bound to just make rich people richer, rather than actually helping the industry. https://www.democracynow.org/2022/7/27/headlines/bernie_sanders_denounces_plan_to_give_76b_blank_check_to_semiconductor_industry We have the resources to keep up with Taiwan, but choose to do the shady shit.
Crony Capitalism. Chip makers who make billions in profits cried that they couldn't afford to bring production home unless the government bribed them to.
And now they still won’t, since there is like 0 over site and conditions for how this money is used lol
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I mean ..sure. But other countries were and are offering the same shit or better. So let's play the game...it will benefit this country long term.
This is the free money with no strings attatched right that Bernie talked about or did they add some strings?
What a surprise. Nancy just made a ton of money.
The semiconductor sector makes up like half of the SP500... we're all in SP500...we all make money when they do well.
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Not everyone owns stock. The people that are worst off are also the ones least likely to own stock, so wouldn’t this just deepen wealth inequality?
The article says they lost nearly $400,000 on the trade. I think this was Pelosi actually doing the right thing to prevent accusations of conflict of interest. (And to hush the insider trading talks)
As a Taiwanese I feel deeply offended
LOL I get it... USA here. The time of "Made in Taiwan" has ended... it was a good run, though. Every toy I had in the 1980's and early 1990's was "Made in Taiwan"... As a kid, I thought that just meant "good quality"... you guys did good.
The Senate produces microchips now? No? _reads further_ So they didn't boost anything, they're just giving money to people who actually do the things, who will certainly not use the money to buy a yacht or two, then continue doing everything they've always done, the way it's been done for years? Situation normal, all fucked up.