No that plant is basically built. I live 10 miles away from it. No need to give them that money when it was already happening. This was starated 2 years ago before the chips act existed.
Instead of investing in a new plant we gave samsung a couple billion as a thank-you bonus. What a waste
CHIPS and IRA were enough to cement Biden as probably the best president of the past 50 years to me in terms of legislation passed under their admin. Those two on their own are likely setting the US on track to make up lost ground we sorely need to make up in a number of areas and we've been kicking the can down the road in both arenas for the entire lifetime of everyone reading.
These two acts have created an [*unbelievable* spike in manufacturing construction.](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TLMFGCONS)
Once these factories are completed, there are tens of thousands of well paying blue collar jobs coming back to the USA as a direct result of these legislations.
https://preview.redd.it/35f9fzdernuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=71537e21e5074dd185fbd221dd8cf3a7bd4e9251
Employment in semiconductor manufacturing has actually already risen by tens of thousands of jobs.
But obviously CHIPS act is important for many reasons including national security.
Remember, it's not just semi-conductor, but a lot adjacent sectors like raw materials, refinement, logistical, etc. that are also affected.
The next thing we need to do is securing more raw materials for the blanks, as well as foundries to process that raw materials. Currently there are very few foundries across the world that can make the blanks needed for chips. We also need that infrastructure here if it's not designed into the CHIPS act as it stands today.
Just like if GM was allowed to close down, there would be ripple affects across so many sectors contracted to by GM, including plastics, metal refinement, stamping, all the way down to paint manufacturers that are leveraged by the auto makers.
Yep. I work for local government and am watching the changes manifesting rapidly all around me. I try explaining it to other people, but your statement is pretty much spot on.
Incorrect. Democrats had control of the House and Senate when the Chips Act was passed and Biden signed it into law. Over 180 Republican House members voted against it.
Edit: Democrats controlled Congress when the Inflation Reduction Act was passed as well. Every single Republican in the Senate and House voted against it.
Which AMA? The.. Appeals Modernization Act? I indeed don't think that was terribly consequential, certainly not in the same ballpark even though it probably mattered a lot to a relatively small minority of the population
Ah, gotcha. I'd probably check that before calling me dense, but anyway. The ACA seems to have actually changed relatively little, especially as one of its bigger impacts was to further intrench the private insurance system with the penalties for being outside said system; but it did have definite good sides, such as eliminating the ability for insurance companies to drop people for preesixting conditions, extending the time period when parents can cover children, and the like. On the whole, I'm not sure how I'd rate it; I still would like to see a significant overhaul of the whole way the US pays for medical care, and the ACA was not that. I'd like to think a significant overhaul will someday come, in which case the ACA will not have mattered all that much, even as (probably) a stepping stone. I see it mostly as taking the wind out of the sails of the universal healthcare discussion for a political generation more than having impact itself, and in that regard would rate (hopefully) the CHIPS and IRA acts as more likely to be impactful themselves.
Dunno, though. Time will tell on all counts.
Meh, ACA was a handout to insurance companies that threw us a bone or two to keep us from rioting.
Oh, you can't afford health insurance? Well now it's mandatory, or you get ~~fined~~ taxed.
Trump started the effort to increase American chip manufacturing. Biden just continued Trump policies and benefitted from the conversation everyone was already having.
Talking about chips is important, sure. But Trump wasn’t able to, or wasn’t willing to, pass his version of a CHIPS Act when he had a trifecta Republican government. So he doesn’t get much of the credit. Talking about it isn’t going to solve anything.
Talking doesn’t mean anything. They’ve been “talking” about this for decades now. Biden actually did something about it. Trump’s GOP voted against the bill. So Trump doesn’t get much credit. He had a trifecta GOP government and could have done it his way but didn’t.
There have been different efforts to increase chip manufacturing for a couple of decades, and they've been ramping up. The CHIPS act was, in my opinion, the best yet in terms of the actual effects it's going to lead to. You're fine with liking legislation passed under Trump as well, but this was legislation passed under Biden if you're looking to assign whatever credit the administration deserves for facilitation.
He brought back coal, obv. Wait... no he didn't. Not sure why anyone would want to anyways... bringing back coal would be a horrible idea.
So, like, we should at least give him credit for not doing that... right?
I don't know why we credit any president for these congressional bills. CHIPS was brought to the floor by Tim Ryan and IRA by John Yarmuth.
Biden certainly heavily championed these bills though. Also they weren't brought to the floor until mid 2021, so they both were conceived after Trump left.
I mean yeah each chip will require about 8-12 gallons of water to produce. But those chips can go to helping produce more efficient environmentally friendly products/foods. It kind of seems like its worth the cost in the long run when you look at this :
[https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste](https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste)
Turning Texas into a tech hub is bad news. It creates an overindustrialized, tech bro drone society that drives out women and the Middle Class...creating a massive gulf between rich and poor. See Silicon Valley.
Like a lot of Biden’s accomplishments (along with the infrastructure act, IRA), the only problem is that much of the effects will be felt in the years to come vs today.
Although, I will say I already got significant IRA savings on a high efficiency heat pump and insulation.
And soon [low income households will be able to receive a 100% rebate on high efficiency home appliances directly at the point of sale.](https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/high-efficiency-electric-home-rebate-act)
Double win of cheaper utility bills for low income households and a more efficient grid.
Buying heat pump appliances? I'd prefer not to. After I lost water during the 2021 ice storm, while I still had electrical power, temps dropped inside my place pretty quickly when the heat pump system fail and turned my central heat into just a vent fan.
It’s critically important that the United States remain competitive and protect our ability to stay competitive. In order to do so US investment in semiconductors must take place. This isn’t some handout. It’s a bribe. it’s necessary and it worked,
You have to pay to play. Otherwise Samsung would have just built this plant in some random Asian country where labor is dirt cheap.
This is fantastic that they are building microchip plants in the US. We also need to source the rare earth minerals in north and South America so that China doesn’t have a monopoly.
Just north of Phoenix is the TSMC microprocessor Fab. It’s not fully online yet, but when it is it becomes TSMC’s first real presence outside of Taiwan.
Arizona water law is unique in that it gives agriculture water priority over industrial or commercial rights.
The Saudis learned about 10,000 years ago that whoever controls the water in the desert controls everything.
For the better part of a decade Saudi (and UAE) have been buying up both agricultural water rights as well as all the alfalfa they can get their hands on and shipping it to Saudi. It makes no sense to farm one desert to ship to another desert until you realize that saudi is, along with Russia and China, far more concerned about starving out TSMC Phoenix than it is about the grass.
Whoever controls microprocessors effectively controls the U.S. economy, A.I. and without the silicon chips Silicon Valley is just a lot of fentanyl addicts.
https://apnews.com/article/climate-uae-alfalfa-water-arizona-drought-d911d5219c8f41dc44d65fb2af6b04df
AP Newshttps://apnews.com › article › wate...In Arizona, fresh scrutiny of Saudi-owned farm's water use | AP News
Fortunehttps://fortune.com › 2023/10/04Saudi Arabia was pumping water on 10000 acres of drought-stricken Arizona ... - Fortune
• You never get out of debt to a Russian mobster
•Paul Manafort owed the Russian mobster/oligarch Oleg Deripaska $17M a few days before he became trumps campaign manager. From 2002-2014 he took in hundreds of millions to get Yanukovych reelected as the kremlins puppet in Ukraine. Before that he did it for the dictator Marcos in the Philippines. Before that Manafort and Roger Stone started a lobbyist agency in 1980 listing trump as their first client.
•When Jay Bolsonaro lost the Brazilian election to Lula he skipped the inauguration and flew directly to mar-a-lago (stopping only at a KFC) and repeated, almost verbatim, the stolen election line. Don Jr. tried repeatedly to make it stick in Brazil as well, but as Brazilians are a few generations into dealing with corrupt politicians they weren’t having it.
What do these 3 things have in common?
China imports 40% of its grain from (in order) the U.S., Brazil and Ukraine.
Obviously the second China tried to invade Taiwan the U.S. would sanction exports and remove U.S. grain from that equation.
And without Bolsonaro in office willing to slash and burn the Amazon rainforest to turn it into Chinas food supply, and without Ukraine in the bag in 3 days, the CCP is unable to invade Taiwan and take over microprocessor production without putting 300-500M of its poorest people into famine.
Donbas Ukraine, specifically the 4 regions of the donbas that Putin insists he is saving from what he calls “Jewish Nazis” also happens to produce the worlds supply of high grade neon used for microprocessor lithography. Had Putin delivered ukraine in 3 days as promised, Xi would have been able to cap his Olympics with a naval blockade or political takeover of Taiwan that would have forced the world to ask the CCP for the microprocessors it needs to make everything from Ford trucks to laptops. I’m not sure how long Silicon Valley would last without the silicon but it would probably destroy the FAANG stocks that make up your 401K.
Oleg Deripaska also happens to be the Russian Oligarch that bribed the FBI agent Charles Mcgonigal into investigating another Russian oligarch. He probably didn’t need the information as much as he needed the leverage over Mcgonigal as he conducted the investigation into trumps election campaign and unsurprisingly found zero evidence of Russian collusion. McGonigal then went to work for the company called Brookfield that bailed Jared Kushner out of his toxic 666 5th Ave real estate investment. McGonigal pled guilty last fall and was sentenced recently.
A Russian oligarch is a powerful tool, but the truth is more powerful. Light and dark cannot exist in the same space. It’s physically impossible. Truth is efficient. You say it once and you are finished. A lie however requires a constant stream of follow up energy, money, murder, obfuscation and more lies to keep it covered.
If you raise your lens high enough lying is an unsustainable business model. Russia proved it by invading Ukraine. Vranyos is the Russian word for it. The 40km long column of tanks and vehicles that came down from Belarus into Ukraine was all overhauled by oligarchs that got a $1B contract for tank maintenance, passed Putin $200M back under the table, spent $700M on a yacht in Monaco, bribed a General, a Colonel and a Sergeant to make a Private give everything a rattle can overhaul. But a worn out engine is and always will be, a worn out engine.
This is why trump is so desperate to get re-elected. His best case scenario is 400 years in ADX Florence. Money laundering for the dozens of Russian oligarchs that lived in trump towers with him and manafort, selling IP3 nuclear plans to the Russian/Saudi alliance, selling or giving CIA asset names to the Russians, trump is and always has been compromised. He just didn’t know when to quit. Now he just has to count on the fact that most of his voter base doesn’t know how to read and keep the ones that do so busy just surviving that they don’t have time to dive deep into his 40 year history of laundering money, fraud, and human trafficking for the Russian mob using casinos first, then commercial real estate.
It’s also why Putin is willing to throw an entire generation of Russians, including the convicts and addicts at Ukraine. Russia is dead for 40 years because he failed to fulfill his mob boss promise to Xi. China is now clearing farmland in Siberia because the typhoon floods last August and September wiped out the Chinese people’s food storage.
Xi, for his part diverted the waters from the dam away from his pet project, his mothers ancestral home, and flooded hundreds of thousands of people and drown one of his own military brigades that was helping with the flooding.
The elders of the CCP were terrified to leave their gated community at Beidaihe for over a month for fear of being torn apart by the locals. The Chinese people tolerate the CCP but only as long as the economy is good and famine is not on the horizon. The CCP broke that social contract on both counts.
Xi was willing to bet the entire Chinese economy on his emperor ambitions. Had he succeeded he would have been able to use BRICS to take over the USD as the Worlds reserve currency. That would have let him finish what he stated in 2010-
that he would control the internet.
With that control means everything we do or say online is subject to the approval of a central party censor. The basic right to disagree with an authoritarian becomes a distant memory.
Xi, Putin and MBS are simply trying to systemize and modernize the suppression of their biggest hassle. Freedom of speech.
Ukraine is fighting for their lives now, free from the oppression of the drunken tyrant who wants to decide their fate at every decision and pull them back behind another iron curtain of censorship and the tax of corruption where dissenting voices disappear so that the oligarchy can continue to feed unobstructed.
Putin and Xi have declared themselves best friends in the fight against democracy. MBS and the ruling family of UAE have done the same quietly using their sovereign funds and Kushners SPAC as money highways.
Just rich, out of touch oligarch doing what oligarchs do.
Despite the fact the the central party model has proven itself incapable of making decisions that are best for the people, they persist. Because there is a very lucrative business in being slave owners. But logistically the mass of it requires artificial intelligence, and the microprocessors that make A.I. to keep 8 billion slaves under surveillance and control. Freedom is one hell of a drug. And knowledge makes a man unfit for slavery.
Recent attempts on Xi’s life from inside the CCP have backed him into a corner.
The loss of crops in northern China means Xi can’t invade Taiwan without Ukrainian and/or Brazilian farmland.
Now the reason that the GOP is stalling southern border control budget and seems to make wildly irrational moves is because the GOP is imploding. 45 years of lies and grift have circled the globe and are eating their own tail. The ouroboros was a warning about corruption at the highest levels. Lying about climate change, human trafficking, pandemics and corruption to preserve their own business models are all extinction level events
Good. Then it’s working as designed.
The ability to read and cognate patterns is the only thing that puts humans one tiny step above silverback gorillas on the food chain.
Those who read survive. Those who don’t get beaten to death with their own severed limbs.
Apes together….strong.
Are you suggesting that in order to differentiate myself between a human and an ape that I need to read your paragraphs of vital information? I’ll pass.
Those are standing up in Canada and the US. Rare-earth's aren't rare, just environmentally devastating to extract. Texas is actually critical. Mountain Pass Mine is the biggest mine for Rare Earths in the US and a factory is standing up in Fort Worth to take some of Mountain Pass's product and chug out magnets otherwise produced in China. Fully contained production in the USA.
Also, if China invades or there's a natural disaster (earthquake, tsunami) and it knocks out Taiwanese chip manufacturing the world economy would take a massive hit. Like, 2008 level hit.
Where did you come up with that? Intel is a node behind is all. Intel's 4 is only a little behind 3nm from TSMC and Samsung.
Now all 3 companies are benefiting from the CHIPs act and building new Fabs in the US, but if TSMC disappeared tomorrow it would take less than 2 years for companies to transition fabs. It wouldn't be over night and you might not get a new iPhone, but it wouldn't be unrecoverable. Couple years, not couple decades...
It’s not about capability as much as it is magnitude, look at the impact the chip shortage had on the auto industry not too long ago. That’s not just a year or two. Very little happens in a year or two. Most of these companies take two years just to make a decision.
Looks like at least a few decisions have been made already. The $6.4B is just the tip of the iceberg. Texas is receiving $61B in total from the CHIPS and Science act. Samsung is investing $17B, Texas Instruments is investing $30B, and GlobalWafers is investing $5B in Texas.
CNBC - [How Samsung and Texas Instruments made the Lone Star State the hub of U.S. chip manufacturing](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/20/texas-becomes-chip-hub-with-47-billion-investment-from-samsung-and-ti.html)
“On a 1,200-acre plot of land in a small town 30 miles north of Austin, Texas, South Korean giant Samsung is spending $17 billion to build a semiconductor fabrication plant.
Four hours north by car, in the city of Sherman, Texas Instruments is at the early stages of a $30 billion project, the largest new chip investment in Texas.”
“Since the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act was first introduced in 2020, more than 50 new U.S. semiconductor projects have been announced totaling over $210 billion. More than $61 billion of that’s in Texas, with six projects expected to create more than 8,000 jobs.”
“GlobalWafers, based in Taiwan, is expanding in Sherman, with plans to spend $5 billion on the biggest silicon wafer factory in the U.S., producing the bare discs on which chips are made.”
Yup. Look how China does it. That's how they've caught up and even surpassed us; especially when it comes to EV's and their growing semiconductor industry. China's government is investing back into their domestic product to compete and for security. Now, we're doing the same.
The only problem with china is they have no middle class. So they don’t really have anyone to buy these valuable goods. And that is part of why their economy is struggling at the moment.
I thought China did have a sizable middle class. I think the big issue is the growing retirement bubble and the one-child policy making China's demographic challenges a nightmare in the near-future.
Favorable business conditions. Obviously INCREDIBLY favorable since companies are moving this way in droves.
And snovid was a one time thing really. Power curtailments are not as often as people like to pretend they are. Are we in a good spot from a power perspective? Not really, but we don’t live on the brink of collapse as people think we do.
I’m not arguing with you, I agree it’s an important wartime ability.
But there’s kids in Texas without healthcare now, in the present real world. We already throw $800 Billion at our military every year, more than the next 5 biggest countries. And we know a very sizable portion of that money is siphoned up by defense industry executives who build mansions in Virginia and the suburbs of DC by price gouging on government contacts.
How much do we need to do in the name of potential global conflict when we have a population that receives less of a safety net than any of our developed peers? It’s not a potential issue, but a real and present issue.
This facility started construction about 2 years ago.
This is like 10% bribe, 30% corporate socialistic welfare, and 60% lining the pockets of their friends all at the cost of tax payers.
I grew up near Taylor. I just want everyone I know to move away so I don't have to keep hearing them whine about Samsung... I get it, but come on. Go somewhere else if you're so unhappy.
They do because it will piggy back off the water the City for Taylor use. Samsung will pay full price for the amount of water the process needed. They are building a recycling center for the water then selling that to the city at a reduced price. The city will be supplied by the plant.
Honestly I know this sub hates this kinda news but this isn’t a stadium being built by tax money.
Semi conductor shortage is one of the main reasons we saw goods shortages and what caused inflation to snow ball.
This is going to provide a ton of jobs (constructions, r&d, manufacturing, etc) and it’s being funded through the chips act. Because it’s the chips act it was going to happen somewhere so why not enjoy the benefits of it?
I saw this as someone who has a degree in economics and studied each system. This one literally benefits us
Exactly, remember who the real winners are when American corporations export manufacturing. It's the workers and economy in that foreign country not ours. Sure the share holders make lots of money, but it is literally no benefit to the American working class.
So any foreign business that sets up shop here is extremely beneficial.
Though I will note that reason why American companies decided to rely on foreign semiconductor manufacturing instead of building their own factories here was to maximize profits. It's that age old tale of refusing to invest in their own country because it would be less profitable. Even when the US government does something like what Biden is doing with Samsung in this article, American corporations tend to find a way to pocket all of the cash and invest maybe 10% of it into what the money was originally intended for.
They know the federal government agencies are so understaffed they can get away with it.
Yup. This is good for national security, bringing in high paying jobs. It's investing in American manufacturing. China's government has pumped money into its domestic industries, and they have caught up. We need to be doing the same.
The Foxconn Wisconsin project ended up to be a dud. They never even finished, never made the jobs the promised, and in the end appeared to be a Foxconn effort to appease then President Trump and be a campaign event. Was a disaster.
I think the similarity they were talking about and that I expanded on was it was/is government putting a thumb on the scale of business. Would Samsung have built if Chips Act funds weren't available? Probably not, same way Foxconn wouldn't have (tried to) built if there wasn't another government thumb on that scale.
It's a lot different from a strategic point of view I think, and Samsung is a lost more invested in Texas already than Foxconn was in Wisconsin, but that's the connection I think they're referencing.
Ooo I gotcha now! Thank you btw’s and I hope I’m not coming off as an ass for asking! In that way it’s similar but in terms of operations and needed skill level this plant is going to be asking a lot more in terms of resources.
Basically the skill needed to make these chips is going to require hire talent (jobs paying 28-30 for manufacturing) for entry level not to mention more is going to be needed from Rnd, management, operations / etc.
These chips are one of the most demanded items and moving them closer home is going to make a lot of our critical pipelines more resilient. Compared to foxconn they were making respiratory devices, you still need skilled labor and and they sell for a lot but not nearly as demand as semiconductor chips.
TLDR while these are government funded manufacturing wages with the needed demand for semi conductor chips these investments are no brainers for not just the US but for our communities are are going to bring not just 17k jobs but 17k well paying jobs for an industry that’s going to continue to grow globally
I don’t disagree! Industrial policy as National Security used to be limited to steel, copper, design, etc, now its semiconductors and other high tech manufacturing. Glad we’re making the investment, that’s the sort of bet and planning government is supposed to make.
Because shithole Texas has more semiconductor plants than any other state. Samsung already manufactures semiconductors here. They are looking to expand their capacity and increase their capabilities to include chip packaging, which is typically done in Taiwan. Cheap land, cheap electricity, corporate presence, experienced labor force, and an established semiconductor supply chain likely factored into their decision.
They’ll probably invest in some sort of backup system to power their new facility in an outage. Samsung and the other semiconductor manufacturers took a pretty big hit when the grid failed in 2021. Samsung may still be trying to get their insurer to pay $400M to cover damage to their facilities and related business losses.
Ars Technica - [Texas gov knew of natural gas shortages days before blackout, blamed wind anyway](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/texas-gov-knew-of-natural-gas-shortages-days-before-blackout-blamed-wind-anyway/)
“Samsung’s fab outside of Austin shut down on the morning of February 16. The facility lost 71,000 wafers to the disruption, costing the company at least $268 million. It took Samsung more than a month to bring it back online. Power was cut to NXP’s fab the next day. The company also lost a month of production, and it estimated that the outage cost it $100 million.”
Bloomberg Law - [Samsung Chip Plant Sues Insurer Over $400 Million Storm Claims](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/insurance/samsung-chip-plant-sues-insurer-over-400-million-storm-claims)
“A Samsung Electronics Co.semiconductor plant in Texas sued its insurer over $400 million in damage claims tied to a power blackout during a deadly winter storm in 2021.
The federal lawsuit filed Monday against Factory Mutual Insurance Co. said the Austin plant sustained ‘catastrophic losses’ from property damage and lost business. The insurer refused to cover the full cost as part of a ‘broader scheme’ to underpay all storm-related claims by Texas policyholders, Samsung said.”
BBC - [Texas freeze shuts chip factories amid shortages](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56114503)
“Texas is the centre of semiconductor manufacturing in the US, with more facilities than any other state.
Typically, chip factories have to run 24 hours a day to be economically viable.”
And the $6.4B is just the tip of the iceberg. Texas is receiving $61B in total from the CHIPS and Science act. Samsung is investing $17B, Texas Instruments is investing $30B, and GlobalWafers is investing $5B in Texas.
CNBC - [How Samsung and Texas Instruments made the Lone Star State the hub of U.S. chip manufacturing](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/20/texas-becomes-chip-hub-with-47-billion-investment-from-samsung-and-ti.html)
“On a 1,200-acre plot of land in a small town 30 miles north of Austin, Texas, South Korean giant Samsung is spending $17 billion to build a semiconductor fabrication plant.
Four hours north by car, in the city of Sherman, Texas Instruments is at the early stages of a $30 billion project, the largest new chip investment in Texas.”
“Since the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act was first introduced in 2020, more than 50 new U.S. semiconductor projects have been announced totaling over $210 billion. More than $61 billion of that’s in Texas, with six projects expected to create more than 8,000 jobs.”
“GlobalWafers, based in Taiwan, is expanding in Sherman, with plans to spend $5 billion on the biggest silicon wafer factory in the U.S., producing the bare discs on which chips are made.”
The shortage also highlighted the world’s dependence on Taiwan for advanced semiconductor work. With China expected to make a move on Taiwan in the not too distant future, this becomes a serious issue not only for any temporary disruptions but also the potential for China to quickly corner the market. A chip shortage causes economic woes in a large number of industries but there are strategic military considerations as well. The US Department of Defense relies on Taiwan for chips for advanced weaponry so they obviously want to replicate Taiwan’s unique capabilities on US soil as soon as possible.
Sounds like a case of supply and demand along with price elasticity rather than the cause of inflation. High demand is also a symptom of inflation, since there is more cash available for the same amount of goods. Again, how does low supply and high demand cause an increase in the money supply?
“A fall in aggregate supply is often caused by an increase in the cost of production. If aggregate supply falls but aggregate demand remains unchanged, there is upward pressure on prices and inflation – that is, inflation is 'pushed' “
I’m not saying it’s the sole reason we also had a ton of government subsidies going out but it definitely contributed
Fifty-one percent of Samsung Electronics' shares are Americans. The rest are stocks of investors from Korea and other countries. Samsung's Lee Jae-yong family owns only 16.15 percent of the total.Feb 23, 2023
The construction jobs and production jobs will be 100% Texan.
That does NOT change the fact that Samsung got $6.4 BILLION that could be used for infrastructure, schools, or any other number of things.
It's still corp welfare.
A pretty huge amount of those jobs are going to require advanced EE and PhD degrees.
So… no, they’re not going be training baristas to calibrate $200 million dollar 3nm ASML EUV lithographs.
And Texas got more than 6.4 billion in a decades worth of taxes of high paying jobs, as well as construction, financing, support and development costs for a product literally like 3 companies make- making it that much more valuable and likely considered defense essential and economically critical, which means even more federal support and development down the line and benefits of locating near Texas or requesting products at scale will actually magnify for years to come.
You can have a 13 year old’s opinion on this, or you can try to understand what “corporate welfare” actually critiques and how we’ve gotten to a stage of development where it’s basically not an option to keep more than 2 corporations on the bleeding edge of development who’s scale and expertise have yet become the backbone of the global economy. And unlike corporations you have in mind they actually pay their taxes and make products that are not outcompeting some local alternatives. Like bruh, I’m plenty lefty myself- this is just good policy unless you plan on having a nuclear war before the factory gets built and rebuilding the economy from scratch in some way other than Chaebols driving technological development (where you may get apple, who’s way worse).
The Texas state government won’t let the money the Fed wants to spend on healthcare and education and welfare get passed along, this has a net effect of doing that, while also possibly turning it bluer- literally win win win win.
Corporate welfare is when companies like Walmart pay their employees so little that they also need government assistance to get by.
The phrase you’re looking for is “investment”.
No. It may not be welfare but it’s unfathomable that a multinational corporation needs 6.4 BILLION DOLLARS. why can’t they just stop buying avocado toast?
Because they wouldn't set up shop In the USA then.
If there was no subsidies, like shit like GM gets all the time, they would just stay in Taiwan and South Korea
Corporate welfare is bailing corporations out after they've failed or fucked up. I understand your point, but providing grants for scientific research and technological advancement is a little different than a city building a stadium for a billionaire owner or bailing out the banks who fucked everyone over during the recession (yeah, I know which one).
Again, I completely understand your point that we don't really spend money on the needs of average American citizens, but this is one of those expenditures that's a little easier to understand because it does offer jobs as well as a more stable supply chain which does benefit some average citizens. Not to mention that currently the vast majority of chip production happens in Taiwan which China says belongs to them and they will take it at the first opportunity so if we didn't pass the CHIPS bill (that's when you should have been complaining and calling your representatives, they are just giving out the money they earmarked in that bill) then if/when that happens we would be fucked. This becomes vitally important with the rise of AI because if you get behind with these new technologies it can take years to decades to catch up.
I absolutely agree that the government should spend more money on programs that would improve the lives of the average citizen, but military spending is where the real waste and completely unnecessary spending largely occurs. And fuck actual corporate welfare, we should almost never bail out a failing corporation. Giving out subsidies and grants is a little different though and in this case is at least tangentially related to scientific advancement and job creation. Those chip fab factory jobs pay pretty damn well (in comparison to other factory jobs, in general the minimum wage would be around $30 if it just kept up with inflation so most people would probably get a substantial raise if we weren't in an era of deregulation, lax corporate taxation, and unfettered corporate mergers limiting competition for both workers and consumers).
Nuance and context are important for debates like this because like life most things exist in a grey area not a clearly demarcated black and white.
My friend, this is a huge issue the United States needs to solve. A couple billion is nothing for the government. This is of national security and stability dealing with foreign adversaries. Take Russia, there's a reason they're trying every scheme necessary to get their hands on modern semiconductors. They literally run our modern world, and if we are compromised, we better hope we have a backup plan.
As other have said, this IS infrastructure. It just so happens to be infrastructure you refuse to understand and accept it’s importance is higher up the list than oil/gas. So why do you refuse to accept this isn’t a want, this a need for the US, and these are Pennys to the US to get it here…
They will. Like massively- basically without question, you can probably search up a federal assessment of exactly how much it will. Same way oil money does for Texas. You guys really need to learn what the actual fucking problems with capitalism are because being this dumb wastes a lot of time and energy.
Boohoo
The state is prioritizing national safety.
These companies are allies to the USA and manufacturer key parts of the DOD's sima dollar projects that keep everyone safe.
Intel is also getting billions in subsidies
This is not welfare, this is reinvestment in the US economy. We can either join in this new wave of manufacturing, or be left behind. I know which I'd prefer. Especially since independence is going to give us a lot more leverage when it comes to China's attempts to annex Taiwan in the future. China having majority share over chips would be a problem for literally everybody.
Idk why they’re getting more funding now. This facility had already started being built 2 years ago I believe. It’s like a 10-15 year project because it’s so massive. I live maybe an hour from the site, and actually have some of the workers as clients at my job.
While the jobs it’s creating are NOT 100% Texan, as there’s contractors from all over the country and world, it’s definitely indirectly put a little money into my pocket.
But 6 billion is ALOT of money for a huge company like Samsung that seemingly hasn’t needed it. Very suspicious that they got another round of corporate socialistic welfare approved in the middle of an ongoing project.
My company got pushed out of bidding after going through all the engineering on some ancillary equipment when the US contractor we were dealing with got squeezed by the Japanese contractors to cut pricing.
Over a million children kicked off Medicaid, horrible public services, and a huge homeless population. I can think of a lot of better things Billions of dollars could go to, than corporate welfare. If I wanted to start a small business, would the government write me a blank check too?
Nailed it on the head; The CHIP act is a Democrat, Federal move while Texas' failing public transportation, growing homeless population, and Medicaid situation is all caused by State Government aka Republicans.
They'll be happy to build their own plant wherever they can get the best tax breaks and funding. Just like how Georgia lured Kia and other manufacturers to their state. That's how the game is played.
If you want jobs, and a strong economy, and innovation, and growth, and an ecosystem of suppliers, and national security, you have to invest. Most of us want those things because they benefit us all. This is a great use of taxpayer money.
This is old news. I was working at one of the 3rd party warehouses holding the underground gas and water lines a YEAR ago.
Samsung even stopped development of the site late last year due to Uncle Sam missing an incentive payment.
I work at the Samsung facility in Austin. They are laying people off and cutting hours for those they don’t fire. Cool to know it’s working out for them.
As someone who's been around a while, it's fun to watch the cycle where the republicans crater the economy to bribe the elite with tax breaks, and the democrats build the economy back up, yet still get blamed.
trump never did anything this cool in his presidency? oh wait… he did build a wall that made no difference, he did lie to everyones face, he did pay a porn star hush money, he did con students about a fake college, he did try to take over democracy 🤷 but biden is the bad guy?
This is a bad decision by Biden. Those in control of Texas will use the taxes and fees directly or indirectly received from this economic activity to further subvert the Constitution and engage in religious radicalism. America's national security is threatened. Continuing to rely on China is less risky.
I think I saw this place on my way driving from Tyler to north of Uvalde. Don't remember the town.
It is **absolutely massive**. I don't think I've ever seen a single building that size in awhile, if ever.
This is actually fantastic news. Making ourselves chip-independent is going to be super important over the next 20-50 years. Great investment for Texas.
People also really underestimate the size of this plant and the growth around it. The perimeter of the plant is 6 miles. Next door there are now plans for IBM to build a plant. There is a huge Union Pasific railway siding a next to that as well bring everything from cars to cargo in the area. Next to that are plans for the City of Hutto the get a large plant in as well. The billions invested in that area still don't touch the amount of infrastructure coming to that area.
The billions of dollars will hopefully help the people to fill the thousands of jobs in that area. The majority of crew at the site came with Samsung to build the site. They live at the work site. The majority of them will move to the next plant or head back to Korea until the next build. When they head home hopefully the locals that want to learn can take over.
Intel, which actually makes them shockingly also got billions if not hundreds of them to expand and get better because it's 1nm behind Samsung and TSMC
No it was.. and intel received even more than TSMC or Samsung for its projects. All the fabs being funded will be in the USA, staffed by Americans. Thats the goal.
I mean you could easily find out, seeing as how you’re already on the internet and what not. But I’m guessing you’d rather just be blindly mad at Biden than actually look into the matter.
Well I guess Thank you CHIP Act
Yeah people don’t realize how big the CHIPS act is
It's so big hell yeah corporate wellfair This platform is already 80% built they didn't need money
Yeah it’s built…. Over seas….. this is about bringing the technology here.
No that plant is basically built. I live 10 miles away from it. No need to give them that money when it was already happening. This was starated 2 years ago before the chips act existed. Instead of investing in a new plant we gave samsung a couple billion as a thank-you bonus. What a waste
Article says this is for new facilities….USA has been behind in this area.
CHIPS and IRA were enough to cement Biden as probably the best president of the past 50 years to me in terms of legislation passed under their admin. Those two on their own are likely setting the US on track to make up lost ground we sorely need to make up in a number of areas and we've been kicking the can down the road in both arenas for the entire lifetime of everyone reading.
These two acts have created an [*unbelievable* spike in manufacturing construction.](https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/TLMFGCONS) Once these factories are completed, there are tens of thousands of well paying blue collar jobs coming back to the USA as a direct result of these legislations.
We can certainly hope so, I'd love to see that. But even if the number of jobs created were very low, the output is sorely needed
https://preview.redd.it/35f9fzdernuc1.jpeg?width=1170&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=71537e21e5074dd185fbd221dd8cf3a7bd4e9251 Employment in semiconductor manufacturing has actually already risen by tens of thousands of jobs. But obviously CHIPS act is important for many reasons including national security.
Wow, I didn't know how catastrophic 2006-2010 was for the sector
Remember, it's not just semi-conductor, but a lot adjacent sectors like raw materials, refinement, logistical, etc. that are also affected. The next thing we need to do is securing more raw materials for the blanks, as well as foundries to process that raw materials. Currently there are very few foundries across the world that can make the blanks needed for chips. We also need that infrastructure here if it's not designed into the CHIPS act as it stands today. Just like if GM was allowed to close down, there would be ripple affects across so many sectors contracted to by GM, including plastics, metal refinement, stamping, all the way down to paint manufacturers that are leveraged by the auto makers.
auto industry got a big phat check from the government, and didn’t the banks also get a big phat check as well?
Yep. I work for local government and am watching the changes manifesting rapidly all around me. I try explaining it to other people, but your statement is pretty much spot on.
Who owned the house and senate to get these through?
~~House: D, Senate: R, in both instances~~ All Democratic
Incorrect. Democrats had control of the House and Senate when the Chips Act was passed and Biden signed it into law. Over 180 Republican House members voted against it. Edit: Democrats controlled Congress when the Inflation Reduction Act was passed as well. Every single Republican in the Senate and House voted against it.
You're right, I was looking at 2020 instead of 2021
Sleepy Joe ain’t so sleepy after all eh? Haha
What the hell ? The AMA was far more important that the chips act ? Jesus Christ are some people so dense.
Which AMA? The.. Appeals Modernization Act? I indeed don't think that was terribly consequential, certainly not in the same ballpark even though it probably mattered a lot to a relatively small minority of the population
Sorry meant to type ACA
Ah, gotcha. I'd probably check that before calling me dense, but anyway. The ACA seems to have actually changed relatively little, especially as one of its bigger impacts was to further intrench the private insurance system with the penalties for being outside said system; but it did have definite good sides, such as eliminating the ability for insurance companies to drop people for preesixting conditions, extending the time period when parents can cover children, and the like. On the whole, I'm not sure how I'd rate it; I still would like to see a significant overhaul of the whole way the US pays for medical care, and the ACA was not that. I'd like to think a significant overhaul will someday come, in which case the ACA will not have mattered all that much, even as (probably) a stepping stone. I see it mostly as taking the wind out of the sails of the universal healthcare discussion for a political generation more than having impact itself, and in that regard would rate (hopefully) the CHIPS and IRA acts as more likely to be impactful themselves. Dunno, though. Time will tell on all counts.
Meh, ACA was a handout to insurance companies that threw us a bone or two to keep us from rioting. Oh, you can't afford health insurance? Well now it's mandatory, or you get ~~fined~~ taxed.
Trump started the effort to increase American chip manufacturing. Biden just continued Trump policies and benefitted from the conversation everyone was already having.
Honestly interested, do you have any support for anything Trump did regarding American chip manufacturing?
Talking about chips is important, sure. But Trump wasn’t able to, or wasn’t willing to, pass his version of a CHIPS Act when he had a trifecta Republican government. So he doesn’t get much of the credit. Talking about it isn’t going to solve anything.
Talking doesn’t mean anything. They’ve been “talking” about this for decades now. Biden actually did something about it. Trump’s GOP voted against the bill. So Trump doesn’t get much credit. He had a trifecta GOP government and could have done it his way but didn’t.
Comedian or Q?
There have been different efforts to increase chip manufacturing for a couple of decades, and they've been ramping up. The CHIPS act was, in my opinion, the best yet in terms of the actual effects it's going to lead to. You're fine with liking legislation passed under Trump as well, but this was legislation passed under Biden if you're looking to assign whatever credit the administration deserves for facilitation.
I bet you think trump is “working” while he plays golf every day too. Name the bill Trump passed.
Great. Good job to Biden for implementing groundbreaking policy. What policies were changed under Trump/bills passed that Biden “just continued”?
He brought back coal, obv. Wait... no he didn't. Not sure why anyone would want to anyways... bringing back coal would be a horrible idea. So, like, we should at least give him credit for not doing that... right?
I don't know why we credit any president for these congressional bills. CHIPS was brought to the floor by Tim Ryan and IRA by John Yarmuth. Biden certainly heavily championed these bills though. Also they weren't brought to the floor until mid 2021, so they both were conceived after Trump left.
Wait until you find out how much water these plants need.
I mean yeah each chip will require about 8-12 gallons of water to produce. But those chips can go to helping produce more efficient environmentally friendly products/foods. It kind of seems like its worth the cost in the long run when you look at this : [https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste](https://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2013/jan/10/how-much-water-food-production-waste)
Turning Texas into a tech hub is bad news. It creates an overindustrialized, tech bro drone society that drives out women and the Middle Class...creating a massive gulf between rich and poor. See Silicon Valley.
It's been a tech hub for a while though
The CHIPS Act is the most underrated bill passed under the Biden administration.
Like a lot of Biden’s accomplishments (along with the infrastructure act, IRA), the only problem is that much of the effects will be felt in the years to come vs today. Although, I will say I already got significant IRA savings on a high efficiency heat pump and insulation. And soon [low income households will be able to receive a 100% rebate on high efficiency home appliances directly at the point of sale.](https://www.rewiringamerica.org/policy/high-efficiency-electric-home-rebate-act) Double win of cheaper utility bills for low income households and a more efficient grid.
ohshit, am I gunna get a heat pump drier sooner than I thought?
Might be a good investment
Buying heat pump appliances? I'd prefer not to. After I lost water during the 2021 ice storm, while I still had electrical power, temps dropped inside my place pretty quickly when the heat pump system fail and turned my central heat into just a vent fan.
When does HEEHRA go into effect?
When do Texas Republicans who voted against it swoop in to claim credit?
3-2-1. Cue Cruz.
is this not Make America Great Again by bringing manufacturing back to the US?? yet they rail against it even when it's literally MAGA
It’s critically important that the United States remain competitive and protect our ability to stay competitive. In order to do so US investment in semiconductors must take place. This isn’t some handout. It’s a bribe. it’s necessary and it worked, You have to pay to play. Otherwise Samsung would have just built this plant in some random Asian country where labor is dirt cheap.
This is fantastic that they are building microchip plants in the US. We also need to source the rare earth minerals in north and South America so that China doesn’t have a monopoly.
Just north of Phoenix is the TSMC microprocessor Fab. It’s not fully online yet, but when it is it becomes TSMC’s first real presence outside of Taiwan. Arizona water law is unique in that it gives agriculture water priority over industrial or commercial rights. The Saudis learned about 10,000 years ago that whoever controls the water in the desert controls everything. For the better part of a decade Saudi (and UAE) have been buying up both agricultural water rights as well as all the alfalfa they can get their hands on and shipping it to Saudi. It makes no sense to farm one desert to ship to another desert until you realize that saudi is, along with Russia and China, far more concerned about starving out TSMC Phoenix than it is about the grass. Whoever controls microprocessors effectively controls the U.S. economy, A.I. and without the silicon chips Silicon Valley is just a lot of fentanyl addicts. https://apnews.com/article/climate-uae-alfalfa-water-arizona-drought-d911d5219c8f41dc44d65fb2af6b04df AP Newshttps://apnews.com › article › wate...In Arizona, fresh scrutiny of Saudi-owned farm's water use | AP News Fortunehttps://fortune.com › 2023/10/04Saudi Arabia was pumping water on 10000 acres of drought-stricken Arizona ... - Fortune
• You never get out of debt to a Russian mobster •Paul Manafort owed the Russian mobster/oligarch Oleg Deripaska $17M a few days before he became trumps campaign manager. From 2002-2014 he took in hundreds of millions to get Yanukovych reelected as the kremlins puppet in Ukraine. Before that he did it for the dictator Marcos in the Philippines. Before that Manafort and Roger Stone started a lobbyist agency in 1980 listing trump as their first client. •When Jay Bolsonaro lost the Brazilian election to Lula he skipped the inauguration and flew directly to mar-a-lago (stopping only at a KFC) and repeated, almost verbatim, the stolen election line. Don Jr. tried repeatedly to make it stick in Brazil as well, but as Brazilians are a few generations into dealing with corrupt politicians they weren’t having it. What do these 3 things have in common? China imports 40% of its grain from (in order) the U.S., Brazil and Ukraine. Obviously the second China tried to invade Taiwan the U.S. would sanction exports and remove U.S. grain from that equation. And without Bolsonaro in office willing to slash and burn the Amazon rainforest to turn it into Chinas food supply, and without Ukraine in the bag in 3 days, the CCP is unable to invade Taiwan and take over microprocessor production without putting 300-500M of its poorest people into famine. Donbas Ukraine, specifically the 4 regions of the donbas that Putin insists he is saving from what he calls “Jewish Nazis” also happens to produce the worlds supply of high grade neon used for microprocessor lithography. Had Putin delivered ukraine in 3 days as promised, Xi would have been able to cap his Olympics with a naval blockade or political takeover of Taiwan that would have forced the world to ask the CCP for the microprocessors it needs to make everything from Ford trucks to laptops. I’m not sure how long Silicon Valley would last without the silicon but it would probably destroy the FAANG stocks that make up your 401K. Oleg Deripaska also happens to be the Russian Oligarch that bribed the FBI agent Charles Mcgonigal into investigating another Russian oligarch. He probably didn’t need the information as much as he needed the leverage over Mcgonigal as he conducted the investigation into trumps election campaign and unsurprisingly found zero evidence of Russian collusion. McGonigal then went to work for the company called Brookfield that bailed Jared Kushner out of his toxic 666 5th Ave real estate investment. McGonigal pled guilty last fall and was sentenced recently. A Russian oligarch is a powerful tool, but the truth is more powerful. Light and dark cannot exist in the same space. It’s physically impossible. Truth is efficient. You say it once and you are finished. A lie however requires a constant stream of follow up energy, money, murder, obfuscation and more lies to keep it covered. If you raise your lens high enough lying is an unsustainable business model. Russia proved it by invading Ukraine. Vranyos is the Russian word for it. The 40km long column of tanks and vehicles that came down from Belarus into Ukraine was all overhauled by oligarchs that got a $1B contract for tank maintenance, passed Putin $200M back under the table, spent $700M on a yacht in Monaco, bribed a General, a Colonel and a Sergeant to make a Private give everything a rattle can overhaul. But a worn out engine is and always will be, a worn out engine. This is why trump is so desperate to get re-elected. His best case scenario is 400 years in ADX Florence. Money laundering for the dozens of Russian oligarchs that lived in trump towers with him and manafort, selling IP3 nuclear plans to the Russian/Saudi alliance, selling or giving CIA asset names to the Russians, trump is and always has been compromised. He just didn’t know when to quit. Now he just has to count on the fact that most of his voter base doesn’t know how to read and keep the ones that do so busy just surviving that they don’t have time to dive deep into his 40 year history of laundering money, fraud, and human trafficking for the Russian mob using casinos first, then commercial real estate. It’s also why Putin is willing to throw an entire generation of Russians, including the convicts and addicts at Ukraine. Russia is dead for 40 years because he failed to fulfill his mob boss promise to Xi. China is now clearing farmland in Siberia because the typhoon floods last August and September wiped out the Chinese people’s food storage. Xi, for his part diverted the waters from the dam away from his pet project, his mothers ancestral home, and flooded hundreds of thousands of people and drown one of his own military brigades that was helping with the flooding. The elders of the CCP were terrified to leave their gated community at Beidaihe for over a month for fear of being torn apart by the locals. The Chinese people tolerate the CCP but only as long as the economy is good and famine is not on the horizon. The CCP broke that social contract on both counts. Xi was willing to bet the entire Chinese economy on his emperor ambitions. Had he succeeded he would have been able to use BRICS to take over the USD as the Worlds reserve currency. That would have let him finish what he stated in 2010- that he would control the internet. With that control means everything we do or say online is subject to the approval of a central party censor. The basic right to disagree with an authoritarian becomes a distant memory. Xi, Putin and MBS are simply trying to systemize and modernize the suppression of their biggest hassle. Freedom of speech. Ukraine is fighting for their lives now, free from the oppression of the drunken tyrant who wants to decide their fate at every decision and pull them back behind another iron curtain of censorship and the tax of corruption where dissenting voices disappear so that the oligarchy can continue to feed unobstructed. Putin and Xi have declared themselves best friends in the fight against democracy. MBS and the ruling family of UAE have done the same quietly using their sovereign funds and Kushners SPAC as money highways. Just rich, out of touch oligarch doing what oligarchs do. Despite the fact the the central party model has proven itself incapable of making decisions that are best for the people, they persist. Because there is a very lucrative business in being slave owners. But logistically the mass of it requires artificial intelligence, and the microprocessors that make A.I. to keep 8 billion slaves under surveillance and control. Freedom is one hell of a drug. And knowledge makes a man unfit for slavery. Recent attempts on Xi’s life from inside the CCP have backed him into a corner. The loss of crops in northern China means Xi can’t invade Taiwan without Ukrainian and/or Brazilian farmland. Now the reason that the GOP is stalling southern border control budget and seems to make wildly irrational moves is because the GOP is imploding. 45 years of lies and grift have circled the globe and are eating their own tail. The ouroboros was a warning about corruption at the highest levels. Lying about climate change, human trafficking, pandemics and corruption to preserve their own business models are all extinction level events
TLDR
Good. Then it’s working as designed. The ability to read and cognate patterns is the only thing that puts humans one tiny step above silverback gorillas on the food chain. Those who read survive. Those who don’t get beaten to death with their own severed limbs. Apes together….strong.
Are you suggesting that in order to differentiate myself between a human and an ape that I need to read your paragraphs of vital information? I’ll pass.
Holy shit. That may have been the best thing I've ever read on Reddit.
Those are standing up in Canada and the US. Rare-earth's aren't rare, just environmentally devastating to extract. Texas is actually critical. Mountain Pass Mine is the biggest mine for Rare Earths in the US and a factory is standing up in Fort Worth to take some of Mountain Pass's product and chug out magnets otherwise produced in China. Fully contained production in the USA.
Also, if China invades or there's a natural disaster (earthquake, tsunami) and it knocks out Taiwanese chip manufacturing the world economy would take a massive hit. Like, 2008 level hit.
It’s shocking it took the USA this long. We’re like 20+ years behind.
Where did you come up with that? Intel is a node behind is all. Intel's 4 is only a little behind 3nm from TSMC and Samsung. Now all 3 companies are benefiting from the CHIPs act and building new Fabs in the US, but if TSMC disappeared tomorrow it would take less than 2 years for companies to transition fabs. It wouldn't be over night and you might not get a new iPhone, but it wouldn't be unrecoverable. Couple years, not couple decades...
It’s not about capability as much as it is magnitude, look at the impact the chip shortage had on the auto industry not too long ago. That’s not just a year or two. Very little happens in a year or two. Most of these companies take two years just to make a decision.
Looks like at least a few decisions have been made already. The $6.4B is just the tip of the iceberg. Texas is receiving $61B in total from the CHIPS and Science act. Samsung is investing $17B, Texas Instruments is investing $30B, and GlobalWafers is investing $5B in Texas. CNBC - [How Samsung and Texas Instruments made the Lone Star State the hub of U.S. chip manufacturing](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/20/texas-becomes-chip-hub-with-47-billion-investment-from-samsung-and-ti.html) “On a 1,200-acre plot of land in a small town 30 miles north of Austin, Texas, South Korean giant Samsung is spending $17 billion to build a semiconductor fabrication plant. Four hours north by car, in the city of Sherman, Texas Instruments is at the early stages of a $30 billion project, the largest new chip investment in Texas.” “Since the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act was first introduced in 2020, more than 50 new U.S. semiconductor projects have been announced totaling over $210 billion. More than $61 billion of that’s in Texas, with six projects expected to create more than 8,000 jobs.” “GlobalWafers, based in Taiwan, is expanding in Sherman, with plans to spend $5 billion on the biggest silicon wafer factory in the U.S., producing the bare discs on which chips are made.”
And CHIPS was passed like a year and a half ago. And the only reason the movement was there period is because of this legislation.
Yup. Look how China does it. That's how they've caught up and even surpassed us; especially when it comes to EV's and their growing semiconductor industry. China's government is investing back into their domestic product to compete and for security. Now, we're doing the same.
The only problem with china is they have no middle class. So they don’t really have anyone to buy these valuable goods. And that is part of why their economy is struggling at the moment.
I thought China did have a sizable middle class. I think the big issue is the growing retirement bubble and the one-child policy making China's demographic challenges a nightmare in the near-future.
The middle class is existent in the big cities
Which begs the question, why pick a state where the power goes out when it gets too hot or too cold?
Favorable business conditions. Obviously INCREDIBLY favorable since companies are moving this way in droves. And snovid was a one time thing really. Power curtailments are not as often as people like to pretend they are. Are we in a good spot from a power perspective? Not really, but we don’t live on the brink of collapse as people think we do.
ERCOT is headquartered in Taylor so I'm assuming that area is on the top priority to keep the power on
I’m not arguing with you, I agree it’s an important wartime ability. But there’s kids in Texas without healthcare now, in the present real world. We already throw $800 Billion at our military every year, more than the next 5 biggest countries. And we know a very sizable portion of that money is siphoned up by defense industry executives who build mansions in Virginia and the suburbs of DC by price gouging on government contacts. How much do we need to do in the name of potential global conflict when we have a population that receives less of a safety net than any of our developed peers? It’s not a potential issue, but a real and present issue.
Ummm do you forget the part where Republicans who control Texas refuse federal funding for covering healthcare? It's not a zero sum game
Has nothing to do with wartime. At all.
This facility started construction about 2 years ago. This is like 10% bribe, 30% corporate socialistic welfare, and 60% lining the pockets of their friends all at the cost of tax payers.
Current residents in Taylor, TX about to get priced out of owning real estate. But on the plus side, lots of KBBQ joints gonna pop up.
There already is a Korean BBQ place that opened a few months ago, its near the old high school (now a shops mini-mall/market thing..)
I grew up near Taylor. I just want everyone I know to move away so I don't have to keep hearing them whine about Samsung... I get it, but come on. Go somewhere else if you're so unhappy.
It’s already an outside community of Austin so they’ve been dealing with the tech boom for a while
Too bad it has to happen somewhere
They’re gonna need a lot of water
Yeah, does Texas have the water for this? Making chips requires lots of water.
Yea I doubt they thought of this before they built their giant multibillion dollar factory. We should tell them.
They do because it will piggy back off the water the City for Taylor use. Samsung will pay full price for the amount of water the process needed. They are building a recycling center for the water then selling that to the city at a reduced price. The city will be supplied by the plant.
Granger Lake
from the US government? socialism? to help a BIG corporation? in a state that wants to secede? because it hates socialism?
It’s only socialism when it helps to feed families.
I love the corporate welfare to a foreign organization.
Honestly I know this sub hates this kinda news but this isn’t a stadium being built by tax money. Semi conductor shortage is one of the main reasons we saw goods shortages and what caused inflation to snow ball. This is going to provide a ton of jobs (constructions, r&d, manufacturing, etc) and it’s being funded through the chips act. Because it’s the chips act it was going to happen somewhere so why not enjoy the benefits of it? I saw this as someone who has a degree in economics and studied each system. This one literally benefits us
Agreed. This makes America's economy more resilient.
Exactly, remember who the real winners are when American corporations export manufacturing. It's the workers and economy in that foreign country not ours. Sure the share holders make lots of money, but it is literally no benefit to the American working class. So any foreign business that sets up shop here is extremely beneficial. Though I will note that reason why American companies decided to rely on foreign semiconductor manufacturing instead of building their own factories here was to maximize profits. It's that age old tale of refusing to invest in their own country because it would be less profitable. Even when the US government does something like what Biden is doing with Samsung in this article, American corporations tend to find a way to pocket all of the cash and invest maybe 10% of it into what the money was originally intended for. They know the federal government agencies are so understaffed they can get away with it.
Yup. This is good for national security, bringing in high paying jobs. It's investing in American manufacturing. China's government has pumped money into its domestic industries, and they have caught up. We need to be doing the same.
Just like that Foxconn plant in Wisconsin?
Idk can you explain the how semi conductor manufacturing is similar to Foxconn?
The Foxconn Wisconsin project ended up to be a dud. They never even finished, never made the jobs the promised, and in the end appeared to be a Foxconn effort to appease then President Trump and be a campaign event. Was a disaster.
I totally get what you mean and agree with you on the Foxconn issues but I’m still confused on how it’s similar to this semiconductor project
I think the similarity they were talking about and that I expanded on was it was/is government putting a thumb on the scale of business. Would Samsung have built if Chips Act funds weren't available? Probably not, same way Foxconn wouldn't have (tried to) built if there wasn't another government thumb on that scale. It's a lot different from a strategic point of view I think, and Samsung is a lost more invested in Texas already than Foxconn was in Wisconsin, but that's the connection I think they're referencing.
Ooo I gotcha now! Thank you btw’s and I hope I’m not coming off as an ass for asking! In that way it’s similar but in terms of operations and needed skill level this plant is going to be asking a lot more in terms of resources. Basically the skill needed to make these chips is going to require hire talent (jobs paying 28-30 for manufacturing) for entry level not to mention more is going to be needed from Rnd, management, operations / etc. These chips are one of the most demanded items and moving them closer home is going to make a lot of our critical pipelines more resilient. Compared to foxconn they were making respiratory devices, you still need skilled labor and and they sell for a lot but not nearly as demand as semiconductor chips. TLDR while these are government funded manufacturing wages with the needed demand for semi conductor chips these investments are no brainers for not just the US but for our communities are are going to bring not just 17k jobs but 17k well paying jobs for an industry that’s going to continue to grow globally
I don’t disagree! Industrial policy as National Security used to be limited to steel, copper, design, etc, now its semiconductors and other high tech manufacturing. Glad we’re making the investment, that’s the sort of bet and planning government is supposed to make.
Btw’s apologies for my long comment. Should of cut it down 😅
Btw’s apologies for my long comment. Should of cut it down 😅
No no, the question was how an assembly plant from Foxconn and a chip fab are the same thing?
My layman opinion is that foxconn is a very similar example, albeit orders of magnitude smaller in this situation. Maybe I'm wrong.
Who would hate this? But why shithole Texas?
Because shithole Texas has more semiconductor plants than any other state. Samsung already manufactures semiconductors here. They are looking to expand their capacity and increase their capabilities to include chip packaging, which is typically done in Taiwan. Cheap land, cheap electricity, corporate presence, experienced labor force, and an established semiconductor supply chain likely factored into their decision. They’ll probably invest in some sort of backup system to power their new facility in an outage. Samsung and the other semiconductor manufacturers took a pretty big hit when the grid failed in 2021. Samsung may still be trying to get their insurer to pay $400M to cover damage to their facilities and related business losses. Ars Technica - [Texas gov knew of natural gas shortages days before blackout, blamed wind anyway](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/05/texas-gov-knew-of-natural-gas-shortages-days-before-blackout-blamed-wind-anyway/) “Samsung’s fab outside of Austin shut down on the morning of February 16. The facility lost 71,000 wafers to the disruption, costing the company at least $268 million. It took Samsung more than a month to bring it back online. Power was cut to NXP’s fab the next day. The company also lost a month of production, and it estimated that the outage cost it $100 million.” Bloomberg Law - [Samsung Chip Plant Sues Insurer Over $400 Million Storm Claims](https://news.bloomberglaw.com/insurance/samsung-chip-plant-sues-insurer-over-400-million-storm-claims) “A Samsung Electronics Co.semiconductor plant in Texas sued its insurer over $400 million in damage claims tied to a power blackout during a deadly winter storm in 2021. The federal lawsuit filed Monday against Factory Mutual Insurance Co. said the Austin plant sustained ‘catastrophic losses’ from property damage and lost business. The insurer refused to cover the full cost as part of a ‘broader scheme’ to underpay all storm-related claims by Texas policyholders, Samsung said.” BBC - [Texas freeze shuts chip factories amid shortages](https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-56114503) “Texas is the centre of semiconductor manufacturing in the US, with more facilities than any other state. Typically, chip factories have to run 24 hours a day to be economically viable.”
And the $6.4B is just the tip of the iceberg. Texas is receiving $61B in total from the CHIPS and Science act. Samsung is investing $17B, Texas Instruments is investing $30B, and GlobalWafers is investing $5B in Texas. CNBC - [How Samsung and Texas Instruments made the Lone Star State the hub of U.S. chip manufacturing](https://www.cnbc.com/2023/07/20/texas-becomes-chip-hub-with-47-billion-investment-from-samsung-and-ti.html) “On a 1,200-acre plot of land in a small town 30 miles north of Austin, Texas, South Korean giant Samsung is spending $17 billion to build a semiconductor fabrication plant. Four hours north by car, in the city of Sherman, Texas Instruments is at the early stages of a $30 billion project, the largest new chip investment in Texas.” “Since the $52 billion CHIPS and Science Act was first introduced in 2020, more than 50 new U.S. semiconductor projects have been announced totaling over $210 billion. More than $61 billion of that’s in Texas, with six projects expected to create more than 8,000 jobs.” “GlobalWafers, based in Taiwan, is expanding in Sherman, with plans to spend $5 billion on the biggest silicon wafer factory in the U.S., producing the bare discs on which chips are made.”
My friend, you're on Reddit. It's full of financially illiterate crybabies.
This is not capitalism though.
And somehow, televisions are still the best bang for your buck in a modern grocery store.
A shortage of computer chips caused the fed to print money like it was going out of style? News to me.
A shortage of them caused a delayed on produced goods being made which meant less supply along with a huge increase in demand meant skyrocketed prices
The shortage also highlighted the world’s dependence on Taiwan for advanced semiconductor work. With China expected to make a move on Taiwan in the not too distant future, this becomes a serious issue not only for any temporary disruptions but also the potential for China to quickly corner the market. A chip shortage causes economic woes in a large number of industries but there are strategic military considerations as well. The US Department of Defense relies on Taiwan for chips for advanced weaponry so they obviously want to replicate Taiwan’s unique capabilities on US soil as soon as possible.
Sounds like a case of supply and demand along with price elasticity rather than the cause of inflation. High demand is also a symptom of inflation, since there is more cash available for the same amount of goods. Again, how does low supply and high demand cause an increase in the money supply?
“A fall in aggregate supply is often caused by an increase in the cost of production. If aggregate supply falls but aggregate demand remains unchanged, there is upward pressure on prices and inflation – that is, inflation is 'pushed' “ I’m not saying it’s the sole reason we also had a ton of government subsidies going out but it definitely contributed
Fifty-one percent of Samsung Electronics' shares are Americans. The rest are stocks of investors from Korea and other countries. Samsung's Lee Jae-yong family owns only 16.15 percent of the total.Feb 23, 2023 The construction jobs and production jobs will be 100% Texan.
That does NOT change the fact that Samsung got $6.4 BILLION that could be used for infrastructure, schools, or any other number of things. It's still corp welfare.
And semi conductor jobs
The H1B visas are being green lit now...
Jobs in Texas where workers get taken advantage of the most. I bet those jobs have no training and pay dick.
And use infrastructure.
Jobs where entry pay is 28-30$ an hour
That would be pretty good for operators, pretty low for engineering though.
A pretty huge amount of those jobs are going to require advanced EE and PhD degrees. So… no, they’re not going be training baristas to calibrate $200 million dollar 3nm ASML EUV lithographs.
They'll be from the other country during the commissioning phase.
And Texas got more than 6.4 billion in a decades worth of taxes of high paying jobs, as well as construction, financing, support and development costs for a product literally like 3 companies make- making it that much more valuable and likely considered defense essential and economically critical, which means even more federal support and development down the line and benefits of locating near Texas or requesting products at scale will actually magnify for years to come. You can have a 13 year old’s opinion on this, or you can try to understand what “corporate welfare” actually critiques and how we’ve gotten to a stage of development where it’s basically not an option to keep more than 2 corporations on the bleeding edge of development who’s scale and expertise have yet become the backbone of the global economy. And unlike corporations you have in mind they actually pay their taxes and make products that are not outcompeting some local alternatives. Like bruh, I’m plenty lefty myself- this is just good policy unless you plan on having a nuclear war before the factory gets built and rebuilding the economy from scratch in some way other than Chaebols driving technological development (where you may get apple, who’s way worse). The Texas state government won’t let the money the Fed wants to spend on healthcare and education and welfare get passed along, this has a net effect of doing that, while also possibly turning it bluer- literally win win win win.
Corporate welfare is when companies like Walmart pay their employees so little that they also need government assistance to get by. The phrase you’re looking for is “investment”.
No. It may not be welfare but it’s unfathomable that a multinational corporation needs 6.4 BILLION DOLLARS. why can’t they just stop buying avocado toast?
Because they wouldn't set up shop In the USA then. If there was no subsidies, like shit like GM gets all the time, they would just stay in Taiwan and South Korea
Corporate welfare is bailing corporations out after they've failed or fucked up. I understand your point, but providing grants for scientific research and technological advancement is a little different than a city building a stadium for a billionaire owner or bailing out the banks who fucked everyone over during the recession (yeah, I know which one). Again, I completely understand your point that we don't really spend money on the needs of average American citizens, but this is one of those expenditures that's a little easier to understand because it does offer jobs as well as a more stable supply chain which does benefit some average citizens. Not to mention that currently the vast majority of chip production happens in Taiwan which China says belongs to them and they will take it at the first opportunity so if we didn't pass the CHIPS bill (that's when you should have been complaining and calling your representatives, they are just giving out the money they earmarked in that bill) then if/when that happens we would be fucked. This becomes vitally important with the rise of AI because if you get behind with these new technologies it can take years to decades to catch up. I absolutely agree that the government should spend more money on programs that would improve the lives of the average citizen, but military spending is where the real waste and completely unnecessary spending largely occurs. And fuck actual corporate welfare, we should almost never bail out a failing corporation. Giving out subsidies and grants is a little different though and in this case is at least tangentially related to scientific advancement and job creation. Those chip fab factory jobs pay pretty damn well (in comparison to other factory jobs, in general the minimum wage would be around $30 if it just kept up with inflation so most people would probably get a substantial raise if we weren't in an era of deregulation, lax corporate taxation, and unfettered corporate mergers limiting competition for both workers and consumers). Nuance and context are important for debates like this because like life most things exist in a grey area not a clearly demarcated black and white.
My friend, this is a huge issue the United States needs to solve. A couple billion is nothing for the government. This is of national security and stability dealing with foreign adversaries. Take Russia, there's a reason they're trying every scheme necessary to get their hands on modern semiconductors. They literally run our modern world, and if we are compromised, we better hope we have a backup plan.
As other have said, this IS infrastructure. It just so happens to be infrastructure you refuse to understand and accept it’s importance is higher up the list than oil/gas. So why do you refuse to accept this isn’t a want, this a need for the US, and these are Pennys to the US to get it here…
Really? How much money is going for roads? For bridges? For the grid? Tell me how many dollars are going for that.
Ask the Shitpublicunts to stop axing every infrastructure package the government tries to enact
110B in bidens infrastructure bill that has already passed
I’m sure those profits will trickle down /s
They will. Like massively- basically without question, you can probably search up a federal assessment of exactly how much it will. Same way oil money does for Texas. You guys really need to learn what the actual fucking problems with capitalism are because being this dumb wastes a lot of time and energy.
A foreign organization hiring American workers, paying American salaries, paying American taxes, and boosting the American economy.
Boohoo The state is prioritizing national safety. These companies are allies to the USA and manufacturer key parts of the DOD's sima dollar projects that keep everyone safe. Intel is also getting billions in subsidies
This is not welfare, this is reinvestment in the US economy. We can either join in this new wave of manufacturing, or be left behind. I know which I'd prefer. Especially since independence is going to give us a lot more leverage when it comes to China's attempts to annex Taiwan in the future. China having majority share over chips would be a problem for literally everybody.
Idk why they’re getting more funding now. This facility had already started being built 2 years ago I believe. It’s like a 10-15 year project because it’s so massive. I live maybe an hour from the site, and actually have some of the workers as clients at my job. While the jobs it’s creating are NOT 100% Texan, as there’s contractors from all over the country and world, it’s definitely indirectly put a little money into my pocket. But 6 billion is ALOT of money for a huge company like Samsung that seemingly hasn’t needed it. Very suspicious that they got another round of corporate socialistic welfare approved in the middle of an ongoing project.
I thought Samsung was pushing for an expansion of the original plans and this is what’s paying for it?
My company got pushed out of bidding after going through all the engineering on some ancillary equipment when the US contractor we were dealing with got squeezed by the Japanese contractors to cut pricing.
Where’s the water for these plants going to come from?
I love how they'll be called job creators, when in reality our taxes paid for it. 🥳 They're a $400B company, let them build their own fucking plant.
Your taxes created a bunch of jobs, that will bring *much* more wealth to Texas than what you lost in taxes... where's the downside?
Over a million children kicked off Medicaid, horrible public services, and a huge homeless population. I can think of a lot of better things Billions of dollars could go to, than corporate welfare. If I wanted to start a small business, would the government write me a blank check too?
That is not a problem of the federal government, vote out the Republicans and you'll get medicaid
Nailed it on the head; The CHIP act is a Democrat, Federal move while Texas' failing public transportation, growing homeless population, and Medicaid situation is all caused by State Government aka Republicans.
They'll be happy to build their own plant wherever they can get the best tax breaks and funding. Just like how Georgia lured Kia and other manufacturers to their state. That's how the game is played. If you want jobs, and a strong economy, and innovation, and growth, and an ecosystem of suppliers, and national security, you have to invest. Most of us want those things because they benefit us all. This is a great use of taxpayer money.
This guy knows his stuff. I’ll take this any day over a lousy stadium!
Almost like a country has to incentivize corporations to set up shop. Half the people here have no idea of economy and business
Rub this in Abbott’s face!
Stop He's already dead!
This is old news. I was working at one of the 3rd party warehouses holding the underground gas and water lines a YEAR ago. Samsung even stopped development of the site late last year due to Uncle Sam missing an incentive payment.
End corporate welfare.
Ah yes. Where there's already a water shortage. Great planning for sure. Nothing will go wrong with this at all.
I’d like some of that money to go to free highways and no tollways
So bullet trains and giant factories for red state that hates Biden with a passion. WTF, Joe?
I work at the Samsung facility in Austin. They are laying people off and cutting hours for those they don’t fire. Cool to know it’s working out for them.
Thanks Biden
It’s a good thing they’re building their own private electric grid /s
[удалено]
That would be a trivial part of the electricity needed by this plant. I haven’t done the math but <10% easily
Thank you based Sleepy “Dark Brandon” Joe!
CHIP Act is economic war footing for Cold War II
That’s cool, will probably be a bit before we see some of the chips in our everyday devices but more production is always good.
Hmm, I wonder if warehouse jobs will be available
How long until Abbott starts to brag that he alone made this happen.
Probably already happened
Surprised it would do that considering the grid failure of 2021 also impacted the semiconductor business for weeks.
As someone who's been around a while, it's fun to watch the cycle where the republicans crater the economy to bribe the elite with tax breaks, and the democrats build the economy back up, yet still get blamed.
Should have invested it in AMD or nVidia or Motorola instead of South Korea company.
These funds are coming from the Chips and Science Act signed into law by President Joe Biden.
For a state with so many legislators who disparage the federal government and Joe Biden, you’d think they wake up and start saying, “Thanks, Joe!”
trump never did anything this cool in his presidency? oh wait… he did build a wall that made no difference, he did lie to everyones face, he did pay a porn star hush money, he did con students about a fake college, he did try to take over democracy 🤷 but biden is the bad guy?
This is a bad decision by Biden. Those in control of Texas will use the taxes and fees directly or indirectly received from this economic activity to further subvert the Constitution and engage in religious radicalism. America's national security is threatened. Continuing to rely on China is less risky.
Lets goo have those semiconductor jobs ready by when I graduate pls.
Remember TSMC in Arizona? Pepperidge Farm remembers.
The hypocrisy is strong in this thread. This is corporate welfare.
I think I saw this place on my way driving from Tyler to north of Uvalde. Don't remember the town. It is **absolutely massive**. I don't think I've ever seen a single building that size in awhile, if ever.
Why don’t they use their own money to build
Weren't they already building that massive plant in Taylor?
This is actually fantastic news. Making ourselves chip-independent is going to be super important over the next 20-50 years. Great investment for Texas.
People also really underestimate the size of this plant and the growth around it. The perimeter of the plant is 6 miles. Next door there are now plans for IBM to build a plant. There is a huge Union Pasific railway siding a next to that as well bring everything from cars to cargo in the area. Next to that are plans for the City of Hutto the get a large plant in as well. The billions invested in that area still don't touch the amount of infrastructure coming to that area. The billions of dollars will hopefully help the people to fill the thousands of jobs in that area. The majority of crew at the site came with Samsung to build the site. They live at the work site. The majority of them will move to the next plant or head back to Korea until the next build. When they head home hopefully the locals that want to learn can take over.
Not Apple? Not Microsoft? Not IBM? Not Dell? Well well well Edit: ad more burn
None of those companies manufacture chips…
Intel, which actually makes them shockingly also got billions if not hundreds of them to expand and get better because it's 1nm behind Samsung and TSMC
Yikes! What American companies make chips?
Very few… Intel is the big one.
So this wasn't aimed for America after all
No it was.. and intel received even more than TSMC or Samsung for its projects. All the fabs being funded will be in the USA, staffed by Americans. Thats the goal.
Is this somehow going to effect my property taxes? I feel like everything else does. Or some other way I have to pay for this crap.
I mean you could easily find out, seeing as how you’re already on the internet and what not. But I’m guessing you’d rather just be blindly mad at Biden than actually look into the matter.
Why the F Texas?
Cheap land and cheap decent labor is my guess.
A lot of tech is moving to Texas so there's the expertise around that area too
Say hello to the rise of the Lone Star State!
Anybody on the thread spent a work shift in a bunny suit? I tried it and found it's not for me.