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This is a good start
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This is a good start


May 14, 2022, 7:38 AM

Samsung is building a massive semiconductor plant in Texas. We desperately need it...not just for the chip shortage, but also due to the fact that Taiwan controls about 90% of the world's semiconductor market at the moment and we would be truly, spectacularly effed if China were to move on Taiwan the way Russia has moved on Ukraine.

The fallout from losing Taiwanese semiconductors would make what we're going through now with fuel prices thanks to Russia/Ukraine look absolutely precious.

Thankfully America has realized (albeit belatedly) the fragility of global supply chains in this post-COVID world and is moving aggressively to reshore its domestic production of strategic resources...of which semiconductors assuredly are high on the list.

Lot of other foundries look like they're in the pipe now too. But this one should be open by 2024. Leaving aside the value of the semiconductors themselves, it's a boatload of good, old-fashioned jobs.

https://www.anandtech.com/show/17086/texas-to-get-multiple-new-fabs-as-samsung-and-ti-to-spend-47-billion-on-new-facilities

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Re: This is a good start


May 14, 2022, 7:52 AM

Biden has a fix for this. Corporate tax rate hikes.

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Re: This is a good start


May 14, 2022, 8:00 AM

It is really astounding that politicians harp on raising corporate taxes to attempt to grab votes. The politicians like Biden that push this are either uninformed or are obviously misleading folks. I'll go with #2 which is worse.

WE will be the ones paying more for raising corporate taxes while this also pushes companies offshore.

2024 orange level member flag link military_tech thumb_downthumb_up

Re: This is a good start


May 14, 2022, 8:40 AM

Exactly right.

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Re: This is a good start


May 15, 2022, 12:03 AM [ in reply to Re: This is a good start ]

My understanding is that when the strategic implications of (1) insecure supply of key minerals (rare earth elements [REEs and lithium) and (2) inadequate manufacturing capacity for key DoD products (chips), that tax incentives were put in place ~ 5 years ago.

I am not aware of Biden Admin. doing away with these tax incentives, nor have I heard of any rumblings of such. Biden Admin is grandstanding (like all politicians do) to appeal to their base, but I suspect that Biden Admin won't be called out by the media for 'misleading' the greenies and their socialist / tax-the-dirty-corporation constituents.

So although other industries may find it better to go offshore to optimize their future earnings potential, I don't expect that to happen with silicon wafers, silicon chips, RREs, or lithium.

(On the other hand, silicon metal production in the USA ... i.e., enough to accommodate all of our consumption ... is to my understanding still a big ???)

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Careful, Q. Somebody here will accuse you of racism.


May 14, 2022, 9:16 AM

Your link is the best news I think I've seen in a while. But I hope no one says that we can't trust the Chinese. Maybe the best thing that could happen to us is for Xi to support Putin.

Policy by the left is determined by hatred of the right. Tax police, for instance, seems to be best summed up as "It's not poor people we love, but rich people we hate." If a conservative doesn't like globalism he is called a racist. When a conservative suggests that a single black mom in Detroit deserves market access to scarce resources before an illegal alien, that person will be accused by a leftist on this board of - and I am not making this up - racism. So here we are.

Good policy is good policy whether it is determined by principle or by racism. Bad policy is bad policy whether it is determined by irrationality or compassion. The role of principle and direction, and healthy arguing about those, is to help us pursue actual virtue rather than ideology. But if all opinion is set by hatred of another group, we end up headed where we are today. The marxist view of truth - group identity - is a very dangerous thing. I don't know how we get beyond this, or if a tipping point of no return as been passed. But somehow we have to. Usually only disaster levels us. Humans can't typically stand prosperity.

But yes, we need more stuff made here.


Message was edited by: CUintulsa®

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Re: Careful, Q. Somebody here will accuse you of racism.


May 14, 2022, 9:57 AM

I don't particularly like globalism...then again, I'm a lot more economically conservative than liberal. I think our addiction to cheap stuff has made us singularly vulnerable to disrupted supply lines and COVID and Russia/Ukraine is pretty graphically demonstrating that. If China seizes Taiwan - or merely successfully interdicts its output - we're back to Great Depression Part Deux.

I also think the hollowing out of our industrial sector has contributed mightily to the mass disaffection of so many we're seeing across the US right now.

Is it really "cheaper" to buy everything from China and Southeast Asia, when it means all the people who once had good manufacturing jobs no longer do? And how cheap is it really...if our supply of that cheap stuff can be disrupted by foreign events? If we have to enact "protectivist" trade policies to ensure essential stuff that America cannot do without is made here, Oh Well.

You wanna import Swiss chocolate, fine. French wine? Sure. Gucci, Prada, Porsches, Ferraris, other expensive luxury editions of "essential" products? Fine and dandy too. If you can pay that much for something you're not dealing with "essentials" anymore.

More than one economist has commented "globalism is dead" following COVID and seeing what it did to the world's supply chains. I suspect he's right and reshoring essentials is going to be very en vogue the next decade. If the Dems want to tax away the red states like Texas won't, and they'll be the ones who benefit. Just how it goes.

A good GOP candidate who is truly focused on resolidifying the US manufacturing base of essential products would go a lot further towards winning me back to the party than petty culture-war BS.

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Re: Careful, Q. Somebody here will accuse you of racism.


May 14, 2022, 11:32 AM

We need to be investing and buying all our cheap crap from Mexico. They have plenty of labor, and buying from them instead of China would economically boost them to where you wouldn't see the migration issue we have now.

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Re: Careful, Q. Somebody here will accuse you of racism.


May 15, 2022, 12:11 AM

FYI, P.R.China makes a tremendous variety of truly high tech stuff.

Their quality (from the Edward Deming philosophy) isn't as routinely good as that of the USA, EU, S.Korea, Japan, or Taiwain ... but P.R.C. is getting their act together in this arena, as well.

But P.R.C. isn't still just some manufacturer of cheap toys, flat screen TVs, and commodity type laptop computers.

Mexico's high quality high tech goods are only where USA / CAN / EU / JAP / KOR / Taiwan is running the Mexican plant.

The supply chain for Mexico's high tech / high quality goods are also managed either by the aforementioned non-Mexican based companies or imported outright from those aforementioned country based suppliers.

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Re: Careful, Q. Somebody here will accuse you of racism.


May 15, 2022, 7:39 PM

Tulsa is right...society is between a rock and a hard place.

One thing that will solve China problem is when their standard of living gets so high, they get too expensive - like Japan.

The problem then will be the coast of SC will be at Columbia because of all the fossil fuels the Chinese are burning to run their air conditioners and refrigerators. Heck, I have a house there so maybe this is good for me :)

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That was Ross Perot.


May 15, 2022, 12:22 AM [ in reply to Re: Careful, Q. Somebody here will accuse you of racism. ]

And he went down in flames, sadly.

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Re: That was Ross Perot.


May 15, 2022, 12:42 AM

I hear ya, Bro.

Voted twice for Ross Perot (I realized even then that this was a futile 'protest' vote), but he spoke to the dangers of P.R.China in his 1996 campaign. That resonated big time with me.

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The Republicans literally did not have a platform under Trump,


May 14, 2022, 11:56 AM [ in reply to Careful, Q. Somebody here will accuse you of racism. ]

instead they released a one pager that said support Trump, oppose the Democrats.

Both sides are guilty of building their policy around hatred of the other “team.”

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Re: The Republicans literally did not have a platform under Trump,


May 15, 2022, 12:12 AM

Nah, you're dead wrong about that. See the other posts in this thread.

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What a weirdly triggered response...


May 14, 2022, 4:17 PM [ in reply to Careful, Q. Somebody here will accuse you of racism. ]

Maybe I'm missing some context of why his post triggered such a response, but it comes off as a jumble of right-wing persecution talking points.

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It would seem that way to you because you would


May 14, 2022, 9:36 PM

choose to not remember the many times a voiced desire to protect ourselves from people who might not have our best interest at heart was called 'racist' and 'jingoistic'. So to say, 'we need to stop buying chips from anyone who might be influenced by the Chinese' .... well, literally 3 years ago that was 'jingoistic'. So, no, not triggered. "History" is the word you're looking for.

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What? The narrative against China has been long


May 14, 2022, 11:13 PM

and pretty universal in terms of business. I have seen no one say that criticizing Chinese business practices is jingoistic. Maybe you can point to some examples though.

As for your triggered post, the reason I think it's accurate is that you took Q's post about Samsung (a S.Korean company, btw) opening a chip factory in Texas and turned it into some diatribe about the left attacking so-called "conservatives"...

Examples:
"Policy by the left is determined by hatred of the right"
"rich people we hate" (re:the left)
"When a conservative suggests...will be accused of "racism"
"The marxist view of truth - group identity - is a very dangerous thing."

I mean, absolutely none of that has anything to do with Q's post but, for some reason, it made you feel you had to include it in your post. You even acknowledge the seemingly tangential aspect of your post with your last line, "But yes, we need more stuff made here." That "But" is doing a lot of work there.

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Re: Fed Gov's actions re: China business in place since 1993


May 15, 2022, 12:23 AM

The USA Federal Government's "business friendly with P.R.China" came into being in a big way starting in 1993.

That Fed.Gov't policy had persisted through Clinton, G.W.Bush, and Obama (24 years) without a blink from hardly any Repubs or Dems ... or from American businesses. Some occasional blustery talk about getting tough with P.R.C. coming forth during Obama Admin (I guess tough talk is better than what BC or GWB had done), but no real action for 24 years.

Hate him all you want, but DJT was the first USA president since G.H.Bush to actually DO something to kick start the USA back towards the (long and hard path) to self-sufficiency in strategic industries and the supply chain for these strategic industries.

Hate him also all you want, but Biden Admin has (privately) supported DJT's initiatives and continues to (again, largely privately) support them.

No, and I'm not on meth (at least not tonight ... or maybe just not yet tonight).

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Re: What? The narrative against China has been long


May 15, 2022, 7:33 AM [ in reply to What? The narrative against China has been long ]

Examples:
"Policy by the left is determined by hatred of the right"
"rich people we hate" (re:the left)
"When a conservative suggests...will be accused of "racism"
"The marxist view of truth - group identity - is a very dangerous thing."

The first two I would love to discuss at any time. As to the third, that happened on this board: I was quoting, not proposing. As to the fourth, if you dont agree with that you're agreeing to the first two: that this is true is a matter of history, not philosophy. I understand that you probably dont know that.

It relates to the OP because what I said is true: to pursue policies born of distrust of another nation is called 'jingoistic' when a conservative is in office. If you dont remember that, I leave you to your self constructed world.

TL;DR: As often as the left used the word 'jingoistic' for no reason, I'm going to remind them that they did it. Get used to it.

Disclaimer: Didn't, wouldn't, vote for Trump.

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You think me pointing this out to you is arguing against you


May 15, 2022, 4:15 PM

or the points you are making. It's not. It's simply pointing out that it's weird to immediately jump to the "conservatives are being persecuted" narrative based on Q's original post. It's no surprise that someone so wrapped up in that persecution narrative would not be able to see that distinction though.

"It relates to the OP because what I said is true: to pursue policies born of distrust of another nation is called 'jingoistic' when a conservative is in office. If you dont remember that, I leave you to your self constructed world."

You are agreeing that your post is about conservative feelings of persecution (triggered) but because you believe it to be true it somehow makes it relative to Q's original post. Then you say others are the ones living in their "self-constructed world." That is ironic and amazing.

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Jingoistic, are you?***


May 15, 2022, 5:21 PM



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It's a fun word isn't it?***


May 15, 2022, 7:30 PM



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Re: What a weirdly triggered response...


May 15, 2022, 12:14 AM [ in reply to What a weirdly triggered response... ]

This thread may be outside of your area of expertise or understanding. Several posts in this thread are informative, and with legitimate debate points.

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Re: This is a good start


May 14, 2022, 9:21 AM

Good news.

Gas inflation is not all on Putin/Ukraine. Between sleepy taking office and Putin invading Ukraine, avg gas price rose $1.20. Since they invaded ukrain l, it has gone up $.80.

It definitely hasn't helped and has only exacerbated the issue. It we had issues well before the Ukraine situation. Glad you are regurgitating sleepy's talking points mr. Moderate.

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Re: This is a good start


May 15, 2022, 12:26 AM

It's true ... gasoline inflation was already starting before Biden's politically motivated meddling.

But he does own a significant part of it.

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But it’s vertically integrated behavior***


May 14, 2022, 9:34 AM



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Re: But it’s vertically integrated behavior***


May 14, 2022, 9:39 AM

Touche. But would you rather have chips or no chips?

I'd rather suffer a megacorp and reshore our domestic production of strategic stuff than get kneecapped if/when China gets a good enough grip on the South China Sea and rolls into Taiwan.

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who knew Russha/Uckrane had anything to do with US


May 14, 2022, 9:37 AM

gas prices...learn something new every day

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If she's a hollerer, she'll be a screamer.
If she's a screamer, she'll get you arrested.


Re: who knew Russha/Uckrane had anything to do with US


May 15, 2022, 8:50 PM

CaptCrash said:

gas prices...learn something new every day




I seriously doubt that.

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I had earlier saw where iNTEL was building


May 14, 2022, 9:51 AM

a chip plant in Ohio area.

https://www.npr.org/2022/01/21/1074733306/intel-ohio-computer-chips

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Re: I had earlier saw where iNTEL was building


May 15, 2022, 12:29 AM

My understanding is the there are some incentives from the USA Fed. Gov't to encourage this type of expansion of strategic industries. DJT kicked it off, but Biden hasn't undercut this activity. To my understanding, Biden Admin (to his genuine credit) is actively supporting these incentive programs.

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Well, if only it was just computer chips


May 14, 2022, 12:31 PM

Meanwhile, there's this going on and no one knows about it. Hospitals are having to ration giving contrast only to patients in critical need for imaging.

https://www.fox29.com/news/covid-19-lockdowns-in-china-cause-global-shortage-of-contrast-material-used-for-medical-imaging


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Re: Well, if only it was just computer chips


May 14, 2022, 2:38 PM

That too strikes me as "essential."

The actual cost of cheap stuff definitely looks like it's piling up on us.

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Re: Well, if only it was just computer chips


May 15, 2022, 12:39 AM [ in reply to Well, if only it was just computer chips ]

Here's another fun fact about supply chain problems (this one reveals [justifiable, IMO] favoritism for hospitals vs. other industries:

Supply of silicones (as used in a vast variety of products ... including selected grades of medical tubing):

Since H2-2021, there has been a global shortage of both silicon metal (a tricky shortage) and of the raw materials used to make silicone polymers (as Yogi Berra would say, a similar but different version of the shortage).

The silicone polymer raw material shortage has impacted industries from the automotive, aerospace, cosmetic ingredients, construction industry, etc. etc. This crippling shortage would have also impacted medical products such as tubing and silicone polymer caps for medically purposed vials, but the USA Gov't has cited the health care industry as a higher priority 'market' than the other industries.

Therefore, the health care industry's needs for silicone polymer based products are largely un-impacted.

(This isn't to divert attention away from the important fact of your post Tiggity®, but rather just to illustrate one of the 'good ways' that the US Gov't has tried to protect the manufacturing of selected life-or-death type products. I'm no Biden fan, but his team has done the right thing here.)

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All pharmaceuticals are like this. It's why our drugs are


May 15, 2022, 9:49 AM

so expensive. Drug makers are granted essentially a legal monopoly for a period of time when they release a new drug. And that's great because they're literally creating a market with a new drug. But, if the drug is something there's already a worldwide market for, well, it is withheld. The argument is this increases R&D. The counterargument is we have the most expensive drugs in the world.

And then when the patent drops, and generics are allowed, they're made in India, Israel, or some other foreign country, to sell them here cheap.

And yet we can't import baby formula?

It's an entire system we have that we don't even recognize because it's never directly talked about. And the pandemic has wholly exposed the inherent problems with the system. It works great, when it can. But a war or pandemic, or both, will bring it all down.

End of the day, we have lived above our means (as a nation and as an economy) for some time now (decades). Enabled in part by "free trade" and illegal immigrant labor and control of the financial sector. We wholly lack the labor to satisfy our domestic demand, without the help of other nations' labor.

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Re: This is a good start - - lithium


May 14, 2022, 11:52 PM

Hot topic and one that deserves everyone's attention!

Rare earth minerals, lithium, and silicon metal also deserve attention as being of strategic importance.

Initiatives to produce our own rare earth minerals and lithium (Li isn't a rare earth mineral) had also been kick started within the past ~ 5 years.

Lithium mines (open pit mines in the general neighborhood of Hickory, NC) are being encouraged by the Fed. Gov't; Biden Admin hasn't discouraged this (even though open pit mines are especially ugly and universally hated by environmentalists).

Rare earth minerals had not been developed with any serious actions in the USA until the strategic risk became a central focus for the USA ~ 5 years ago. The good news; despite the sole USA rare earth's mine being in California, the Biden Administration appears to be committed to supporting a massive expansion of this resource. (For a Democrat Pres to push this 'anti-green' agenda in CA takes genuine testicular fortitude.)

Canada, though, holds the USA's real future for rare earth minerals and lithium. Canada's current leftist government seems more willing to cooperate with Biden Admin than they did with Trump admin; NW territories, Newfoundland, and Quebec are among the rich in rare earths and lithium. The Canadian gov'ts tactical 'head fake' (e.g., to use hydro powered electricity to run these mines and refineries) kept Canada's greenies at bay (for now).

Silicon metal, on the other hand, is a different story. While ores / minerals from which silicon metal can be made are plentiful, there is not enough ready to go / turn on the switch production capacity in the US + Canada to take care of our current consumption. Production of silicon metal is dirty; uses the same process as that used in old times to make iron from iron ore. (E.g., reduction of silicon oxides via carbon to produce silicon metal ... but with the major by product being LOTS and LOTs of CO2.)

Far more silicon metal is used for light weight alloys (aircraft aluminum is alloyed with silicon metal [among other non-silicon light weight metals). The super high purity silicon metal of course is needed for chips; I don't know what the USA has as far as capacity (or current ability) to make the high purity silicon metal grades.

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