Unfortunately this approach does not work when you lack a viable domestic alternative and you're up against a monopoly.
What will the US do if TSMC does not blink? Not buy TSMC made chips? Obviously that is impossible, so the logical conclusion is that American consumers will end up paying the tariffs.
That’s been the point all along… they are significantly raising taxes on the bottom 90% of Americans and most are too stupid to even understand it. Gotta pay for those tax cuts for the wealthy somehow.
This isn't some natural state that's unrecoverable. The people you describe have been given a highly addictive media environment tailor made to engender outrage and drive behavior. It shouldn't be a shock when most people cannot resist it. The first step to changing it is not writing them off or insulting them for being had.
Is it though? East Germany comes to mind as well as the rest of the Cold War countries behind the Iron Curtain. China seems to be pretty hostile as well. In the US, it is still much easier to find real information that counters the propaganda than it is in any of those other countries. There's no Great Firewall to bypass. You don't even need to do anything anonymously. Yes, the current administration is doing its damnedest to pull the wool over the eyes of their followers, but it's only effective for them. Nobody else is fooled nor stopping their publishing of the opposition to the propaganda.
There is also so much that's womderful and amazing and positive. No light w/out darkness, "no mud, no lotus", etc. -- which IMHO it's increasingly important to focus on, deliberately.
Psychology around ads and how to manipulate peoples thoughts were not nearly as well understood at the time. Large scale studies based on data collected of peoples behavior on computers has lead to dramatically better ability to manipulate and nudge people to do what you want.
The information environment was more oppressive there, but it was easier for people to have their own thoughts since the marketing was forced and blatant but way less manipulative and devious.
RFE/RL could broadcast whatever it wanted. If you received it and heard the contrary views from what official stance was, you can pretty much just accept it. You couldn't just go and search for more information in a browser/app. Seeing video of things just wasn't happening over the air on your wireless. You couldn't jump onto social platform of choice and see images in real time. Information is so freely flowing today it is a joke to compare the two.
>Typical American response confidently knowing literally nothing of what they speak of
Sadly, this reads from someone with a person grudge that has nothing to do with the conversation. If you honestly think there was more information freely available then as compared to know, you've just disillusioned yourself for whatever reason. Yes, there was resistance back during the Cold War. Fax machines FTW. That still just does not compare to how freely flowing information is today. To call today the "most information hostile environments in human history" is just nonsense. How can you even compare it?
> The idea that people in authoritarian countries are clueless about what’s really going on is arrogant and frankly ignorant.
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what you're replying to. The guidelines clearly ask us to avoid swipes and name-calling like this. If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
ONE of the most. That you can highlight a few others where things might have been worse doesn't negate that claim.
Yet at the moment where there is still diversity, people can make the mistake of thinking that the propaganda is just a difference of opinion so perhaps trust it more.
Almost all of which correlate in some way to 'stupidity'.
I posit that your first line is wildly wrong, but your message is broadly valid.
True, but I'm not sure what that proves. Some people who have different points of view than I do have come to those points of view via reasonable means, and some of their PoVs might even be more consistent with reality than some of mine.
But some people are actually just stupid. Sometimes it's for understandable reasons, but sometimes it's for reasons that the GP laid out, and that's sad and unfortunate, and makes life difficult for the rest of us. I think there are a lot of people like this, and I'm afraid that public policy is in no small part driven by these people's susceptibility to propaganda, and their inability to think critically.
He never suggested that. You defended these voters by saying they gladly accept the propaganda information diet, not that they have well-reasoned differences of opinion.
All I'm saying is stop painting with a broad brush in that anyone voting for a party is stupid. I'll defend people voting for who they want or even voting against someone they don't want. To call them stupid is just stupid.
Still, arbitrary_name seems consistent about not judging people for ideological differences but rather for choosing not to be accurately informed. I.e. he is not saying "they're dumb because I don't agree with tariffs" he's saying "they're dumb because after Trump promised to make us rich with tariffs, they didn't bother to check how duties are collected." You seem to agree with this to an extent.
> All I'm saying is stop painting with a broad brush in that anyone voting for a party is stupid.
I mean, it's four broad brushes right? The dupes, the single-issue voters, the identity voters, and the ones who believe in whatever his policy happens to be. I don't think it's fair to say they fall into a single bin but they're not all snowflakes who cannot be characterized en masse.
> I'll defend people voting for who they want or even voting against someone they don't want.
Okay but what about the ones who vote for what they don't want. The ones who voted Trump to release the Epstein files. Or to balance the budget. Or to end the Ukraine war day one? They took a look at his first term, listened to his campaign promises, and decided, "surely he will deliver!"
I think you're being overly optimistic here.
How can we heal, change, and recover from this without reaching out and understanding their POV.
There is la video circulating of a business owner making fun of the Amazon concept of showing thd amount tariffs add to the final price to the consumer. This guy in this video says that number is going to be 0 on his website because his product and the stuff used to make it is "Made in America". The next video is literally him bitching about how some of the Made in America stuff he needs to make his product increased by a grand in just one month. And he like, "why in the fuck are these Made in America affected? Something's messed up here."
At the end of the day, this is a business owner who was aware that the biggest online retailer in America said tariffs are going to affect the price of products the American consumer buys. If this guy can't be bothered to dig a little deeper to save his business, it's hard to expect other people that are a couple degrees removed from the action to do so as well.
For example, if there's a 35% tariff on a $100 item, the importer technically owes $135. But the exporter might lower their price, maybe selling it for $70 instead to help offset the tariff and keep the business deal going. In that case, the exporter is basically covering part of the cost. On the flip side, the importer might just raise the final price and make the customer pay more...or better yet, assume the cost due to intense local competition.
So even though the importer pays the duty upfront, who actually feels the cost depends on how the parties involved respond. That's why it makes more sense to say someone in the supply chain pays. It's not always the same person every time.
Imagine a demand and a supply curve. From the perspective of a producer outside the country the tariff effectively shifts the demand curve, but doesn't affect supply. That's going to lead to a lower price at equilibrium.
Of course, from the perspective of the consumer it's the opposite situation, the supply curve shifts which leads to a higher price at equilibrium.
Both happen simultaneously, who pays most of the tariff depends on the elasticity of the supply and the demand
Please explain how members of a low-income household would rationally and knowingly advocate to eliminate the only access to healthcare they can afford.
Then, if you are able to present a coherent argument, try to explain that in a stupidity vs diverse point of view, this stance is indeed not founded on stupidity.
Basically when all or most of the facts are on your side, how do you balance the need to indulge stupid talking points and perspectives so that you can "reach" people, while also not inadvertently conceding ground in an attempt to meet a person where they are?
Ideally being informed would be both easier than it is today (less misleading crap, more trustworthy structure to think about what issues are relevant) while also being more rewarded somehow.
> loathe Obamacare and like the ACA
they were not arguing for or against obamacare, they were pointing out the laziness of people that don't realize that Obamacare _is_ the ACA, but somehow hate the former and love the latter.
In addition to being rude, its not a particularly clear word.
So I coined "idiodidact", to specifically describe people who have personal selectivity with regard to being teachable. (Greek/English usage: "idios"/personal choice + "didact"/taught)
Any resemblance, to any other word, would be a coincidence.
I'm often reminded of a conversation my arrogant younger self had with an Englishman I was having a bit of back and forth banter about Yanks vs the sun setting on the English empire. I asked if the Empire was so great, why did all of the colonies end up revolting? His answer was simply, "we taught them how to read." Once the masses can read and think for themselves in an educated manner, they tend to no longer put up with being trodden over for much longer. So the answer is clearly simple to stop educating the masses.
Although I also take issue with labeling people "stupid," I also take issue with the blanket assumption that people are victims of the media environment. Both take away people's agency in their own way.
Instead, I'll ask this uncomfortable question. What if a good chunk of these people would prefer to believe a convenient lie over an inconvenient truth? If so, what does that say about them and their morals? Is that better or worse than being labeled stupid or a victim?
The truth? They do not care about basic right and wrong. They voted for a rapist, a felon, a vile insurrectionist. There’s no morality and we know this based on how they’ve voted.
But also the unwillingness by their friends and family to call them out promotes non-accountability. For everyone.
People are incentivized to be intellectually lazy since there isn’t really any personal reward for making the effort (your vote is on the margins practically meaningless, even if you’re “right,” whatever that means).
But there is great reward for staying ignorant (dopamine hits from outrage media and camaraderie with the large plurality of similarly intellectually lazy people).
How do we make it so that having well reasoned opinions is actually rewarded commensurately?
How can so many be so gullible?
But also, they’re being misled. Most non-Trumpers coddle, forgive in advance, and invite Trumper friends and family to the usual social functions. This is permission. It’s helping everyone normalize the depravity.
In a very real way there’s no conversation happening because one party has removed themselves from rationality and the other party has broadcast they don’t care.
There will need to be enormous amounts of pain to get either party to snap out of it.
I can think something is a good idea for any number of reasons, it can also still be stupid.
Normalising this way of behaving means that yes, if you're in the group that benefits from today's decision you're ok, but nothing stops you from being in the out-group tomorrow. And if your goal is inflicting harm, well tomorrow that harm will be inflicted upon you.
Also, acting self righteous while demanding decorum is rich considering how this admin promised to and followed through on completely dehumanizing huge swathes of people as its base cheers on. Please, display one ounce of good faith.
Two things can be true at once. Being force-fed bullshit doesn’t necessarily make somebody an idiot but it also doesn’t necessarily make them not an idiot.
1/3 of the voting population elected a known criminal, known sex predator, suspected child rapist, and known economically illiterate imbecile. The information may be hostile but it was widely and easily available.
At least 1/3 of the US voting population are idiots. Obviously there is a subset of that voting base that made an intelligent decision knowingly and complicitly elected Trump despite the extremely serious red flags, but I would still consider them to be idiots.
There are a lot of high quality media sources out there that don't promote outrage.
No. Someone refusing to spend 30 seconds understanding how a tariff works is the result of an idiot. My 10 year old figured out how they work in under 5 minutes. There’s literally no excuse for a grown ass adult to refuse to educate themselves on the subject.
“This media environment” doesn’t prevent them from typing “how do tariffs work?” in their search engine of choice and reading the first result.
>Tariffs are taxes imposed by a government on imported goods, making them more expensive to encourage consumers to buy domestic products instead. The costs of these tariffs are typically passed on to consumers, resulting in higher prices for imported items.
I don't see any "college level vocabulary words" and it directly says that it makes goods more expensive and the costs are passed on to consumers. Maybe Google's complicated answer is part of the "media environment" being criticized.
In simple terms, think of a tariff like a special tax a country puts on goods it buys from another country. Here's how it works: When a country wants to import something, like cars from Japan or clothes from China, it has to pay an extra fee (the tariff) to its own government before those goods can come into the country. This extra fee makes the imported goods more expensive than products made in the country itself. Why do governments do this? To protect local businesses: By making foreign products pricier, the government hopes people will choose to buy things made in their own country, helping local businesses grow and create jobs. To make money: Tariffs can also be a way for the government to collect some extra cash. To get other countries to change their ways: Sometimes, countries use tariffs as a way to pressure other nations to follow certain rules or to stop unfair trade practices. Example Imagine a bicycle store in the US wants to import a bicycle from another country that costs $1,000. If the US has an 11% tariff on bicycles, the store would have to pay an extra $110 (11% of $1,000) to the US government, making the total cost to bring the bike in $1,110. This makes bicycles made in the US seem more affordable by comparison.
Edit for the sarcastically challenged among us.
For crying out loud, information is so accessible. The inability to find and discern at least some level of truth (or at least gather multiple contrasting perspectives) is laziness, AND stupidity.
I'm all for better schools, a better information ecosystem, and more tolerance, but why are we bending over backwards to tell malignantly underinformed people it's not their fault? It is! It is their fault.
I asked Google to "explain tariffs in simple terms" and it sure did. A sixth grader would easily get it. Here's the response (and now I'm wondering whether a GenAI system could create a short animated video or slide deck that could become a TikTok):
Tariffs in simple terms
A tariff is like a special tax that a country places on goods it buys from other countries.
Imagine this You're buying a toy made in another country.
The government of your country might add a tariff to that toy's price when it enters the country.
This makes the imported toy more expensive than a similar toy made in your own country.
The company importing the toy pays this tax to the government.
However, they might then pass some or all of that cost onto you, the customer, by raising the price of the toy.
People have much better things to do than look up words, look for dissenting opinions one something the face on their TV tells them. There's taking the kids to _______ practice. There's TV shows to keep up with. There's an infinite feed of content to scroll through. There's plenty of other things that they would prefer to do themselves than whatever it is you would prefer them to do. That does not qualify as stupid. To me, what is stupid, is everyone here calling others that have differing view points than their own stupid. You are willingly using that term in the same way you say they are willfully not looking things up.
I sure as hell can tell people not to have an opinion. That is my constitutional right. If someone has strong beliefs about something and votes accordingly, and they don’t put in the effort needed to find out the basic facts about the matter, then they are stupid and that’s bad.
Just want to point out that giving more money to an underperforming school only makes it worse.
Is there no circumstance where more funding would help an underperforming school? It certainly “can” make it worse in instances, but there are many reasons that a school might be underperforming. To imply that more resources would fail to help any of those problems is quite a leap.
What if the student-teacher ration is 40-1 and more funds allows for another teacher, might that make the school better?
What if the school is only open for 4 days due to low funding, might an additional day of school make it perform better?
What if a school has multiple disabled students slowing down the curriculum, but no funds to give them personal support, might more funds help it perform better?
With tariffs, it's entirely possible that the loss of blue collar jobs due to offshoring more than offsets the cheap toys those folks get to import in exchange. Especially when the cost of housing, education, and medical care is rising regardless. It's not uncommon to hear labor leaders rail against NAFTA and be pro-tariff[1] for this reason.
[1] https://uaw.org/tariffs-mark-beginning-of-victory-for-autowo...
A concept of a plan, a verbal agreement, even just a phone call is better than a binding trade agreement that lasts 20y. Because the former provides what matters most: distraction from the things that will put Trump in jail and a feeling of power and importance.
There are certain life skills that can be considered “smart” like revisiting your established opinions when presented with new information, or knowing that encountering a new piece of information from a single source doesn’t carry the weight of encountering it in dozens of places, or that making a mistake doesn’t guarantee that your existence is doomed but been presented with a learning experience.
The “stupid” folks refuse to take the simplest steps to better themselves. They refuse to self-evaluate honestly. That’s the root cause. This stupidness results in them being duped and misinformed.
Therefore, when one encounters an uninformed and duped person, it’s not out of line to consider that person “stupid”.
So when people like OP say that people are stupid, it’s not a dig via victim blaming. It’s a judgement that they’re clearly being stupid, that their poor life skills need work because they ended up misinformed.
yeah, it sucks that I can’t buy a JetKVM right now. otoh being dependent on (often) adversarial nations for everything we buy is also not ideal.
Like, assemble domestically? Or actually source 100% of the parts, supplies, building materials, machinery, etc domestically?
So basically the US government was able to take a slice of the profit from everyone but the consumer.
Seems pretty smart to me?
Whoever has the greater elasticity doesn't pay much of the tax.
In most markets, long run elasticity of supply is very, very, very high. So that means demand side (consumers) end up paying the tax.
But short term elasticity of supply can be low-- dominated by capital costs and inventory.
Buying half of Intel isn't going to change anything
I think it's a braindead, 4th-grade way to run international negotiations, but it is a way.
Because counterparty countries will still exist, you'll need to make future deals, and they'll remember the last time you fucked them over.
Wouldn't that just mean that Taiwan has to choose between two villains, and China can take the advantage of this by changing its narrative and taking the position as a hero, protecting Taiwan from the US.
Or rather, they see themselves as the legitimate government of China, which is undergoing a temporary Communist junta. The separation was extremely violent. I mean, you saw the Three Body Problem.
The US fosters this, to retain a toehold there. Taiwan doesn't exactly love us for it, but they know which side their bread is buttered on.
No, they don't. But formally renouncing that position[1] makes them officially secessionist in the eyes of Chinese conservatives, adding pressure to invade. The One China fiction matters, though how much it matters is definitely up for debate. But it's a local minima, and rolling the dice comes with significant risk.
[1] At the state level. AFAIU, it's been renounced by several of the major parties in Taiwan, and when in power they've made movements at low levels of government that arguably contravene the policy. But it still remains the official position and its still enshrined in the Taiwanese constitution. And, yes, the US adds pressure to maintain the status quo as it would (might?[2]) be on the hook for the defense of Taiwan. But the majority of the population isn't in favor of formally renouncing it, either; the potential negative consequences are existential, and the material benefit is slim to none.
[2] During Trump's first term it was claimed he privately admitted that if China invaded Taiwan he wouldn't intervene.
Wouldn't the value of the security guarantee in this scenario be a negative one for Taiwan?
At this point, Taiwan would be foolish to not start working on a secret nuclear bomb program. North Korea has proven its the only way to actually protect yourself.
Nuclear proliferation and subsequent war is inevitable imo.
China is being smart, it is modernising and growing amazingly fast, and Taiwan will be foolish not return to China peacefully in our lifetime.
I wouldn’t be even slightly surprised to learn they have a few MIRVs stashed away, pointed at Beijing, just in case.
Sorry, how do they 'make sense'?
What's the problem with a trade deficit with Bangladesh? And in your example, you'd just shift bilateral trade balances around, without impact the overall trade balance of the US?
I could perhaps believe that an overall trade deficit is bad (maybe..), but I've yet to hear why bilateral trade deficits should matter, especially with places like Bangladesh that are not strategic rivals or are even allies like Japan or Taiwan or NATO.
To the same extent that other forms of taxation make sense. I wish people had this same sudden interest in protecting the free market and maximizing trade when we're taking about income tax or sales tax or property tax, etc.
But people do have these interests!
Different taxes distort markets differently. Tariffs are one of the worst ways to tax. Similarly transaction taxes, like a Tobin tax or stamp duty, are bad.
Income tax ain't great, but it's ok. (Details depend on implementation.) Property tax is one of the best taxes, only beaten out by land value taxes. VAT is ok.
And, btw, a tariff designed to raise revenue is very different from a tariff designed to change the balance of payments.
Trade deficits in isolation aren't good or bad but because the US has the world reserve currency it must supply it's currency to the world.
This basically forces it to have a trade deficit with everyone which over time can hollow out manufacturing sectors. Making the whole economy vulnerable to shocks and ultimately causing it to fail.
It's similar to "Dutch disease," where external demand overvalues the currency and harms tradable sectors.
It's not sustainable without careful policy management, and attempts to weaken the currency via tariffs, devaluation, or some other mechanism.
You might not like Trump or his approach but he is directionally correct and does have a powerful bargaining chip (access to the US market - which is basically on track to be the only 1st world consumer driven economy 5 years from now).
Interestingly, though, Robert Triffin International put out a paper essentially arguing that Trump's tariff approach is all wrong.
I do agree that having tariffs on certain items to encourage domestic production definitely does work. The tariffs have to be consistent and on things that can actually be produced in the country.
The issue with Trump's approach is that its not consistent, has nothing to do with which products can be made domestically. Changing tariffs daily/weekly/monthly is not going to encourage domestic production.
Compare and contrast https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Import_substitution_industrial...
And you want to tell me that this is somehow unfair for the US?
The US can print an arbitrary amount of dollars, if there's demand for them in the rest of the world.
Btw, focussing on dollars is actually a bit narrow. When Americans sell stocks or bonds to the rest of the world, that's also part of the trade deficit. So Americans aren't just exporting dollars, they are also exporting stocks and bonds and options and futures. Financial engineering is one of great American manufacturing industries.
Interestingly enough, despite exporting so many financial products (= 'trade deficit'), Americans as a whole still make more money from their foreign investments abroad that foreigners make on their American investments. To simplify a bit too much: foreigners buy low yielding American government debt, while Americans make savvy investments abroad.
> It's not sustainable without careful policy management, and attempts to weaken the currency via tariffs, devaluation, or some other mechanism.
Oh, magical tariffs! They can strengthen or weaken your currency, just as the plot demands. They also prevent hollowing out of industry, and cure toothache.
If you want to weaken your currency, just print more of it. It's much simpler.
> You might not like Trump or his approach but he is directionally correct and does have a powerful bargaining chip (access to the US market - which is basically on track to be the only 1st world consumer driven economy 5 years from now).
What does 'consumer driven economy' even mean? Could you make your prediction more concrete. Perhaps we can even have a little bet.
Government's shouldn't put up with monopolies either, if it wasn't for trump's political baggage, HN would be all over this I'm sure, TSMC is already investing on US factories which even without purchasing a share of intel, it would force them to use those factories and bring them online sooner. We've had multiple unfortunate wars due to dependence on foreign resources that don't have good/sufficient competition state-side, that is not a good pattern to repeat.
If TSMC doesn't blink, maybe they'll get their way for now but all their American projects and in general doing business in the US will be unpleasant and costly until 2028+. Which is cheaper? I don't know, I'm asking because a lot of opinion on the subject isn't talking/explaining about the actual numbers and nuanced economic considerations.
Companies (like Nvidia) will just raise prices and if demand drops they will divert more of it to countries like China and EU. And demand isn't going to drop much anyway for in-demand stuff like Apple chips or AI stuff. Best case scenario, they (not TSMC) temporarily eat the cost or spread it around.
This has nothing to do with Trump, it simply doesn't result in competitive local manufacturing. Increasingly rent-seeking AND subsidized, with no pressure to compete.
Tariffs on commodities though don't.
I was looking through the list of fabrication technology for the latest CPUs, and while they say they are 3nm, it is using TSMCs technology (Arrow Lake S: Fabrication process: Compute Tile (Contains the CPU cores) TSMC's N3B node.)
My guess is that Trump is trying to save Intel by forcing TSMC to buy them under the guise of "I'm forcing companies invest in the US".
I am not American, nor am I Chinese. Both of those countries have the capability to make enough compute to do whatever the hell they want. I am, however, European...
Well does it matter where industry & technology are located (and who controls them) or doesn't it? The anti-protectionism crowd thinks no, it makes no difference if we make something locally, or import it. A stance not shared by any of the countries currently leading the semiconductor industry - or in the case of China, rapidly catching up.
I can almost imagine we would have more trouble getting domestic phone screens, but I'm not doing any research to validate that gut feeling.
I think the biggest problem would be whether we could automate assembly enough to avoid having high labor costs on each unit
Not just that, the raft of features that may have to be disabled until that performance and performance per watt gets back to where it is today.
Apple’s putative refusal to cooperate is surely not the only barrier here. I doubt U.S. consumers would pay a premium for a U.S. iPhone whether Apple thought it wise or not. But when the U.S. president’s branded Made in America phone comes out later this year I guess we’ll see. I’m sure the release is just around the corner.
How about the new Trump phone?
Isn’t that basically “stop buying high technology” to a large degree?
There’s more to the world of computing than your laptop.
Stepping back to 10 year old GPUs and server CPUs would be a massive handicap on the country.
> Maybe it'd force the tech industry to start writing more efficient user-facing software instead of depending on the incremental advancements made by chip designers and semi fabs.
It’s not about the speed of your laptop loading Slack. Large scale compute is already squeezing as much performance as we can out of server hardware.
Not sure that TSMC would want to do that either! We're probably their biggest market, even allowing for China.
> Isn’t that basically “stop buying high technology” to a large degree?
I think you're right, to an extent, at leastt in the near term.
However, we do have (and especially used to have) various fabbing here in the States, from Samsung to Intel. Especially the latter has been neglected, but these changes would probably accelerate on-shoring and perhaps bring some of it back here.
Don't forget that TSMC is in a country that is probably going to go through some significant instability in the next few years. From a business continuity perspective, we'd need to consider availability and supply chain management with the strong possibility of a major vendor being located in the middle of a hot warzone.
I just don’t think “don’t use TSMC“ is a realistic choice at all right now.
That’s like telling someone in rural Montana “just don’t use a car”. If you want to live a normal life it’s not very doable.
I think their assumption is that TSMC will certainty give in to any demands. Taiwan needs US support to defend against a much worse (and unfortunately just next door) adversary.. China.
AMD and Apple offer that; Intel still(?) does not.
The most recent Intel machine that did work reliably is now 15 years old (and humming along nicely, for what it's worth).
Sure, they had Linux drivers, but they also would do crap like kernel panic, unsuspend in my laptop and overheat, screw up USB, and so on. They did it under all operating systems.
My current desktop is an AMD system on chip. It's great, except it has an Intel WiFi/Bluetooth module. There's been a bug open against all Intel Bluetooth modules for about a decade:
They fail to advertise themselves in a timely fashion at boot, so the intel driver (Linux or Windows) doesn't see them so you have to keep rebooting until it does (or write a bash script that retries modprobe).
Here's the manual for the wildly popular ASUS bluetooth dongle that works around this crap by not using an Intel part. Look at page 1 where they show you how to disable the Windows driver for your existing Bluetooth radio, which apparently can't coexist with a second bluetooth adapter under windows:
https://www.asus.com/us/supportonly/usb-bt500/helpdesk_manua...
(Manual revision U24085 will do -- it's the top in the list).
I'll give you one guess: Which brand has the bug that requires the workaround?
Arguably, US consumers are super consumers and maybe it will be better for everyone if Americans consume a bit less? I don't think that it should be necessarily bad for business, maybe it's time to switch to world building instead of consuming, maybe as so many people works so hard we as species should gradually move on to use our output for longer and enrich our lives with each new tool instead of consume more and more and keep working the same or more. Eastern Europeans are or used to be a bit likte that, have a slow paced life, have low GDP output, on paper economy and everything is bad but actually have a great life if you have a house with a garden and some stuff you bought 30 years ago and still functioning good enough.
when you take a step back and look at the deal breakdown, this is protection money not a trade negotiation.
Most of these "deals" aren't deals and rather frameworks. And given the tumultuous nature of bilateral trade where countries might not follow on their promises. Happens all the time and countries end up arguing at the WTO. So, it is hard to say whether Europe or Japan "blinked". Given the timing of the European deal it might be to help Trump so that he does not have egg on his face for not having 200 deals by 1st August.
India wants to cozy up to US and was one of the first countries to start trade negotiation. Trump-Modi dynamic has been good. The sticking point is agriculture and dairy. Both countries subsidize agriculture and diary. And in both countries farmers form a big chunk of politically aware voters. For the Indian government it is political suicide to even nod along like Japan and Europe. But if you hear Trump he keeps saying it is about Russian oil.
Brazil might have the same issue. Historically, US was the largest soyabeans exporter. But last time Trump got into a trade war with China, the country has moved away from US exports and started buying from China. So, again even the appearance of a deal might be problematic for the government.
And reading this side by side, maybe US farmers are not that economically aware?
India's issues with the US are for completely separate reason.
Bihar elections are coming up in 2 months [2]. Any incumbent government in India can't give trade concessions on agriculture during peak campaigning season in a swing state that can impact elections in 2-3 additional states as well as the general election in 4 years.
The main Indian exports to the US (pharma, electronics, and services) are all tariff exempted so the economic pain is marginal.
The only export that's hurt is textiles, but frankly, textile workers don't matter in Indian elections, especially when most of them leave for 3-4 months each year to work on the family farm and get social benefits based on their agrarian status and voter rolls that they never updated.
Realistically, India and US will sign a deal either after the Bihar elections, or after making ag/dairy a separate track from the rest of the deal.
Trump needs to keep the cheeseheads of Wisconsin happy just like the NDA needs to keep Bihari farmers happy through direct subsidizes [0] and hardline agriculture policies [1], hence why both the US and India will maintain maximalist positions on agriculture and dairy.
My hunch is a comprehensive deal will be announced during the election media blackout in the run-up of the Bihar elections or shortly after the election.
[0] - https://www.thehindu.com/news/national/prime-minister-narend...
[1] - https://indianexpress.com/article/political-pulse/why-makhan...
These arm-twisting games are exhausting and expensive.
The bonus is that it's a tool for punishing perceived enemies and inciting interested parties to purchase favor from the regime to try and ease them back.
This has always been the case. I have never heard of a company absorbing tariffs on behalf of consumers in the day and age of "trickle down economics".
Even making them visible has drawn the ire of Trump a few times already.
But I generally agree that it can't go on forever / not how it works historically.
I don't think most people actually have a solid understanding of what is and is not affected by which tariffs.
If I understand correctly, most of the tech stuff is effectively exempt; and Canada/Mexico tariffs don't apply to most items that are covered under "the rules of origin" certifications under USMCA (the successor to NAFTA).
I think the biggest hit has been the elimination of the de minimis rule, which now makes it difficult and/or impossible to get anything directly from China by USPS, be that cheap clothing or small electronics.
Let's say this was the starting point. Almost immediately, this strategy of trade balance was dispensed with, leaving most countries with some random tariff rate that wasn't strategically decided.
Many recognizable countries, specifically the ones that the administration targeted for political reasons, ended up with adjusted tariffs based on politic. This was due to the administration figuring out they had overstepped or thought that they were too soft, when the influence wasn't effective. When it became clear the economics were being ignored, Trump called them some epithet that meant "unreasonable" and abandoned the tariff tactic in all but rhetoric.
What was the point? The most predictable sequence of IMMEDIATE events were likely the point. I believe the point was to try to convert the global crises (political, economic, and social) that existed around the world to purely economic concerns for simplicity. This was paired with jamming up the entire global trade system, which would allow the administration to listen for the squeakiest wheels. It was supposed to be an efficient way to prioritize immediate problems such that the administration would not have to learn about and weigh all the problems in the world.
Short and long term, the tariffs have accelerated the de-dollarization of the world economy, they has amplified income inequality, and have destroyed supply chains across multiple sectors. The replacements are necessarily less efficient (value is cannibalized by tariffs). It was a lazy and poorly considerer tactic, but it might have achieved the goal, given my assumption of purpose.
The issues that were raised to the administration were largely, left unsolved. The most prominent of which are the Ukrainian, Taiwanese, and Palestinian fronts and the weakening of the US hegemony due to trade conflicts. The good trade relations with traditionally friendly nations have been damaged, long term. Canada, India, China, most of the EU have made moves to distance themselves from the US chaos. Some strange side effects, like this weird buy in to american companies is a side effect of the show, rather than a specific intent. I can concede it wasn't all bad. The US did see some new corporate inroads into a few countries. Notably concessions from Mexico, who was willing to meet the US goals in achieving a trade balance (more or less).
Overall, it's possible the tariffs succeeded as a self-serving tool of the administration, but failed in serving the US as policy. Maybe I'm just wrong, but maybe Trump is just this simple minded and his administration is playing into the fallout, as it advances their 2025 goals (or whatever).
Why do you think that? Trump clearly wants them to use Intel's 18A which is likely similar to TSMC 2 year old N3P, which is not an impossible option.
https://www.reuters.com/business/retail-consumer/intels-new-...
>Tan's overall strategy for Intel remains nascent...Shifting away from selling 18A to foundry customers would represent one of his biggest moves yet.
even if Intel’s processes worked just as well, there’s no way they have the capacity to take over for all that stuff.
We’d be back in a huge shortage.
That means investors who sell are getting the current low market price or a little bit higher--- they will still be down the massive amount.
This is really bailing out current management-- letting them be replaced by the more capable TSMC people and getting an attaboy for helping the US government strengthen the alliance with Taiwan, keeping peace in the region.
The trouble with a competent organization buying a decadent organization is that leadership at the decadent organization is often much better at winning political infighting (they have a lot of practice).
So it’s very easy to end up in a situation where the disfunction metastases up into the parent.
At the very least, executive attention is finite and splitting attention like this is distracting to the parent executives, which harms the parent organization.
But the buyer can just unconditionally lay off all the top brass, exactly for that reason. The layoff can be more of a golden parachute kind, to prevent any sabotage.
They failed the duty, no golden package or BS.
Would they buy existing shares from investors? Would they really find enough investors willing to sell shares at market price? I doubt it. There would be a lot of investors that would rather hold than sell at market price. Market price is the current minimum price an investor is willing to accept. Not the price that all investors are willing to accept.
Would they buy new shares issued by Intel? That seems more likely to me. That would be a bailout to Intel.
The fab part is not a good deal since Intel struggles a lot with it and they are not even on par with what TSMC was producing a few years back using older processes.
I would guess in this deal, TSMC would produce the chips and fire all the Intel foundry people.
If you need taxpayers to make a deal happen, then it is not happening at market price, by definition.
Only the willingness to go to war, stops aggressors. War is terrible and economic competition is the path to peace, but if you can't defend yourself you will get destroyed.
I'm pretty sure that's why China is saber-rattling so openly. I don't endorse the CCP's arguments for Taiwan being part of China (which rest on a very flimsy historical foundation and are mostly tied to the ROC government fleeing there), but I fully understand their dislike of being militarily encircled by the US. Other Asian nations appreciate the status quo under a Pax Americana, but have made it clear that they are less than enthusiastic about participation alongside the US in any military conflict centered on Taiwan.
If TSMC has effectively transferred their technology to Intel, doesn't this remove a reason for the US to defend Taiwan?
That doesn’t matter much to this administration, but it’s not like they’re going to care about TSMC either.
I will disregard "Bay of Pigs Invasion", since that wasn't really US military operation, but some small scale, CIA orchestrated coup.
The US has a good reason to invade Cuba: it's tightly linked to the US's largest enemy. Which is the same reason it doesn't invade (overtly).
Blue chip, Intel is not:
> "[...] known for its stability, consistent earnings, sound financials, and long-standing reputation." [0]
Apparently they don't need that kind of headache.
The board brought on a chop shop guy, you don't do that when there is a future, and TSMC would be smart to wait Intel out and pick it up cheap. The USA wouldn't last a month without TSMC chips, Tim Apple wouldn't let that happen. There is no way this demand has any teeth
I was stunned when it was announced. I mean having contradicting tariffs and goals is one thing, but semis?! Wonder if this will finally get Intel their first Intl. buyer for their semis.
Because even if TSMC managed to get that initial deal, they'd still be at risk of Trump revisiting it.
But TSMC, please please please, get Intel out of Oregon. I'm so tired of that loser state holding back companies from reaching their true potential.
> CHIPS act was a massive waste of money
They are a required / no alternatives industry by so much of the USA, with limited alternatives. Is it really more cost-effective for each of these companies to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to avoid tariffs when they could easily pass on these costs because we have no alternatives?
Have you heard of this story? https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/10/qwest-ceo-nsa-punished...
The only telecom in America to resist turning on a domestic eavesdropping firehose tap for the government, was pounded to the edge of bankruptcy.
Intel and TSMC are both strategically important and favored-status corporations for the going concern of the United States, and large swaths of the federal appartatus are invested in their success, contracts, global projection, etc. That comes with a price. Naive to think they are independently operated companies.
How so? There was no mention of the government taking action against the company to cause the company to fail. If a company is failing without government contracts, that is on them and not the government.
And what's the alternative for many of them? Lawsuits?
SCOTUS has quit doing their job. The checks and balances are out the window. There is no leadership / anyone in power at the national level when it comes to democracy in the US at this time.
Now imagine the same scenario, but one side is willing to destroy themselves as collateral if they don’t get the result they want.
The administration has made it clear they will take such actions personally.
The USA by and large figuratively controls the world. All of Europe is one step away from a protectorate and if Taiwan doesn't want to conquered by China they need the USA in the way.
If the USA ever sours on the relationship it means China will take Taiwan so they do whatever they need to do to appease the USA.
Intel isn't dead. They've made some bad choices and investments but they're still huge. They have $30 billion in gross profit per year on an utterly boring, non-hype based business model. Get rid of some dead weight, write off the bad investments, improve their foundry business and their value easily grows multiples of what it currently is.
On top of it already being a shrewd business deal, doing a favour for the US government also potentially buys protection for TSMC and Taiwan from China. Plus the immediate tariff relief.
They also have 50 billion dollars in debt, and their cash flow situation has gotten so desperate that slices of future fab revenue have been pawned off to private equity, who now has a senior claim on the assets (as do the bondholders).
An equity stake and Intel is not something that a TSMC would want without coercion. It's just not a very attractive place to be an equity holder.
>Get rid of some dead weight, write off the bad investments, improve their foundry business and their value easily grows multiples of what it currently is.
As if it was that easy. The company has now been through multiple CEOs attempting to mix up these ideas in various ways. The last CEO tried to do a Hail Mary to improve the foundry business, but the balance sheet can't support it. Now the new CEO is essentially writing off those investments and putting them on the back burner. Considering that, getting rid of the dead weight will be difficult, considering the company itself is largely dead weight... The quality of their employees is not good, or at least not nearly at the level that needs to be (18A yields are alarmingly low, and that's the critical product that basically determines the company's future. 14a is already looking more and more distant despite it being the purported savior not even a year ago).
Realistically, their financial situation puts them right at the precipice of needing to shed the fabs, and/or permanently continue down the path of more Brookstone-like partnerships where they can spread the burden (which then caps the equity holder upside).
There is nothing "easy" about the current situation. Maybe without the 50 billion in debt, but nearly all of remedial paths are running into nasty balance sheet constraints. There's no more room to spend quarters rejiggering the thing.
Did I say they were? Google gross versus net margin.
> If their R+D and Capex investments stopped, the sum total of the existing+legacy cash flows wouldn't nearly cover Intel's substantial liabilities.
You sure? https://www.intc.com/financial-info/balance-sheet
Current assets are $43 billion. Total assets are $192 billion. $30 billion yearly in gross profit. Debt is only $50 billion. They still hold 75% market share. Repeat, they still sell 3 times more chips than AMD.
Yes, their balance sheet isn't as good as some fabless competitors but if TSMC helps them with their 14a yield then it looks like a good investment.
Also, having TSMC on board will surely help with their fab business. Again, between the US government needing them to survive, TSMC on board, plus the fact they still do have a decent core business, I think Intel (and TSMC's investment) will be fine.
Current CEO has no plan, sabotaged the idea of last one and cries on twitter. Not a good outlook.
TSMC can just wait Trump out.
They already built fabs in the US. The thing about protection money is the bully keeps asking for it again and again.
They’re a globally important company but they’re not ASML and they’re stuck between two superpowers and the threat of potential total war. They’ve had the misfortune of being sucked into geopolitical maelstrom and those tides are far too strong for any company to resist.
Sure. Go home and make chips. Pass the tarrif costs on to customers. Would US customers have a choice?
So yes, US companies do have a choice. They can lobby Congress to cut off TSMC from their main hardware and parts supplier entirely, crippling it altogether, except for their Arizona plant which is ripe for nationalization for natsec.
For the cutting edge stuff TSMC is a monopoly.
So the EU offering something like nuclear weapons sharing à la that which Germany etc. would probably be reasonable if the US bullied Taiwan too hard. But I don't think it's happening, I think people want good relations with China.
Will Apple, AMD, and nVidia continue to trust TSMC if it owns half of Intel?
It doesn't matter because none of them have much choice. None of them own fabs and Samsung's capacity is significantly less than TSMC's. Plus Samsung also designs chips.
Not sure about that. Buying Intel would make TSMC a direct competitor to most of its biggest customers which could incentivize said customers to look for alternative foundry.
Whether it is correct or not, Trump seems to view the US as a larger version of Mar-a-Lago, so he'll always feel he can charge a premium for access to its consumer base and market while offering discounts to those he sees as ingratiating themselves.
But it is supposed to be a free market that should reward efficiency and competence, not prop up companies that don't have their act together. If the goal is domestic chip production, funneling funds to TSMC's proven fab operations and to build more US fabs makes more sense than bailing out Intel, regardless of whether it is improper to demand such concessions at all.
https://fortune.com/2023/06/03/tsmc-arizona-plant-jobs-salar...
>New engineering grads with a master’s degree earn on average $65,700 a year, while general full-time staff earn $32,800—compared to Taiwan’s average annual income of $21,700.
$32.8k for full time salaries in Taiwan, which is more than the average. And this is _general_ staff. Not engineering staff my dude.
>Another challenge is compensation. TSMC pays up to $160,000 annually “for Ph.D.s with some good experience,” says an Arizona-based CEO of a semiconductor recruitment firm hiring for TSMC. That same Ph.D. can earn some $30,000 more at Intel, according to Payscale, a website that tracks company salaries.
And that's the real number for PhDs in the US.
Quite frankly, though, they probably have less competition with Intel now that it's collasping ;)
>TSMC’s American rivals, meanwhile, are defending against its recruiting onslaught. The recruitment firm CEO says candidates have gotten “counter-offers like we’ve never seen. Intel is… giving [people] $10,000 to $20,000 to stick around. We’ve lost people that way.”
AND, if TSMC was really paying so low, their competition wouldn't be falling over themselves to pay retention bonuses.
(I also think they are probably underpaid in their current jobs and don't know it)
This was a few years back, maybe TSMC realized you can't pay Taiwan rates in the US.
> But it is supposed to be a free market that should reward efficiency and competence, not prop up companies that don't have their act together.
He is threating Switzerland with 250% tariffs on meds while his people still suffer under horrendous health care prices. That man is beyond crazy
Tariffs are a tax on consumers for commodities but not for monopoly products.
Edit:// it's not just me. Swiss media does barely seem to understand anything anymore either
Yes, monopolist will still want to sell because they still make profit. They don't take a hit of 250%, their profits are just reduced by ~2.5x.
US has famously high drug prices due so cutting edge pharma makes much of its profits there.
This is all standard 101 International Economics, Paul Krugman has written the standard textbook for it, it's a fun read.
The second China becomes powerful enough to throw their military around like the US is when I start supporting tech transfers the other way. A more distributed power structure is much better for overall progress.
This would be late timing.
Ask yourself what the benefit is of having the US as a diplomatic partner if you can get the same deal from China but with a more stable and predictable leadership.
"Nixon should be told," Kissinger said, "that it is probably an objective of [Clark M. Clifford, the Secretary of Defense] to depose [Nguyen Van Thieu, the President of South Vietnam] before Nixon is inaugurated. Word should be gotten to Nixon that if Thieu meets the same fate as [Ngo Dinh Diem, a former President of South Vietnam whom the U.S. initially supported, but who was later murdered in a CIA-backed military coup], the word will go out to the nations of the world that it may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal."
Kissinger was motivating why the U.S. should continue to support Nguyen Van Thieu, the dictator of South Vietnam; but today his words are frequently taken out of context to suggest a self-aware take of U.S. foreign policy.
> investing a further $400 billion in the US alongside buying a stake in Intel seems improbable from a purely financial standpoint
TSMC's entire assets are ~$200,000,000,000 [1] (cash, inventory, accounts receivable, land, buildings and equipment.)
Buying 49% of Intel ... maybe. Intel's outstanding Market Cap is current ~$88,600,000,000. (4,377,000,000 outstanding shares [2] @ 20.26 8/5/25 midday price [3]). Double TSMC's entire assets is a bit extreme.
Notably, Intel's valuation also seems kind of nonsense. They made $13B in revenue last quarter. 2024 yearly was $53B ... on a market cap of $88B? Intel's been a mess lately, yet their valuation's also kind of a mess. If they ever stop bleeding money on operating profit and net income they won't look that bad.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TSMC
[2] https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/stocks/intc/instituti...
Or the entire thing can be done by a stock swap, with whoever diluting themselves however amount is necessary, etc.
I think our lives are short enough that it can be easy to perceive something like America as “always was, always will be” and the rest is just trivia you learn in history class.
It feels to me like it's more like the beginning of an empire, in the sense of existing under an emperor.
> I think our lives are short enough that it can be easy to perceive something like America as “always was, always will be” and the rest is just trivia you learn in history class.
I think it very interesting that one of the things the USA is going to have to grapple with, in the middle of the most contentious presidency in its history, is the semiquincentennial of independence itself.
The bicentennial of independence in 1976 was I think largely an uncontentious thing even though the Vietnam conflict had ended only a couple of years beforehand and the presidency was in the hands of a guy who had taken over the job from, and pardoned, a crook who was forced to resign. Internationally people were pretty kind and generous to the USA.
I don't think anyone, anywhere on the planet, is prepared diplomatically for how it will play out this time. Next year is going to be a heck of a year.
What I mean about the beginning of an empire is, as I said -- the beginning of a true individual, not simply unitary, emperor. That the executive is transforming into l'état, c'est moi, which no US president has had the luxury of ever before, because Congress wouldn't ever have handed over the influence and authority they had.
So in the end your assessment is probably correct. It's probably going to be a long, slow decline though.
It happened before, and perhaps even worse (more competent people were corrupt).
Now, people are just making it public.
If suddenly corruption is done in the open, you see it more, and think it may be because the total amount is greater, but it is only more visible.
We don't know how much historical corruption was invisible, thus it is hard to accurately say there is more.
Why else has the US been overspending on military for decades and planting military bases and nuclear submarines all over the world, to become the world hegemony, if not to bully everyone in doing its bidding when push comes to shove?
I'm not defending the actions of the US, I'm just asking what are the other countries gonna do about it? Ally with Cuba, China, Iran and Russia to fight the US? Unlikely.
UK, Canada, Australia, New Zeeland are 5 eyes members and therefore lapdogs of the US, and the EU as much as they dislike the US due to Trump, has a laundry list of urgent domestic issues like Russia, no cheap energy, no high growth industry like tech, ageing population, economic stagnation or even decline, collapsing welfare and pension system, illegal immigration leading to a rise right wing extremism leading to crackdowns on freedom of speech and censorship leading to further social and political turmoil. So how is the EU gonna retaliate when they can't even keep themselves together?
What can they do now, when the US holds all the cards? Their only hope can be that the US collapses from internal issues, just like the Roman empire, but until then, they literally have no screws to turn on the US and just like the EU, Switzerland, etc, are forced to accept the terms of the US or have their already fragile economies suffer even more.
The 90s were ~30 years ago. American economic and military capacity ain't what they used to be, and alienating your allies and friends is starting to look like a poor strategy.
You're totally wrong about this when you look at the numbers. EU's economy was on par with the US about 20 years ago. Now it's only half the size of the US.
People love to cry foul when the US flexes it's might... then cry foul when the US takes a back seat... literally cry foul no matter what the US does.
If Ukraine is so important to the world order, why has Europe (you know, Ukraine's actual neighbors) not stepped up with their full military power? Why is Europe not threatening troops, missiles, aircraft, tanks, etc... even nuclear obliteration if Putin doesn't yield? Why is it the US has to swoop in, from half a world away, and save the day (again, and again, and again...)?
The US is not currently willing to send our citizens to die in Ukraine. Maybe Europeans should?
There's a difference between the US invading Iraq and US aiding a country being invaded.
Why can't the Germans send troops into Ukraine? Or the Brits (for all their grandstanding and bluster)?
Why must it be the US?
If "everyone" thinks Putin isn't going to stop with Ukraine, then it would seem Europe has an existential crisis to deal with - not the US, thousands of miles away...
Two reasons:
1. Because whichever country does go in, it gives everyone else in NATO an excuse to do nothing in response to Russia subsequently going to full war with whoever it was that went in. Strategic vs tactical response in local political sphere, short-term tactical benefit of using such an excuse comes at long term strategic cost.
2. Right now, each individual European power is in a state of "Oh no, Russia's probably 3-5 years away from attacking us if Ukraine falls, and it will take us 5-8 years to be ready to defend ourselves". The UK, for example, has a 136k active and 32k reserve personnel in total, while Ukraine forces have suffered ~400k wounded and ~50-100k fatalities.
Both points become "we can only intervene directly as a joint act from multiple nations".
That said, if the USA were to leave NATO, I wouldn't be overly surprised if rest of NATO may issue a joint declaration that Ukraine is now under their combined protection, nor would I be overly surprised by an alternative outcome such as NATO being functionally replaced with Article 42 of the Treaty on European Union: https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A...
And also, much of Europe is, in fact, sending aid (and arms) to Ukraine. All the other stuff is about troops on the ground.
Article 5 of NATO (an attack on one is an attack on all) has only been invoked once, by the US. So why did NATO members send their militaries to Afghanistan?
The real reason is that most conflicts never happen. Or are resolved before ending in a full war. Either the US or a European NATO country sending in troops would muddy the conflict so much that the risk of escalation is huge.
It certainly will when Putin moves on to invading Poland or Finland. The whole point of holding the line at Ukraine is because everyone believes Putin won’t stop there.
"Putin is too sensible to invade Ukraine" was the argument people were making the day before he did. My guess is these are the same people who now say "Putin would never invade Poland".
Never been to Finland so no opinion on that.
The US is currently not wanting Ukraine to win for a single reason - it’s personal to Trump. So much has happened that we’ve collectively forgotten that it was Zelensky said “No” to Trump on the phone when wanting to find any dirt on Joe Biden helping Hunter in business deals.
That totally explains why Biden kept slow-walking support packages...
But if the US had a different objectives, every human settlement in Afghanistan could have have been radioactive ash by September 12, 2001. Or, more realistically, the US could have gone in, killed all (for some value of all) the local elites as a warning to leaders elsewhere about the costs of harboring terrorists, and then immediately left the country in the same sort of chaos that they eventually did a couple of decades later. Kabul delenda est was always accomplishable.
The only people who should be ashamed of the their performance in Ukraine are the Russians, and the Europeans, for failing to be able deter or respond to the Russia on their own despite having an economy five times the size.
US interests are perfectly well served by seeing the Russian military mauled for a generation at the cost of aid, much of it material that was going to be decommissioned anyway, that costs roughly what Americans spend on golf in a given year (Once you throw in the costs of drinks on the 19th hole.)
Anyway, US arms sales are up since the start of the conflict, Russian sales have cratered.
US was all into destroying Afghanistan and Iraq. They had no intention of being there long term.
Can’t it be both? It’s hard to argue they aren’t trying to destroy it. It has been attempted in the past during the Holodomor.
Russia's end goal here is a cultural genocide.
The US doesn't need to be cut out of world trade altogether (it won't be obviously) to lose a lot at the margin, with the chief beneficiaries ironically being the country the current US administration most hate...
- Europe signing trade deal with US
- China: We can’t afford for Russia to lose Ukraine war https://www.yahoo.com/news/russia-cannot-lose-war-ukraine-09.... In other words, China is attacking Europe via Russia.
- China is in a great depression. Their only economic engine is export, and Europe is steadily putting up tariff walls.
Maybe I'm not understanding what you mean by a broad trade deal? As of 2023, a large majority of imports from the US and close to a majority of imports from China were tariff-free. (https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php...) The remainder are on goods that the EU doesn't want entirely free trade in for some reason or another. I could definitely imagine a scenario where China follows in Trump's footsteps and bullies the EU into pushing their tariff-free percentage higher, but I wouldn't call that broad and wouldn't expect it to produce radical shifts in the import-export activity of EU businesses.
They already are. The US defence industry buys from them no matter what. Which is why the US needs to ensure their survival. The concern isn't that Intel survives or not (the US would prop them up no matter what), but that they also remain on the cutting edge and the US doesn't lose out if, say, Taiwan falls to China.
Though from the POV of economic coercion, the question is probably more like "what's the USA's import/export market like relative to all my markets including domestic?", which is going to vary wildly by industry.
> Ally with China, Iran and Russia to fight the US?
Replace Iran with the EU, and yes, some or all of them.
> EU as much as they dislike the US, has a laundry list of urgent domestic issues like Russia,
Urgent, but affordable.
> no cheap energy, no tech industry,
Energy isn't meaningfully worse than anyone else, lots of tech but it's mostly local rather than global in scale
> ageing population, economic stagnation or even decline,
Like everyone else, including the USA
> collapsing welfare system
News to me. Also: Wasn't the USA's supposed to collapsing since Obama took power?
But also, not a unified welfare system over all member nations of the EU.
> illegal immigration leading to a rise right wing extremism leading to crackdowns on freedom of speech and censorship.
Is it, or is that a narrative? And specifically, is it doing this worse than the USA today?
The mean wealth/income per person in the USA is indeed higher than China.
So what?
Negotiate and follow through in bad faith, because there's no upside to acting in good faith when the opposing party is pursuing a lose-lose agenda.
If anything, it shows the opposite of what you are saying.
More prosaically, in the short term: TSMC are now effectively compelled to acquire Intel entirely or at least a controlling share, right?
Unless Trump's shakedown requires them to own 49% but then bans them from owning more than 50%, which would be the end of the USA as any sort of free market -- and I concede that is possible, because the USA now has a leader who acts more and more like an autocrat -- aren't TSMC essentially compelled by their own interests to find the just-greater-than 1% somewhere?
If you're blackmailing me into owning almost all of something but not getting control of what I owned, I think the logical next step is to forcibly gain control, yes? Because it turns the tables.
Not least because acquiescing even to buying 49% paints a target on my back.
Trump is not saving Intel: he is guaranteeing it is going to get broken up and sold off. He is destroying it. (More to the point he is immediately tying its existence to the success or failure of his own Asia-facing foreign policy, which means he is effectively asserting control over it)
Otherwise I fully agree with you, this will definitely not work out in the long run, but who cares about the long run anymore in this day and age?
The other important thing about this is that it dirties Intel almost immediately with presidential cheeto dust. So the value is going to fall over the long term, and this isn't the last sell-off they will have to do. Can you stop TSMC or a stalking horse for TSMC buying up parts of the rest?
Trump has created a powerful victim here.
I'd imagine they would be happy to have TSMC still selling to NVidia, Apple and AMD, and therefore a powerful lever in case of future US export controls/etc.
Obviously a protracted or nasty war would have a severe impact, but it's hard to see why China would want to harm TSMC, even if worse case for US they stopped them from exporting.
it's not about what China wants, it's just not feasible to operate a fab in a warzone
That's not the roadmap to good management of anything, as literally anyone who has ever worked a job will tell you. How people can see an amalgamation of all the traits they despise in a peer or leader that they actually have to interact with, and go 'oh yeah this guy should be running the entire country, this will end well' is mindblowing.
The empire can run on fumes and momentum... for a while. No company or country is so exceptional that it can survive enough mismanagement, eventually you burn through the furniture, and piss away whatever lead or competency you had.
I don't think becoming China would be a success.
Plus, china kept at bay, peace increased, intel's bad management gets to bail out saving face, TSMC gets rewarded for their hard work, Trump gets a win, Intel's employees get better management, and get rich from their stock options winning hugely....
Capitalism is where everyone wins like this.
Even china, because china loses if it goes to war, but china feels it has to go to war.
Are you saying there’s something different this time ?
But consider who in the world really loves the British. You don't need much time to make a list. Or even a paper and pen.
The main difference between the British Empire and the American Empire is that the American Empire is being led by a man who believes tariffs are a tax on foreign countries and retail prices can be cut by more than 100% and remain positive.
I've missed this story. Can you elaborate?
- this is his wonky understanding (and he is pretty famously innumerate)
- he's saying it as a power game despite the pushback because people around him feel they have to smile, agree and retcon stuff to make it believable
Or indeed both.
(I haven't yet heard them make the claim that he means reversing gains, but I would expect them to. Heck if it was my job to make his Truth Social messages make sense, that is what I would say.)
But honestly his grasp of fractions and percentages has long been known to be worse than early era ChatGPT.
The most worrying aspect of the Trump era for the markets should be that he treats numbers as entirely flexible according to his mood, when the market needs them to at least be consistent.
But then they knew this before he was elected the first time; he is famous for admitting he assesses the value of future business at any time based in part on how he feels about it (which is reminiscent of the way Musk assesses future valuations, future delivery dates for full-self-driving, future sales of robots etc.)
So it's not a political thing at all. He hasn't always been a Republican but he has always been like this with numbers, and anyone who has ever subjected his words to any kind of scrutiny should know it.
The longer Trump creates a legal black hole carve-out for Tiktok, the less anyone will want to buy it. Because he is and this action is transparently corrupt, and it taints the buyer.
And that is true of the participants of any of these forced transfers; they paint targets on their back for future manipulation by the Trump executive. (Which increasingly feels like it should be described as a regime)
Imagine if Taiwan/TSMC or even ASML were acting this childish. Refuse to sell chips or modern chip making technology to American companies = America would probably go to war with Taiwan or the Netherlands lmao. One trick pony.
Of course the reality is you're just taxing Americans to subsidise Intel at that point, since tarrifs are a tax on Americans and not foreigners.
So it really does raise money like trump "pretends"? Unless global trade ends, those tariffs will raise lots of money for the government. Even if it is the american consumer who ultimately pays the tariff.
- be bullied by little Orange
- ???
- no profit
The US administration heavily underestimates how much every nation on the planet wants TSMC. This deal is so bad, just from a comparison point of view.
It's not like the EU, India, and other nations don't want chips. That's what the egocentric US administration doesn't seem to understand.
You can't bully nations into submission, at some point the winds will change.
Guess what, that already happened. The media in the EU is making a joke out of US politics on a daily basis since the start of this term.
idk how we got to do this, like single producent of high end chips is not good for everyone
Surely tariffs for 3 more years are less damaging than buying a sinking ship?
South African right wing farmers sold a story of a genocide and reverse racism, now they wish losing business because their exports are more expensive from the very tariffs that are a negotiation tactic to get their government to abolish or repel sine laws.
Did we learn _nothing_ from the 2008 subprime mortgage crisis? Let them fail.
The unfortunate part is that the GOP has now repealed whatever protections were put in place on banks after that.
Whether it's good from a moral perspective or a long term perspective I guess is another matter, but I suspect if the government hadn't stepped in, we'd still be in the throes of the subprime crash even today. This is speaking as someone who is deeply anti-corporate.
2025 says "hold my beer"
Latest mindfactory data suggests that in gaming consumer space is now 96% AMD, 4% Intel. Seriously:
https://www.reddit.com/r/pcmasterrace/comments/1mfu3cq/this_...
And doesn't sound like their next or next next nodes are in good shape either
Ryzen definitely caught my interest when it first came out, but Intel still had the edge in performance and stability back then, so I stuck with them.
That started to change with the 7800X3D, and now with the 97/9950X3D lineup, AMD is clearly ahead. I'm not even going to mention the "new" Intel chips.
Funny how things shift. I'm firmly in the AMD camp now.
And everyone I know is in the same boat. Probably 3-5 years ago Intel was the only "real" option for the people I know, now it's the exact opposite.
That makes you think that this data is representative?
If you have a better source I'm all ears
Pray tell on what basis have you concluded this sales data is not representative?
If you have better data that drives your apparent certainty that the mindfactory data isn't representative - feel free to share
Trump has no idea what he is doing. HE can not replace Brazilian coffee, but at least it is "only" coffee. Not being able to replace a fab is a precarious situation.
Is he imagining invading Taiwan? China would consider that an invasion to its territory.
He was quoted regarding environmental concerns something to the effect of "I'll be dead by then".
I think that's really his POV. If you plan to live longer than Trump, he's really not for you.