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bitfriend6 t1_je2vf4l wrote

tl;dr

>Chief among them is red tape. From 1990 to 2020, the time required to construct new chip plants (called fabs) in the US soared by 38%. Clean Air Act permits can take 18 months. National Environmental Policy Act reviews take an average of four and a half years. A half dozen other federal laws may come into play, plus endless state and local variants. [...] Another challenge is that the US lacks the needed workforce for this industry, thanks partly to a broken immigration system. [...] A final concern is politics. Companies hoping for significant Chips Act funding must comply with an array of new government rules and pointed suggestions, meant to advantage labor unions, favored demographics, “empowered community partners” and the like.

Personal take: America can't build things anymore. America doesn't want to build things anymore. Americans don't want to build things anymore. Building things is a difficult, dirty, and usually demoralizing process of iterative failure until a usable design is chiseled out. Americans do not want factories, they do not want a huge industrial concern requiring a carefully negotiated social contract, and they don't want the engineers who might introduce scary things like workers' rights into our society. It is socially unacceptable to have a lowly machine tool or electrical engineering job, and it is unacceptable to build such facilities in America. The Northeast doesn't have enough land, the South doesn't have enough education, midwesterners are distrustful of electronics, and the west coast bans it on enviomental grounds. Asia doesn't have such concerns and just builds, they will win as a result.

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[deleted] t1_je2weqb wrote

[removed]

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Prophayne_ t1_je2s6x8 wrote

I'm sorry, but did this person just say that making it ourselves isn't good enough and we should just subsidize asian industries?

Thats undercutting the entire point of this, get rid of our reliance on china and other countries for things we deem important for national defense. I know its not that simple and clean cut, but thats the gist of what the bipartisan politicians who passed this wanted. It brings industry and jobs back to the united states and secures a production line for a valuable strategic asset that would otherwise be cut off by china in a worse case scenario basis.

I agree that its weird to plan for the biggest bad out of the hypothetical, but I'd rather have this stuff and not need it than say, lose an important war due to lack of it.

War is shit. The reasons all of our nations do these things are shit. But until an actual global government takes shape (that places like china, russia and N. Korea will recognize), we gotta keep ourselves safe first.

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547610831 t1_je2y9to wrote

It's pretty simple; the US can't manufacture these chips as cheaply as Asia. So you either have to commit to tens of billions in subsidies a year ad infinitum or accept that the production will all end up overseas.

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DonQuixBalls t1_je33owe wrote

> the US can't manufacture these chips as cheaply as Asia

Chip fabrication isn't heavily dependent on labor costs. Can they really not be made about as cheaply, or have we just chosen not to do it because the odd penny here and there has been considered a sufficient savings?

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547610831 t1_je34a5q wrote

It's not just labor costs. There's also a lot of regulations in the US which increase costs.

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DonQuixBalls t1_je35j0d wrote

Regulation definitely adds to the bottom line, both in real dollars and the cost of added time. Sounds like a streamlined approval process is what's desperately needed. Same is true for mining permits.

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savuporo OP t1_je3f0lc wrote

> Sounds like a streamlined approval process is what's desperately needed

That's ... precisely what the article advocates for. And also for streamlined immigration of absolutely required skilled talent, because US education system isn't producing nearly enough

"Streamlined approvals" ( aka less regulation ) is also desperately needed for things like building out infrastructure

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SilverZero-03 t1_je87m3c wrote

You're somewhat right about labor costs. However there is an absurd amount of specialized labor needed to make the fabs run at the cutting edge. Look at how Intel tried and failed falling behind TSMC.

The other issue from a corporate perspective is the fabs are silly expensive. I'm pretty sure they are the most expensive buildings in the world once you account for all the equipment you need . Once you construct one, you need it to run 24/7 pumping out chips to even pretend to make the expenditure worth it. Hasn't the USA had some large profile power failures in the not to distant past? You'd be screaming at the moon as a fab if you suffered a shutdown caused by inadequate infrastructure outside your plant.

China is also trying to get at the high end of chips, and they earmarked over $140 billion USD, and remember that with purchasing power parity that money goes a lot further in China vs USA. All this is to say it is very expensive and technically difficult to be at the high end of fabs. I have a feeling both countries will end up with some higher end fabs, but give it time and they'll fail at keeping up the pace.

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DonQuixBalls t1_je8bzmi wrote

> fabs are silly expensive.

This is NO exaggeration. You can build a lot of things in a garage, or a million dollar factory. Chips can't be built in a BILLION dollar factory.

> Hasn't the USA had some large profile power failures in the not to distant past? You'd be screaming at the moon as a fab if you suffered a shutdown caused by inadequate infrastructure outside your plant.

No country has 100% uptime. Like hospitals, you have batteries and generators onsite capable of picking up the load without interruption.

> China is also trying to get at the high end of chips, and they earmarked over $140 billion USD,

If they've done this, this will almost surely be enough to get them to the forefront.

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savuporo OP t1_je2sltf wrote

> I'm sorry, but did this person just say that making it ourselves isn't good enough and we should just subsidize asian industries?

No, you apparently didn't read the article. What the editors letter is saying is that just throwing money at the problem isn't doing what's expected.

They point out three major flaws in the current plan - flaws that pretty much anyone in the industry could have predicted

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Prophayne_ t1_je2veb7 wrote

Literally, the first paragraph (which I read) mentions how the "simple solution" is subsidies "prudently applied" and then talks about the merits of the asian sector over ours in the following. Thats literally the first half of the article. Also, subsidizing all these fucking corps to do our shit for us is literally how were here in the first place with most our industry shipped offshore.

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phdoofus t1_je3eb7l wrote

>Significant policy changes would be needed for US-based manufacturers tobe even remotely competitive. As things stand, they face three seriousimpediments — all inflicted by the government.

​

Translation: cut taxes, cut regulations, give us more money, shield us financially from failure.

​

Same as it ever was. If we were 'exceptional', we'd find a way to succeed regardless of impediments. According to the editors, however, we're doomed before we start not because of ourselves and our own ambition and drive but because of 'them'.

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cwn01 t1_je3n1po wrote

Yeah, too many Government and Social rules prevent the kind of "let's just get it done" ability. No snowflakes want to hear that their demsnds are subtly sabotaging everything from small startups and corner stores, to major industries, so I won't say that and offend the snowflakes. But, here we are..

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Secure-Frosting t1_je5erp3 wrote

do you think you’re smart for capitalizing random words like Government and Social? genuinely curious

signed, a Snowflake ;)

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ConnectionDifficult6 t1_jeatmpo wrote

A little reality check: This vitally crucial industrial investment that has the potential to propel the US to dominate the second half of the 21st century should be a no-brainer. Whoever dominates advanced microprocessor (also nano processor) fabrication will impact all other industries globally. But 52 billion is a chump change when considering its magnitude and significance. Especially when we can spend over 5 trillion dollars to invade other countries in the name of national security, we should easily be shelling out more than a trillion for this sort of endeavor that will determine our strategic and economic future. (Akin to a new "moonshot".)

We need the same intensity that was applied to the "space race" and leave nothing to chance. The capital can be raised through both WallStreet as well as government debt. Politics aside, we need to push for far more H1 visas to get the best and the brightest over here as we do not have enough homegrown talent to get the job done (not enough microprocessor chip engineers or fabricators). If the money is right, they'll forgo a lot of the regulatory constraints, as every state wants these high-paying jobs and will cut some of the red tapes. Either we get serious about our future as a world leader in technology or we can leave US manufacturing to the likes of "scented candles" to sell on Etsy.

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