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Sale of IBM's Chip-Making Business To GlobalFoundries To Get US Security Review
dcblogs writes IBM is an officially sanctioned trusted supplier to the U.S. Defense Dept., and the transfer of its semiconductor manufacturing to GlobalFoundries, a U.S.-based firm owned by investors in Abu Dhabi, will get U.S. scrutiny. Retired U.S. Army Brig. Gen. John Adams, who authored a report last year for an industry group about U.S. supply chain vulnerabilities and national security, said regulators will have to look closely. "I don't want cast aspersions unnecessarily on Abu Dubai — but they're not Canada," said Adams "I think that the news that we may be selling part of our supply chain for semiconductors to a foreign investor is actually bad news."
You mean Abu Dhabi? Dice, fire Timothy at once!
Look 'ma no chips!
Commie
> There's no real way to prevent it other than subsidizing them, and then how is that really better than the government running the entire thing?
It is no better for you, ordinary citizen. It is better for the company who enjoys both aspects of independence and government work.
In a perfect world no private company would want to work with government, because the government would want to get the maximum benefit for the least price possible and take precedence over whatever issues you have with that.
Private companies lining up to get work from governments means "corruption" or "deep crisis", none of which is very good.
---- MISSING MISCELLANEOUS DATA SEGMENT --- [sigdash] trolololol
In a perfect world no private company would want to work with government, because the government would want to get the maximum benefit for the least price possible and take precedence over whatever issues you have with that.
Exception: unprofitable activities.
How long are you going to keep pretending that you are doing anything other than sinking into irrelevance?
If you don't make anything, and you have to buy it from the global market ... do you really still think you're innovating and pioneering?
Or will you finally realize your corporations are destroying your economy, and leaving you as a bunch of whiny bitches sitting on the sidelines still thinking you're awesome?
"We're selling part of our supply chain"? Who is "we"? Is the Government owning IBM now?
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The united states is currently shitlisting, per ITAR, 27 of the following contries:
Afghanistan, Belarus, Central African Republic, Cuba, Cyprus, Eritrea, Fiji, Iran, Iraq, Cote d'Ivoire, Lebanon, Libya, North Korea, Syria, Vietnam, Myanmar, China, Haiti, Liberia, Rwanda, Somalia, Sri Lanka, Republic of the Sudan (Northern Sudan), Yemen, Zimbabwe, Venezuela, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
ITAR means military goods and services are categorically banned. whats hillarious about this is many of these countries have militant regimes or massive destabilization as a direct result of our foreign intervention so its almost as though ITAR is to us as a 1 year AA chip is to an alcoholic. Others are just boogeymen left over from the cold war, and paradoxically countries like China and Vietnam are already enormous trading partners that could, if they decided to, temporarily grind the US to a halt with a trade embargo. Surprisingly Syria and Iraq, despite being on ITAR, receive funding and training from the US military respectively. Bureaucrats are strange.
Ultimately we cant sustain this simultaneous ideological demonization and capitalist embrace of free trade because, as is evidenced by our arms conractors at least, the United states is governed by private industry. What we do is no different than a baptist minister preeching against gays, but hiring a male prostitute on the weekends.
This happened in 2006 as well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Instead of exercising their right in america to free trade, DPW just chose to back away cautiously from the frothing psychosis that is american political and social policy.
Good people go to bed earlier.
no private company would want to work with government, because the government would want to get the maximum benefit for the least price
That is no different from selling to any other customer
That's epic.
If the government has any objections then the government should buy it.
http://openoss.info
One of the things I have in the cobwebs of my brain is that IBM does or did manufacture mainframes and POWER systems that were assembled entirely in the US and had a known trail for all the non-US components. This was for government/military customers who required the security of at least on-shore assembly. Now that a foreign company is going to be controlling IBM's fabs, maybe that's why the deal is getting scrutiny.
I hope we don't end up in another world war situation where our supply chains get cut off, but you never know sometimes. Imagine what kind of trouble we would be in if all of a sudden we cut off all trade with China. In order to not cause disruption, we would basically have to restart manufacturing of everything in the country overnight. Actually, that might not be a bad idea since we hardly make anything here anymore. The other good reason would be that it would finally make the average citizen feel the pinch of a wartime economy. WW2 was the last time full-scale rationing of consumer goods was required, as well as the nationalization of industrial capacity. Vietnam was the last time a mandatory military draft was needed. Since then, all the conflicts have been kind of shrugged off by the average person since it didn't affect them.
I know, global economy and all that, but I do see things getting a little messy when automation takes away the majority of jobs in this country, and limits the growth potential for all developing countries.
That started with Reagan, who was happy to buy Saudi Oil rather than try and change the USA's energy picture. Sure. No security issue there.
So now we're selling our chip-making infrastructure. But what's one more attack vector? We're already dependent on chips made in China and software coded in India. I guess having our supplies cut off by Abu Dhabi couldn't be much worse.
It's all about moneyed interests. Countries are an illusion designed to keep the little people from revolting, which will continue to work until there's not enough affordable oil to keep cheap food, entertainment and drugs coming down the pipeline. After that, all bets are off.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
No, the government's job is infrastructure, and other things that can be described as natural monopolies. If the start-up costs for a business are in the tens- to hundreds-of-billions, there isn't going to be much in the way of competition no matter what the industry is. If it's actually vital that said industry exists, it makes sense to nationalize it.
However, if competition is possible, it should be encouraged. There's no reason to nationalize SecureWidgetCo if a dozen people could take their place tomorrow, even if they only sell to the government.
It's clear that if the US Government wants to be sure of its chip supply, it needs to be in business for itself. The ultimate reason is not however that it's inherently inefficient for the government to enter into contracts with private companies, but that large scale microchip fabrication is so expensive that no (private, US) company is willing to do it.
P.S. With respect, if your response to this is that natural monopolies do not exist, please save yourself the trouble of responding.
Those who advocate genocide deserve every protection afforded by law, and none afforded by common human decency.
Thanks for the troll mod. Do I get to go to prison now?
Bullshit, it started with FDR and LBJ selling out to the military-industrial complex, long before Reagan took office.
"Telsa"? Really?
Liberty - Security - Laziness - Pick any two.
Countries are an illusion designed to keep the little people from revolting
One of the most insightful things I've ever read on here...
While it's efficacy has been hampered by conservative budget cutting, the FDA is the only thing protecting a consumer population from tainted food, ineffective or dangerous drugs, etc. That population can not effectively make judgements about the products offered for sale in those markets, so said markets are, by definition, not free. Most consumers, the military included, don't have the resources to ensure that this or that tech product is "safe and effective". A similar regulatory agency is in order so that consumers can be reasonably sure that they are getting what they pay for and that those things a free of dangerous defects or "side effects".
Yes, this is a huge change, but it deserves serious consideration. The alternative is bleak, if you use history as your context.
What gets me is that everyone thinks of automation as replacing lower end workers - mostly in manufacturing.
Automation is affecting more than just factory work.
Quickbooks has replaced whole accounting departments in small firms. They just have a $8/hr data entry person come in a couple times a week and they hit the invoice button and mail them out. That used to take several people to do.
The new software development tools have replaced quite a bit of people. I downloaded Visual Studio a while ago and messing around with it, I wrote a basic accounting system using a database in a little over a day. Back in the C/Win32 days, something like that would have taken a DBA and at least a couple of developers a couple of weeks.
The same thing is happening in medical. My wife is a practitioner and with today's computer systems, she no longer needs a scheduler, clerk for insurance, and hardly needs an assistant anymore.
Automation is also taking out the mid to upper range jobs too.
And the jobs created in the automation industry isn't making up for the jobs they are displacing. Why a company of a few dozen in the automation industry can displace hundreds of thousands of workers.
Maintenance?
The local auto plant (when it was open) replaced 3,000 people with robots. There were about a dozen guys to maintain and install the robots - a licensed electrician leading a bunch of assistants.
12 guys and robots replaced 3,000 people. Where did they go? Construction. Then that went up in smoke. Now, go look at how many people have gone on disability or retired early over the last 6 years.
Our economy isn't structured to deal with the changes happening.
I think you're okay... They'll both assume you must be talking about the other one.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Except that government is big enough that if it really tried it could defeat the tactic of bid low and pad the bill later. It's size also gives it disproportionate power in negotiations.
When I look at you, I always feel awesome.. Have a nice day French fry.
Did you forget about Intel? DERP!
If anyone is destroying America, it is it's own government pandering for votes and the all mighty dollar. However I'd still choose the dollar over a contrived compilation of currencies that would crash if one or two key players walked away from the table..
lol countries are only an illusion in america, because you have no nationality, of course you would choose to project this image on the rest of the world because of your insecurity, japan and china have been countries for thousands of years, through revolt and otherwise; it's probably because at the end of the day you know that Jose wont have your back because america treats people like shit, and that scares rich americans.
A friend who designs digital silicon for a living asked me a question about what an odd structure he is finding in Chinese power supply chips. It appears to be about a 10 GHz antenna tied to simple analog circuit that feeds some sort of shift register. Has someone managed to get a shutdown device added to most consumer power supply chips?
And split into 3 vertically parallel companies. Then push these companies for new ideas and innovations. Seriously, for this to work, we need to restore competition which requires multiple companies. Likewise, we to do a COTS approach with them. One item in desperate need is new networking equipment that was not manufactured in China.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
Head's up from Canada, we don't like you either!