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Intel To Invest $7 Billion in Factory in Arizona, Employ 3,000 People (cnbc.com)
Intel CEO Brian Krzanich met with President Donald Trump on Wednesday, where the company announced it will invest $7 billion in a factory employing up to 3,000 people. From a report: The factory will be in Chandler, Arizona, the company said, and over 10,000 people in the Arizona area will support the factory. Krzanich confirmed to CNBC that the investment over the next three to four years would be to complete a previous plant, Fab 42, that was started and then left vacant. The 7-nanometer chips will be produced there will be "the most powerful computer chips on the planet," Krzanich said in the Oval Office with the Trump administration. Most Intel manufacturing happens in the U.S., Krzanich said. "America has a unique combination of talent, a vibrant business environment and access to global markets, which has enabled U.S. companies like Intel to foster economic growth and innovation," Krzanich said in a statement. "Our factories support jobs -- high-wage, high-tech manufacturing jobs that are the economic engines of the states where they are located."Farhad Manjoo, columnist at The New York Times, tweeted; "As far as I can tell the decision had nothing to do with Trump, but they decided to announce with Trump. Why? There was no federal subsidy or any other credit. So it's just a marketing decision to give Trump credit."
He's an H1-B apologist.
His column in the Times today was explaining how much Silicon Valley needs immigrants for their hard work, inspiration and outside-the-box thinking.
Which is just fine -- but really, the complaint isn't about too much innovation in the Valley, the complaint is about run of the mill non-innovator jobs being outsourced to H1-Bs in the name of corporate profits.
Of course he didn't mention that issue at all, choosing to cast the issue as predominantly one of racism and ignorance killing the innovation hub of America.
The funny thing about the NY Times is that their editorial board endorsed Hillary, but their anti-Hillary reporters kept the email and FBI stories alive for months until the election.
I think Intel is genuinely on alert with respect to AMD. Intel's recent actions have led me believe that the Ryzen really is a very good CPU. Have you noticed in the last six weeks or so that Intel has been hammering the airwaves with ads? Not since the days of "Intel Inside" have I seen so much hype. These advertisements feature a Pee Wee Herman type guy walking around some business district yacking about how Intel powers all the self driving cars, Intel powers the cloud, etc. etc. It's without substance. It's all rah rah hype --- "Hooray for Intel".
Intel is clearly trying to reestablish their brand, and would not waste money on these ads if AMD wasn't about to unleash some serious competition.
"[...] But Mr. Krzanich said that the tax cuts and deregulatory policies pushed by Mr. Trump had prompted the company to move forward with its plans."
Tax cuts and deregulatory policies that Trump only talked about. No executive order will change or enact these items. The Republicans are too busy arguing among themselves on how to repeal and replace ObamaCare that they don't have time for anything else. We're overdue for a recession. I look forward to buying stocks on the way down.
You'll note there's nothing to not believe. The journalist was simply pointing out that there is no apparent reason for this announcement to come from Intel's CEO while he's in the Oval Office. Nothing in the announcement, brief, or subsequent details suggests this has anything at all to do with Trump. Except the location of the announcement.
H's just confused about why it took place in the Oval Office. There's two possible reasons really:
(1) Trump did something to prompt this decision. In which case, I would expect, based on Trump's personality, that he'd be telling everyone who will listen how he did it.
(2) Trump didn't do anything except arrange for the announcement to come from inside the Oval. I personally think this is the case - it gives people (like you) that want to believe he's doing something a talking point, valid or not - and two, it gives Intel the perception of being both pro-trump and meh-trump at the same time.
The short version here is that we're being fed something. I hesitate to call it bullshit, because nobody said anything weird - but it certainly looks like people are trying to play some kind of game here.
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The US Gov't blocked Intel from selling their most powerful CPUs to China. Intel would like to roll that back since all it did was get China to create a high power domestic that they can now export to compete with Intel.
I'd guess the H1-B visa system will have one of two possible primary biases.
Primary Bias A: Visas are harder to get, and some "key innovators", really smart people that even most morons would agree should work here, can't get a visa.
Primary Bias B: Visas are too easy to get, and a lot of run-of-the-mill IT jobs get outsourced, costing people their jobs.
What's wrong with having Primary Bias A?
The number of actual key innovators is numerically small and presumably they are filling high-end jobs and have significant resources lobbying on their behalf, increasing the chance they will ultimately get in. And by default you are making it much harder to outsource potentially thousands of good-paying "information age" jobs through visa abuse.
It seems like we have a choice -- we can protect many American jobs by making visas tougher to get, potentially risking that some smart guy doesn't get to work for an American multinational that buries its profits in Ireland. Or we can make them easy, bulk import foreigners, outsource jobs and render Americans unemployed on the outside chance that 1 in every 10,000 we import is some genius who makes a bunch of multinational executives fabulously wealthy.
Sounds like a hard choice.
The short version here is that we're being fed something. I hesitate to call it bullshit, because nobody said anything weird - but it certainly looks like people are trying to play some kind of game here.
Yes, this is PR, and Trump has said that one of the jobs of President is "chief cheerleader." So if you make jobs in the country, Trump is going to give you an bouquet. If you make jobs leave the country, he's going to give you a brickbat. Whether the decisions had anything to do with him or not are irrelevant.
Economies are self-fulfilling prophecies. If people believe the economy is going to get better, they go out and spend money. This makes the economy better. If people believe the economy is going to get worse, they stop spending money. This makes the economy worse.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Hillary was more predictable, but not safe in any way. She was predictably going to ignore the constitution, grow federal power and skate by on lies regarding her crimes, now she will likely get some justice.
The current .com bubble is going to pop, no matter who's in charge. But the huge correction will be in China.
The real key is the Supreme Court. Which is now safe for at least another 20+ years. Which means we won't have to shoot the bastards.
Also note: Any SC justices only have to be less openly partisan the Sotomayor. A very low bar to pass. Going to be particularly fun watching Ginsburg's replacement.
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
No...
But also don't forget that up to means that 3000 laborers will work on construction, followed by a hundred or so people running the actual fab.
Still.. The tax breaks are the same either way.. so it's all good (for Intel).
Pretty much the same for all these big announcements.. the central feature of them is reporting the size of facility construction crews and quietly ignoring the face that they are highly automated production requiring just a handful of long term staff.
No large business does labor intensive work in the us.. the tax breaks are just not enough, and god forbid they don't maximise profits at the cost of jobs and long term skills development.. That would be un American!