Wednesday, May 12th 2021
Big Tech and Lobby: Semiconductors in America Coalition (SIAC) Founded With Microsoft, Apple, Intel, AMD, TSMC, Others
Since lobbying is both legal and regulated in the US (an attempt to bring attempts of influencing political power by corporations under legal boundaries, as opposed to being done in the dark), it feels like it was only a matter of time before big tech attempted to join under one banner. As such, the Semiconductors in America Coalition (SIAC) has now been put together, and boasts of 64 members including Microsoft, Apple, TSMC, Intel, AMD, NVIDIA, Arm, and Samsung. It seems that all of these companies - which are often at odds with one another when it comes to competing for consumers' choice and money - have found enough similarities to get organized in an attempt to nudge political power in their favor.
SIAC said in a press release that its mission is to "advance federal policies that promote semiconductor manufacturing and research in the U.S. to strengthen America's economy, national security, and critical infrastructure." The first announcement from the SIAC following its foundation was its intention to support the CHIPS for America Act. The Act (supported by The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and President Joe Biden) has already been approved by the House and the Senate as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 but has not yet been funded. It seems that SIAC's first mission is to get the government to open up its $50 billion-deep pockets.
The Coalition penned a letter to US Congressional Leaders: "The current shortage of semiconductors is impacting a broad range of industries throughout the economy. To address this problem in the short term, government should refrain from intervening as industry works to correct the current supply-demand imbalance causing the shortage. But for the longer term, robust funding of the CHIPS Act would help America build the additional capacity necessary to have more resilient supply chains to ensure critical technologies will be there when we need them. Manufacturing incentives funded by Congress should focus on filling key gaps in our domestic semiconductor ecosystem and cover the full range of semiconductor technologies and process nodes - from legacy to leading-edge - relied on by industry, the military, and critical infrastructure."
Source:
SIAC
SIAC said in a press release that its mission is to "advance federal policies that promote semiconductor manufacturing and research in the U.S. to strengthen America's economy, national security, and critical infrastructure." The first announcement from the SIAC following its foundation was its intention to support the CHIPS for America Act. The Act (supported by The Semiconductor Industry Association (SIA) and President Joe Biden) has already been approved by the House and the Senate as part of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2021 but has not yet been funded. It seems that SIAC's first mission is to get the government to open up its $50 billion-deep pockets.
19 Comments on Big Tech and Lobby: Semiconductors in America Coalition (SIAC) Founded With Microsoft, Apple, Intel, AMD, TSMC, Others
Second, it's widely accepted by economists that NAFTA had a net positive impact on the US economy: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Free_Trade_Agreement
Third, the US was loosing jobs long before NAFTA was drafted to offshoring. To say NAFTA is solely responsible with nothing but anecdotal evidence is nothing short of ridiculous. A convenient scapegoat. Economies aren't so simple.
Intel and US Govt won't change this, Asians are too smart and too cheap.
Also, a gain for the US economy is great, but that comes with its own disclaimers. The 1% gained a tremendous amount of wealth thanks to NAFTA, at the expense of the middle class. The US losing jobs to outsourcing before NAFTA is whataboutism, it doesnt change the fact that the tide of outsorcing was made dramatically worse by the passing of NAFTA.Moiving from one part of the US to another is a bit different then moving out of the US altogether. One, you may note, results in taxbases moving within the country, the other results in taxbases leaving the country. The latter is much more destructive in terms of effects on the middle class, americans were not going to move en masse to mexico to work for $2 an hour. Keeping the jobs in country provided at least a baseline of QoL and job expectations that countries like mexico didnt fall under.
By all accounts, it was a bad deal for all with conditions set, private courts to sue over disputes, and other ramifications that went unnoticed until it happened
"the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counteraccusation or raising a different issue."
I rebuttaled the point that the US economy lost jobs as a result of NAFTA with the fact that the US has been loosing jobs long before NAFTA. That's not whataboutism, that's directly responding to the point.
On the other hand your comment is in fact whataboutism:
"The 1% gained a tremendous amount of wealth thanks to NAFTA"
You move the goal posts here by raising a completely different issue. Classic case of whataboutism. This isn't a rebuttle to the comment I made, it's a distraction. You ironically avoid actually rebutting my job trend comment by calling it whataboutism.
"The US losing jobs to outsourcing before NAFTA is whataboutism, it doesnt change the fact that the tide of outsorcing was made dramatically worse by the passing of NAFTA."
Again another comment made without an iota of proof. The burden of proof is on the person making the argument, of which all I've seen in this thread is a bunch of people making claims with jack diddly to back them up.
Seriously?
www.citizen.org/wp-content/uploads/nafta_factsheet_deficit_jobs_wages_feb_2018_final.pdf
I had friends in Detroit that lost auto-jobs over nafta, and I recall a large union strike too. I also remember workers milking the unemployment system down to the last day as a useless way of fighting back.
The trend wasn't one of jobs lost from NAFTA, from what I could see.