News The US is spending more money on chip manufacturing construction this year than the previous 28 years combined

[Admin]

The United States is on pace to add more investment into electronics manufacturing construction this year as it did from 1996 to 2023. The CHIPS Act is largely to credit for the meteoric growth.

The US is spending more money on chip manufacturing construction this year than the previous 28 years combined : Read more

 

[dimar]

Why is it being done now and not 20 years ago?? Somebody needs to answer for that.

 

[thestryker]

Why is it being done now and not 20 years ago?? Somebody needs to answer for that.

Intel was leading in manufacturing process until N7 came online, Global Foundries was a competitor until they decided the capital requirements for "7nm" was too high, and politicians are notoriously slow acting about everything let alone something that they don't see as a problem. This is really something they should have been addressing in the 1990s as more manufacturing started to be offshored.

 

[Eximo]

Pretty much. US based manufacturing was the standard in the early PC days (or domestic production in general for the target consumers of any country). All those companies started off shoring to reduce labor costs. Corporations did this during the 80s and 90s because they could and it was extremely profitable. Lobbying and the like made sure that nothing would hurt business growth at the time. Why the 80s were synonymous with the greedy business man in media. Corporate takeovers to then offshore the production while keeping the brand was a really common practice.

Not limited to the semiconductor industry either. At the same time vacuum tubes, televisions, tape players, and pretty much all facets of consumer electronic technology moved offshore.

 

[gamerk316]

Why is it being done now and not 20 years ago?? Somebody needs to answer for that.

Ronald Reagan.

His economic policy shaped US economic policy for 50 years, and was based around keeping inflation low at all costs. This was done through a combination of means: Low taxes, suppression of wages, and embracing supply-side principles to lower unit costs. This in turn led to manufacturing desperately trying to lower their production costs, leading directly to the collapse of American manufacturing.

Basically, everyone is finally admitting the economic policy of the 80s has been a disaster.

 

[bolweval]

Ronald Reagan.

His economic policy shaped US economic policy for 50 years, and was based around keeping inflation low at all costs. This was done through a combination of means: Low taxes, suppression of wages, and embracing supply-side principles to lower unit costs. This in turn led to manufacturing desperately trying to lower their production costs, leading directly to the collapse of American manufacturing.

Basically, everyone is finally admitting the economic policy of the 80s has been a disaster.

So lower taxes and lower wages led to manufacturing trying to lower production costs which led to the collapse of American manufacturing, huh?????🤔

Cheap Chinese labor and greedy corps led to then collapse, and unions driving UP labor costs, pricing themselves out of the market…

You can sure tell this is an election year! LoLz

 

[JamesJones44]

Ronald Reagan.

His economic policy shaped US economic policy for 50 years, and was based around keeping inflation low at all costs. This was done through a combination of means: Low taxes, suppression of wages, and embracing supply-side principles to lower unit costs. This in turn led to manufacturing desperately trying to lower their production costs, leading directly to the collapse of American manufacturing.

Basically, everyone is finally admitting the economic policy of the 80s has been a disaster.

It goes well beyond Reagan. The US would have had a lot more investment if Clinton and George JR didn't sell out US tech for cheap manufacturing in China and elsewhere.

 

[gamerk316]

It goes well beyond Reagan. The US would have had a lot more investment if Clinton and George JR didn't sell out US tech for cheap manufacturing in China and elsewhere.

Remember that NAFTA was a brainchild of Bush Sr; the GOP tried to ram it through Congress after loosing in '92. Clinton added *significantly* more protections for American business then the original proposal.

But point remains: Lowering cost of production was the primary focus of US economic policy going back to Reagan, which ended up backfiring in the long term as the US priced itself out of most markets, except for cases where the government eats at least some of the cost. Hence the slow collapse of manufacturing over the past 50 years.

 

[JamesJones44]

Remember that NAFTA was a brainchild of Bush Sr; the GOP tried to ram it through Congress after loosing in '92. Clinton added *significantly* more protections for American business then the original proposal.

But point remains: Lowering cost of production was the primary focus of US economic policy going back to Reagan, which ended up backfiring in the long term as the US priced itself out of most markets, except for cases where the government eats at least some of the cost. Hence the slow collapse of manufacturing over the past 50 years.

Fair, but each POTUS after Reagan for the next 20 years pretty much said "hold my beer". The worst being that China and other unfriendly countries were added to the WTO and given favored trade status.