via Washingtonpost:
Passed last year with bipartisan support, the law was meant to revive US chipmaking capacity. Although America is a world leader in cutting-edge chip design, its share of global semiconductor manufacturing has declined from 37% in 1990 to about 12%. Given the importance of such chips to the economy and especially to national security — the Defense Department needs about 1.9 billion of them a year — a more or less coherent case could be made for subsidies, prudently applied.
Yet simply writing checks was never going to be enough. Producing chips in the US still takes 25% longer and costs nearly 50% more than doing so in Asia. Significant policy changes would be needed for US-based manufacturers to be even remotely competitive. As things stand, they face three serious impediments — all inflicted by the government.
As predicted by pretty much everybody who wasn’t expecting a handout. Maybe soon we’ll get a study showing that the Inflation Reduction Act doesn’t reduce inflation.
h/t SG