TSMC looks to double down on U.S. chip factories as talks in Europe falter

You guys ever wonder why they don't choose California? These factories have huge environmental impacts that California is not okay with. These factories produce massive amounts of waste that cannot be recycled. This is also very likely to be the same exact reason as to why these talks didn't go so well in Europe.

Arizona like Texas is more business friendly at the expense of not looking out for the well being of people who live in these locations. Ironically, right now by being more business friendly more people want to move to places like Arizona or Texas for jobs.

It's a strange balancing act that has a lot of potential for being over corrected for. Industry brings business and economic growth but ruins the environment and has harms the people living in the area. The insidious thing is environmental costs are paid for much much later.

The consequences of being way to business friendly in these places may only be apparent a decade from now just like how the price of being too business unfriendly is now very apparent in California.

I don't really like the euphemism of "business friendly" when it means "companies don't have to pay for their externalities."

California is extremely entrepreneur-friendly, and have absolutely massive amounts of business compare to Arizona or Texas.

The externalities are not minor either, there are 23 superfund sites in Santa Clara county from Silicon Valley's early years, where they did not bother to properly dispose of waste:

https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2019/09/silic...

If Texas is so bad then why are so many Californians moving here? It's not because they were unemployed in California.

>California is extremely entrepreneur-friendly, and have absolutely massive amounts of business compare to Arizona or Texas.

I don't know if you've been following the news lately of a bunch of companies moving OUT of California to Texas. One of these people is Elon Musk. And guess what? I have a source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ez90rXhMWjE

I'm not saying California is wrong. Far from it. They're right. These laws are made to protect the people. Like you said, it's not minor at all. I never said it was minor.

However ANY state can decide that economic growth is more important than environmental safety and short term health of its' citizens and make a strategic move to make it's own location much more attractive to business.

So the costs aren't clear. Do we want an economic wasteland or an environmental wasteland? This is my point. California is not dead yet, but the trends have been pointing in this direction for years.

Not sure the California of today is comparable to CA of decades ago when these superfund sites were mostly created. That being said we don't need any more thanks.

Let me make it clear. I never said Texas is bad. The other guy who replied to me thought I was saying California was bad. I'm giving an unbiased view. Both are bad, and both are good at the same time.

I'm saying the pros and cons are not clear. California laws favor the people at the expense of business. So business leaves and people follow. Texas favors business at the expense of the people.

Businesses chase profit at expense of the people, however profit is paid for from people themselves so usually when businesses harm people it's insidious and subtle and doesn't become apparent until years later. Big Tobacco, Big Pharma and the whole pain killer scandal are primary examples. The harm these companies did to people were not apparent until much much later.

What will happen in Texas is that the harm done to people by unregulated businesses will not be apparent until many years later. At that time regulations will slowly build up as people protest and demand the government to protect the people. This is what happened in California.... history repeating itself.

It might take a decade or your entire lifetime for this change to occur and become fully realized. Meanwhile people will be harmed while California becomes more and more like Michigan.

Right; the folly is folks who say "place X has awful politics and stupid people and place Y is much better".

No, place X has the same people with the same human impulses as place Y. They simply have different circumstances and different experiences at different times.

> Ironically, right now by being more business friendly more people want to move to places like Arizona or Texas for jobs.

This isn’t “ironically”, this is literally the primary argument in favor of this policy angle.

Having started and operated small businesses in California, North Carolina, and Texas, my experience was that California was by far more onerous and expensive than the other two (which were about the same).

The entire purpose of business regulation is to protect the people.

People choosing to give up this protection is the irony.

For example. Tobacco kills people. Government looks out for the interests of the people and regulates Big Tobacco. So Big Tobacco moves to a place where it is unregulated and free to distribute tobacco even to minors. People "IRONICALLY" against their own self interest follow the company because of jobs and money.

The above is just an example made really obvious. For semiconductors it's not so obvious. What exactly is the harm? It's not so evident, you need to do research to find out.

I don't think this framing is useful at all.

People want to work a job and keep as much of the income as possible. They want to found businesses and make money.

They also don't want poison in their water supply, or any of the numerous externalities which industry is in the habit of creating.

Texas and California strike a very different balance in that landscape. The net result of which is that people are leaving California, and people are moving to Texas.

Characterizing that as "California favors people and Texas favors business" is kinda weird, don't you think? Looks like Texas favors both, right at the moment.

There is a lot of locally available know-how in Europe to handle ugly process chemicals cleanly - existing semiconductor fabs and chemicals factories (an important industry - BASF Ludwigshafen is the biggest chemicals complex in the world) are managing fine. I guess the problem is taxes, slow permissions bureaucracy (including environmental aspects), and lack of subsidies as discussed in other threads. Delays are probably most expensive due to the need to put the billions of capital to work while revenue per wafer is high.

Nanny states are far worse than tobacco.

CNBC did a great little mini-documentary about Arizona tech yesterday [1], and one of the covered aspects were the insane water demands that comes from fabs.

Arizona doesn't exactly have an abundance of water, they're already depleting aquafers, before the fabs have begun operation (a typical fab uses 2-4 million gallons of water per day).

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iCjsLXvyXH8

I suppose you would have the government approve every individual action you take to ensure it isn’t against the interest of “the people”. I’m just glad there’s still enough voters who don’t think like you, to be honest. That concerns me a lot more than how dangerous the products in the store are.

Before "nanny state" regulations, food used to be sold in a decomposed or rotten state, it was exposed to all sorts of contamination and merchants mixed it with all sorts of non-food such as wood. Having weird digestive illnesses was very common back in the day, as well as dying from them.

Before "nanny state" regulations, you would work as much as your employer wanted you to work, you had no sick days, no vacation, no parental leave, no anything. Kids used to work in factories. If a woman got pregnant she would get fired from her job. If you got injured or sick at work then you would get fired as well.

Before "nanny state" regulations, medications were usually snake oil. The market was full of elixirs and magical tonics for well-being that were ultimately a scam.

Before "nanny state" regulations, you were free to dump any chemical you wanted anywhere you wanted. You were free to experiment with any animal you wanted in any way you wanted without any ethical or humane consideration whatsoever. You were free to scam any investor you wanted in any way you wanted... and you get the idea. Restaurant with rats? that was perfectly too.

"Nanny state" is one of the most profoundly idiotic terms ever coined. Some regulations can be annoying, but clearly we are better off now than 100 years ago.

CNBC has been producing some really good content, very pleased the YT algo served it up for me.

This is a definition of "business friendly" that I can support!

The idea that California could become an economic wasteland is absolutely preposterous. It does have its problems: costs are high and there's extreme inequality (because of the nation's worst land taxation and land use policies combined, read your Henry George folks).

But these problems are because of its extreme prosperity and economic potential, not because there is any risk of that economic powerhouse stopping.

The news reports are anecdotal, Musk is keeping California business but expanding production throughout the country, just as Tesla was before.

Companies that are leaving are those that are less innovative and have fallen from the top of the value chain. They can no longer benefit from the extremely productive environment, but can scrape by with lower costs, such as Oracle.

There's no need to sacrifice California's environment to continue to be an absolutely massive economic powerhouse. But we may need to sacrifice some of our bad ideas about land.

California is one of the most economically richest places on earth, and I only say that from the point of view of a world traveler and without bias.

> The idea that California could become an economic wasteland is absolutely preposterous. It does have its problems: costs are high and there's extreme inequality (because of the nation's worst land taxation and land use policies combined, read your Henry George folks).

The wild housing market is 90% of the inequality. The other 90% can be summed up by this 1994 article in the New York Times [1].

[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/16/books/what-is-intelligenc...

[1]: https://www.nytimes3xbfgragh.onion/1994/10/16/books/what-is-...

That things are better than they were is not particularly strong evidence supporting the “nanny state”.

I absolutely agree we are better off now than 100 years ago.

> The idea that California could become an economic wasteland is absolutely preposterous.

At one time people would have said the same about the Rust Belt.

Times change.

I don't think you need to argue against such a strawman. Do you think that literally all regulation is bad? Governments shouldn't exist at all?

You suppose wrong. I'm kind of moderate. Seeing that I never said anything otherwise but you made a baseless supposition out of nowhere I'm guessing you're pro business in favor of total deregulation.

Make no mistake. The purpose of business regulation is to protect the people. This is absolutely true.

Execution of such regulations has unintended consequences though.

Regulating business harms profits which harms jobs and in turn harms people who could have had the jobs. Harmed profits also harms the owners of the businesses who are also people.

So basically there's a feedback loop here. You make the law for the purpose of protecting people but you are also harming people at the same time.

I'm a moderate or undecided because this loop presents a practical and moral dilemma. There's a balance somewhere but no truly one knows where and the complexities of society make it so that civilization will never arrive at this balance. Society tends to oscillate wildly around this equilibrium point migrating between the two extremes of pro business and pro "the people."

Tobacco is just one example. A lot of people think of tobacco as cookies, so if that's too tame for you then replace that example with Big Pharma and the opioid crisis or The dumping of toxic waste into Toms River by Big Chemical.

What I don't understand is how you think world traveler gives any credit or support for your stance. First the stronger point is made through evidence and the weaker point is made through reputation. Second of all, a "world traveler" is not really much of a reputable status that lends any additional weight to your thesis.

California is rich. But California is trending down economically. This has been increasing for a decade and accelerated due to covid. Here's the point of view from an economist without bias: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2IVj_T6y84

It's not weird. It's not even a frame. It's reality.

All regulation is created for the purpose of protecting people. California has more people protecting laws than Texas therefore California favors people over Texas.

There's literally no other reason why regulation exists. And all businesses that have less regulation have more options to succeed financially that would otherwise be restricted by regulation. Regulation therefore exists to serve people. So by logic less regulation means conditions more favorable for business and less favorable to people.

Unless you can think of some other reason why regulations exist this is the only possible logical deduction. Does California create laws that don't favor business because California just wants to screw with businesses for no reason? Let's be real.

Make no mistake. There is no frame here, this is reality unfiltered.

Additionally keep in mind businesses cannot directly screw people over. Profit comes from people and companies cannot directly screw over the thing they derive profit from. When businesses screw people over it's usually obscured in some way. Think again to the antics of big oil and big tobacco. If deregulated businesses are harming the people of Texas in some way you likely won't know until many years from now.

> All regulation is created for the purpose of protecting people.

That is a politically naive, idealistic perspective that does not align with reality.

Regulation often exists to serve entrenched monopolies and to raise barriers to entry. Sometimes, regulation is a purely emotional knee-jerk reaction to a particular wave of passing news or events. It's often ill-considered over the long term. Long after a society or economy has changed or evolved to the point of rendering the regulation obsolete, the regulation continues to impose costs and burdens on the subjects of that regulation.

It turns out that laws are easier to enact than to roll back. There's a bias to keep existing laws, no matter the opportunity costs.

And that's without digging into my former point, which is that much regulation is the result of cronyism at the highest levels to serve special interest groups.

> Profit comes from people do anything they screw people over for is usually obscured in some way.

Profit comes from economic value creation or perceived economic value creation in the marketplace (as determined by the market). It is revenue minus expenses. It comes from any economic activity that is conducted between two parties in a mutually agreed upon transaction in which both parties trade one type of value for another.

>That is a politically naive, idealistic perspective that does not align with reality.

No this is you misinterpreting the context at hand. The context is "Businesses" so when I refer to regulation I refer exclusively to "Business regulation." You are naive to think that a person with that ludicrous level of naivety and idealism even exists. If anything it is your views that are naive. Texas favors both people and businesses? How convenient. That's idealism through and through.

When regulating people the purpose is often to protect people but like you said regulating people can often serve to form cartels, monopolies or other business interests. This is utterly clear and obvious to everyone and it is not part of the context or topic at hand. Again the topic is "regulating business" or enacting laws that restrict what businesses can do..

Specifically to address your example of "Barrier to entry." A Barrier to entry is a regulation enacted on people outside of the business that promotes this regulation. This type of regulation is regulating people, aka the market not businesses. This is not what I'm referring to. Think about it logically. A barrier to entry is not a regulation on a business because the business likely already passed the barrier to entry so the business is effectively not being regulated. Why would a business be so stupid as to regulate itself? These regulations come from the people who serve the self interest of the people.

Make no mistake when regulating "business" there is little other reason why it is done other than for the purpose of benefiting the people. There are very few other reasons why regulation on business itself exists. Think about it.

The only other time this happens is when corporations are in competition with each other and invoking laws to regulate each other but this rarely happens as competitors are in the same industry, regulating a competitor may mean regulating yourself.

The single example I know of where business regulation was done to serve the long term interest of business was the light bulb filament oligopoly where light bulb makers were regulated and fined to deliberately shorten the length of time light bulb filaments would last in order to increase business within the oligopoly. But again this type of regulation is very rare.

> Profit comes from people do anything they screw people over for is usually obscured in some way.

This is a typo. I didn't notice but somehow a huge portion of what I was suppose to say was deleted.

Let me paste the corrected quotation for more clarity:

Additionally keep in mind businesses cannot directly screw people over. Profit comes from people and companies cannot directly screw over the thing they derive profit from. When businesses screw people over it's usually obscured in some way. Think again to the antics of big oil and big tobacco. If deregulated businesses are harming the people of Texas in some way you likely won't know until many years from now.

You can never find strong evidence for this. A nanny state is just a state that is "overprotective." How protective something is to the point of being overprotective is completely a matter of opinion. Some people think the US is overprotective some people think it's under protective. It's a matter of opinion as the definition of over protective doesn't have a threshold set.

One thing is for sure though on the exact topics mentioned by the post you replied to. I am glad the United States is highly highly protective on these issues. I want these issues to be nanny'd to death and you do to unless you're down to face the consequences.

Characterizing it as "better off" is just word play. There is definitely more nuance here.

Yes, I agree with this. I should have added the qualifier "soon" to my prediction of California's future.

> But California is trending down economically. This has been increasing for a decade and accelerated due to covid.

Is there some sort of higher-information content article or video you can post than that YouTube video? It's a slow roll out of rather basic history with some unsubstantiated claims thrown in in the first 6 minutes, and I'm not going to waste any more time on that.

Particularly when it's talking about an "economic downturn" without stating any support for that. I know this video was made 7 months ago, and that sort of unsubstantiated claim gained lots of traction with right-wingers, but it was a completely false rumor. California's economy is killing it, and our largely income-tax-based government is swimming in an unprecedented surplus because of how incredibly resilient California was when other areas were hurting.

That leads to the second egregious unsupported claim in the first few minutes: "California was particularly hard hit by the globally economic downturn"--no it wasn't and that was a preposterous statement to make, even 7 months ago, California was doing great and there was absolutely no reason to think it was doing worse.

California is not a perfect paradise; we are weirdly focused on keeping people out of the state, which means that people without land or without high incomes are continuously forced out. But the economic engine continues on as we do this.

No. Detroit became a wasteland well within our lifetimes. Whether this happens for California soon or not soon is well outside the realm of "preposterous." Your post is not just off by a word, it is entirely off.

I think that our fundamental disagreement comes down to whether California is currently in that downturn. I would say no, and if I understand your position, you would say yes. Is that a fair assessment?

No it is not. Why don't you read my posts again.

California is currently trending downward in certain metrics related to economics but this is entirely different from being in an "economic downturn."

California going into an economic downturn in the future is a 100 percent possibility. CA and the entire united States goes through economic downturns about roughly every decade and this has been going on for centuries. The economy is proovably cyclical.

Either way what Im saying is that the current metrics of migration show that California MAY become an economic waste land like Detroit. This is much worse than a economic downturn. Keyword: may, meaning not outside the realm of fantasy and also not a guarantee, but very very possible.

What is absolutely clear though is that if these metrics of negative brain drain continues then absolutely CA will become an economic wasteland.

Why don't you watch that video again with less biased eyes. The video never ever even mentioned California was in an economic downturn. It said California was going through economic turbulence and called it a bump in the road in the first few minutes.

I recommend you watch that video despite it's length. It's much more digestible then raw statistical data and scientific papers. The YouTuber is an economist and his views are spot on. Specifically the part on hotel California is very very accurate.

The guy even mentions that CA has one of the largest economies in the world if it was classified as a country, so he's not actually attacking your team here.

You keep making the same mistake on thinking that the video and I are making the claim that California is in an economic downturn. Nobody ever said California is in an economic downturn. If anything California could be in an economic bubble. Keyword: could.

California is not a perfect paradise. That would be a delusional view. We can agree that California is definitely a successful economy. To think that successful economies are infallible would be an equally delusional view.

I also suggest you try to get away from this team California mentality. You may live in the state you may love the state you may have been born in the state like I was. But your analysis of what's happening must remain impartial. That means analyzing the possibility of economic apocalypse rather then closing all YouTube videos that even mention anything negative about California.

I have a feeling that further discussion will not be productive, as your other posts do not contain hints of what you say in this comment, and this comment is a big change in what you were saying before in comments.

I'm not sure why California's in-migration of the highly educated with high incomes, and out-migration of less educated folks counts as a brain drain. I'm not sure why you insist on an economic downturn in California in several comments, but now say that's not the case.

Just letting you know why I'm stopping interaction.

You know what would be productive? Statistical numbers. You cannot deny the productiveness of real factual numbers.

The brain drain consists of measurable negative population growth. More people moving out then people coming in, in aggregate. Additionally the real numbers show that California natives are the ones that are mostly leaving.

This. Is. A. Statistical. Number.

If negative population continues by raw logic after the population is small enough, California or any state would indeed become an economic wasteland. There is no opinion here. This is fundamental fact.

You're stopping this interaction as the discussion increases in productivity while I start citing more and more real numbers and real sources and undeniable logic that you are finding harder and harder to twist to fit your world view.

I think the reality of what's going on here is that the discussion is becoming too productive. It is an exposing a world view you are too biased to accept.

I know this is not worth revising, but you didn't cite any statistics.

California is not losing population, it's just growing slower than the rest of the country. There is no "brain drain," as those moving in have higher education than those leaving. International immigration, in particular, is making up for the domestic net out-migration:

https://lao.ca.gov/LAOEconTax/Article/Detail/265

You haven't cited a single number, or a single fact. You accuse me of bias, but shift your phrasing and points on nearly every comment. Your only support is a YouTube video that is heavy on propaganda techniques but says nothing of substance for the first third.

You need to read what I said. What I said is this. California is displaying downward trends.

If the population growth is trending downward that means the growth of intelligent people should also by logic be trending downwards. This is 100 percent brain drain.

Let me explain it to you so you can understand. If this trend continues it will eventually become net population decrease. Which means a net loss of intelligent people.

I haven't shifted points. You think I'm shifting points because you are misinterpreting everything I say and I am re clarifying it for you so your brain can comprehend. But your brain is registering this as me shifting topics.

Literally read the thread. You asked me if I'm debating if California is in an economic downturn... And if you look at the entire damn thread... I never said California was in an economic downturn. You assumed this is what I'm saying because you're the one with bias here. I corrected your mistake.

You want citations for things that have been Frontline news and evident for every normal person living in this state? The initial YouTube video was CNBC, which you disregarded as bad because of "YouTube". So I guess journalism in the form of a video is illegitimate for you... I guess written articles are more factual for some illogical reason? Fine. Here you go.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/articles/2021-04-27/...

https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2019-12-21/californ...

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2021/05/california-populat...

https://www.ppic.org/blog/californias-stalled-population-gro...

https://abc7.com/california-population-decline-congressional...

https://qz.com/1599150/californias-population-could-start-sh...

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/03/31/why-calif...

https://www.kqed.org/news/11872755/california-reports-first-...

https://www.sfchronicle.com/politics/article/California-to-l...

Now I could cite the raw statistics these articles derive their info from. But I felt legitimate news organizations are enough and easier then a raw statistical paper. Let's not get overly pedantic. Do you really want to argue against sfchronicle, quartz, CNBC and the Washington post? I hope to God you're not that type of person.

I also hope this was "productive" for you. My definition of productive means imparting new knowledge onto someone less knowledgeable than me. But for some people "productive" means not admitting when they are wrong, refusing to look at raw evidence, and running away from a discussion where they are incorrect.

Yeah you can leave this conversation if you feel it isn't "productive." Go. Leave.

> If the population growth is trending downward that means the growth of intelligent people should also by logic be trending downwards.

Since when is the simplest possible example of the fallacy of division the same thing as “logic”?

For illustration, for a long time California’s net domestic outmigration has been composed of relatively high income domestic inmigration and slightly larger, lower-income domestic outmigration.

So (before considering the effects of natural population change and international migration), the population waa going down, but the population at the upper end of the income spectrum was actually increasing.

This would be consistent with (given the known correlation of income with IQ) high-IQ gain with net population decrease. The correlation is loose enough, and there’s enough other moving pieces of population dynamics, that it is consistent with other possibilities as well, but the point is you can’t generally conclude anything about change in a subgroup population from change in the larger group population.

>Since when is the simplest possible example of the fallacy of division the same thing as “logic”?

Without any additional information the assumption that entropy rules the day is "logically" reasonable. Meaning that if out migration and in migration is random the proportion of High IQ people moving out and in will be random and on par with population proportions.

Trust in entropy and probability is a completely reasonable and logical assumption to make. In fact, our entire scientific establishment is built on these axioms. To assume a random correlation exists out of nowhere is the unreasonable claim. Don't twist words and make it sound illogical. It is illogical to think otherwise without presenting new evidence and a new claim.

So what you did here is introduce a new claim. You say there is a mechanism effecting natural entropy and that more intelligent people could be migrating in. This is not an illogical claim, but it is an extraordinary one.

If you were to make such an extraordinary claim. You need to provide equally extraordinary evidence as this trend isn't on the front page of every news organization.

So you say more higher income people tend to migrate into California and lower income people tend to migrate out. Do you have a source? Additionally I would like to know whether the standard deviation between the correlation of income and IQ fits with the incomes of people migrating out and into California. That would be strong evidence for "Brain Gain" if the trends show more intelligent people migrating in.

At this point I acknowledge your claim as a possibility. But the evidence you present (essentially no evidence, just a claim that evidence exists) makes it fuzzy enough that it is equally likely that natural entropy takes precedence here. There is also a lot of anecdotal/qualitative evidence working against your claim including coworkers who are moving out, more and more tech companies offering remote options and such and such.

It looks to me that you aren't really making a claim but your just being pedantic towards my "logic." I can slightly acknowledge the possibility there isn't Brain drain here, but let's be real. Until there's a study specifically targeting this theory it's just a random shot in the dark.

Relevant on the front page of HN: https://sfciti.org/sf-tech-exodus/

This is about people leaving SF, not about leaving the state.