Intel CEO, Pat Gelsinger's who is here tonight,
I don't know where Pat is, Pat there you go, Pat stand up.
>> [APPLAUSE].
>> Pat came to see me and he told me they're ready to increase their
investment from 20 billion to 100 billion.
That would be the biggest investment in manufacturing in American history,
and all they're waiting for is for you to pass this bill.
So let's not wait any longer, send it to my desk,
I'll sign it and will really take off in a big way.
>> Okay, so that is joe biden at the state of the union encouraging Congress to pass
the chips act, which will surely be coming soon because they do so
much passing of legislation these days.
Anyway, the intent of the bill, as you might have gotten from
the accolades given to these tech CEOs is to provide a great deal of subsidies.
$52 billion to companies that manufacture microchips,
to get them to build manufacturing facilities here in the US there.
There are Senate and house versions of this bill that have
some differences that have already passed, that need to be reconciled at this point.
But we're talking about a lot of money that's gonna go out the door, and
you might already be starting to worry, whatever the government does get around to
paying a bunch of sending out a bunch of money.
That there might be a few issues and some have been identified, and I wanna give
credit to David Sirota as well as extreme tech for some of their reporting here.
But Intel has a mega fab facility,
two different manufacturing facilities that they're gonna be building,
estimated to cost initially $20 billion, but that could swelled over 100 billion.
And so we're talking about huge investments here and
the stakes are high because we're currently experiencing a shortage of,
microchips that's influencing a lot of different industries.
The issue is that this money is going to go out the door and
then there are not proper controls on what exactly is going to happen with the money.
So to quickly bottom line, it, Bernie Sanders had introduced an amendment,
to stop companies from using this money for
some of the things they generally do with tax cuts, including stock buybacks.
He in his amendment, companies receiving funding would have had to agree to certain
requirements, not to buy back their own stocks,
not to outsource American manufacturing jobs overseas.
Not to repeal existing collective bargaining agreements and
to remain neutral in any union organizing effort.
And that would have been awesome, so of course they killed it.
And there's a new weaker version that's being promoted by AOC and Cori Bush,
that they might be able to weasel out of.
But there's a lot that we're talking about here, starting with you Ramesh,
what do you make of all this?
>> I mean, look during this pandemic, we've seen a doubling of wealth amongst
the 10 wealthiest Americans and also the 10 wealthiest.
I think approximately 10 wealthiest people in the world, several of whom are American
now, that might be like, wow, what does that have to do with this?
Do you know what percentage of them are connected to technology,
about 70 80% or so?
Depending on where you look, why Is that ,the case?
Because we've all been technologically reliant over the last couple of years and
we're likely to be more, moving further into the future.
Not just because of the possibility of heaven forbid other pandemics or
climate related disasters.
Nut just because of the way things have shifted,
things are getting more intimate, more connected.
Heaven forbid if we have neuralink chipped up to our brains and
we're just on these privatized gated metaverse platforms all over the time..
But that's where we're heading, and that is a gross, there's a gross amount of
inequality associated with who controls the drawstrings of technology.
And we've talked about this, John I've talked about it with you and I've talked
about with junk, I've talked about everybody who will talk with me about it.
Technology is not about technology anymore,
technology is about everything right?
The biggest taxi company in the history of the world is a technology company
Uber, right.
That was not profitable yet worth hundreds of billions of dollars, until recently for
a reason because of the acquisition of intimate data and
the power that that offers.
So now why does this matter, for any so called rhetorically progressive policy
like let's invest in America, let's create jobs in America and so on.
That sounds great, which we saw in the state of the union speech.
Let's look at the reality, is the reality and actual investment in America is
the reality, and actual investment in workers is the reality.
And actual investment in infrastructures that support collective bargaining,
climate, resilience and all of this.
No, in reality these things all get chopped out right from under us, because
the devil's in the details, remember Biden said nothing will fundamentally change.
And this is a great example of exactly such, I have more, I can say about this,
you know, you but you all know I'm going to go off on this.
And thank you Aishwarya for putting this story on,
but I'll shut up now and continue when you when you want me to.
>> yeah, I mean what I'll say is oftentimes we will hear all of these like
grandiose statements in regard to like what the objective is.
With all these policies and these bailouts, and
when you hear about a large sum of money going to any particular industry.
Or to let's say Wall Street, you can't help but think about what happened with
the bailouts that were provided to Wall Street, following the economic collapse.
One of the first stories that came out of that was that the very executives
that helped lead the way to economic collapse received massive bonuses?
And it really makes you question, how is it that a CEO for
one of these banks that needed a bailout.
Somehow had millions of dollars to hand over to the very executive that,
spearheaded the destruction of our economy.
So really, I'm at this point, I'm less interested in hearing what
the bold objective is, I'm more interested in hearing what the controls are.
What are the enforcement mechanisms to ensure that this taxpayer money
is being utilized in the way that it is, supposed to be utilized for.
And so far from what we've seen, there isn't much of an enforcement mechanism and
I'm worried about just handing a a check to these tech companies.
So they can do stock buybacks or other pretty disgusting things with our money.
Yeah.
Yeah, especially when it is obvious when we're talking about giving so much money,
we, in theory could exercise all controls over how it would be used.
We're the ones with the tens of billions of dollars, the issue is that it's,
taylors oldest time in American politics.
They, their industry spends a bunch of money on lobbyists,
which encouraged the politicians to put in pro industry to bias in favor of
the industry to not do the regulations.
They take those talking points, they combine it with campaign donations.
But even if they didn't have that many of the representatives are thinking my my
wouldn't it be nice to be a lobbyist for this industry someday.
The whole thing is so disgustingly, financially incestuou,
but Ramesh, I did want to hear more.
>> [LAUGH] I can see in the corner of my eye, I was like,
I'm looking my lips and like.
Chomping at the bit in any way I can, so I mean, all of this relates
to the privatization of public life, which is really the big story, right?
That we've seen in this country and
with the passage of neoliberal policies all around the world,
everything public has been privatized in this case by various digital systems.
What is a progressive vision for a digital future, A digital economy that supports
people and planet, what does that look like, why is that not even part of this?
And let me just also remind us all, I know I've seen the young Turks cover this for
months, you know, while I was sitting on my couch watching you all,
what happened to build back better?
Like what happened to that?
I know we heard of a few policies, what is his motive implementing an actual
vision for workers, and the middle and working classes of this country.
>> It's not there, it's not there >> It's dead,
build I don't even want to hear that phrase during this administration,
It's no, no, no, I don't mean that to you.
I mean from any democrat who's still pretending that legislation is
going to go anywhere and look, Biden is urging Congress to do something.
So already, even with the facade of, of helping,
bring manufacturing jobs to the United States, I just want you guys to
be super skeptical of him calling for Congress to do anything.
It's one thing to argue that Congress should pass legislation that you've,,
you've been pushing for, but really have you been pushing for it,
are you willing to implement?
Not just carrots, but sticks in ensuring that your policy gets passed and
he's unwilling to do that.
So really, I mean, this is a fun conversation, but
it's really just a conversation, it's in the abstract, is anything gonna pass?
And look, there's a possibility that this legislation could pass,
as long as it helps the tech donors who fund the campaigns of these politicians.
But that would mean that any enforcement mechanism, would be stripped out of it.