Where CHIPS go to D.I.E.

The Biden administration recently promised it will finally loosen the purse strings on $39 billion of CHIPS Act grants to encourage semiconductor fabrication in the U.S. But less than a week later, Intel announced that it’s putting the brakes on its Columbus factory. The Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC) has pushed back production at its second Arizona foundry. The remaining major chipmaker, Samsung, just delayed its first Texas fab.

This is not the way companies typically respond to multi-billion-dollar subsidies. So what explains chipmakers’ apparent ingratitude? In large part, frustration with DEI requirements embedded in the CHIPS Act.

The following takes the cake:

There’s plenty for the left—requirements that chipmakers submit detailed plans to educate, employ, and train lots of women and people of color, as well as “justice-involved individuals,” more commonly known as ex-cons.

These are the secret ingredients for building $20 billion fabs and manufacturing bleeding edge computer chips:

1. Mildly retarded colored people.
2. Lots of vaginas.
3. Criminals.

The Taiwanese and the Koreans must have been quite amused. Of course, if they refuse to hire such scholars, thespians, and strong, independent wahmen, then they are definitely VITE SOUPEMACISSS!

The CHIPS Act’s current identity as a jobs program for favored minorities means companies are forced to recruit heavily from every population except white and Asian men already trained in the field. It’s like fishing in all the places you aren’t getting bites.