I know, my comments sure do sound like a contradiction if viewed this way. There just seems to be something fundamentally wrong here. Semicon companies have b

I know, my comments sure do sound like a contradiction if viewed this way. There just seems to be something fundamentally wrong here. Semicon companies have been massive wealth generators for almost 4 decades, and how all of that wealth was genreated by clearly dubious means (Intel's lawsuits are legendary, as is there attempts at shuffling money out of the US buy building fabs in other countries to avoid tarrifs). But now they need taxpayer dollars to be competitive? Sure, the state of the US economy might be at risk, but that doesn't square with the industry leaders' malign actions in the past 20 years. It's like if you were getting beat up by a bully every day on your way to school, and he took your lunch money. Then one day a bigger bully from another town shows up, and the school starts paying your bully your lunch money, plus additional money from your allowance, to beat up the other one to protect the school (a bigger risk), when they didn't care about protecting you as an individual (a non-important risk).