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   From: yourdime@outlook.com   
      
   DEI — the identity-obsessed dogma that goes by “diversity, equity, and   
   inclusion” — has now trained Google’s new AI to refuse to draw white   
   people. What’s even more alarming is that it’s also infected the supply   
   chain that makes the chips powering everything from AI to missiles,   
   endangering national security.   
      
   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.   
      
   Commentators have noted that CHIPS and Science Act money has been   
   sluggish. What they haven’t noticed is that it’s because the CHIPS Act is   
   so loaded with DEI pork that it can’t move.   
      
   The law contains 19 sections aimed at helping minority groups, including   
   one creating a Chief Diversity Officer at the National Science Foundation,   
   and several prioritizing scientific cooperation with what it calls   
   “minority-serving institutions.” A section called “Opportunity and   
   Inclusion” instructs the Department of Commerce to work with minority-   
   owned businesses and make sure chipmakers “increase the participation of   
   economically disadvantaged individuals in the semiconductor workforce.”   
      
   The department interprets that as license to diversify. Its factsheet   
   asserts that diversity is “critical to strengthening the U.S.   
   semiconductor ecosystem,” adding, “Critically, this must include   
   significant investments to create opportunities for Americans from   
   historically underserved communities.”   
      
   The department does not call speed critical, even though the impetus for   
   the CHIPS Act is that 90 percent of the world’s advanced microchips are   
   made in Taiwan, which China is preparing to annex by 2027, maybe even   
   2025.   
      
   Handouts abound. 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. There’s plenty for the right—veterans and members of   
   rural communities find their way into the typical DEI definition of   
   minorities. There’s even plenty for the planet: Arizona Democrats just   
   bragged they’ve won $15 million in CHIPS funding for an ASU project   
   fighting climate change.   
      
   That project is going better for Arizona than the actual chips part of the   
   CHIPS Act. Because equity is so critical, the makers of humanity’s most   
   complex technology must rely on local labor and apprentices from all those   
   underrepresented groups, as TSMC discovered to its dismay.   
      
   Tired of delays at its first fab, the company flew in 500 employees from   
   Taiwan. This angered local workers, since the implication was that they   
   weren’t skilled enough. With CHIPS grants at risk, TSMC caved in December,   
   agreeing to rely on those workers and invest more in training them. A   
   month later, it postponed its second Arizona fab.   
      
   Now TSMC has revealed plans to build a second fab in Japan. Its first,   
   which broke ground in 2021, is about to begin production. TSMC has learned   
   that when the Japanese promise money, they actually give it, and they   
   allow it to use competent workers. TSMC is also sampling Germany’s chip   
   subsidies, as is Intel.   
      
   Intel is also building fabs in Poland and Israel, which means it would   
   rather risk Russian aggression and Hamas rockets over dealing with   
   America’s DEI regime. Samsung is pivoting toward making its South Korean   
   homeland the semiconductor superpower after Taiwan falls.   
      
   In short, the world’s best chipmakers are tired of being pawns in the   
   CHIPS Act’s political games. They’ve quietly given up on America. Intel   
   must know the coming grants are election-year stunts — mere statements of   
   intent that will not be followed up. Even after due diligence and final   
   agreements, the funds will only be released in dribs and drabs as   
   recipients prove they’re jumping through the appropriate hoops.   
      
   For instance, chipmakers have to make sure they hire plenty of female   
   construction workers, even though less than 10 percent of U.S.   
   construction workers are women. They also have to ensure childcare for the   
   female construction workers and engineers who don’t exist yet. They have   
   to remove degree requirements and set “diverse hiring slate policies,”   
   which sounds like code for quotas. They must create plans to do all this   
   with “close and ongoing coordination with on-the-ground stakeholders.”   
      
   No wonder Intel politely postponed its Columbus fab and started planning   
   one in Ireland. Meanwhile, Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo was launching   
   a CHIPS-funded training program for historically black colleges.   
      
   Now the secretary is calling for a second CHIPS Act. Before that, let’s   
   make the one we have usable. There’s an easy fix. A bipartisan group of   
   lawmakers is already trying to pass a bill exempting CHIPS funding from   
   the multiyear environmental review required by the National Environmental   
   Policy Act. The same need for speed calls for adding in a veto of the   
   Commerce Department’s diversity tag-alongs. All Congress has to do is   
   insist it meant what it said in the CHIPS Act and no more: giving poor   
   people opportunities isn’t a free pass to enact all of DEI’s pet causes,   
   and especially not to make national security wait on them. What Congress   
   didn’t give, Congress should be willing to take away.   
      
   This is the stuff declining empires are made of. As America pursues   
   national security by building a diverse workforce, China does it by   
   building warships.   
      
      
   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.   
      
   Instead of solving the problem, the people in charge are trying to cover   
   the problem up just long enough to win reelection. Don’t be fooled by the   
   Biden administration’s upcoming weekend-at-Bernie’s act — the CHIPS Act is   
   dead.   
      
   https://thehill.com/opinion/4517470-dei-killed-the-chips-act/   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)