[em500]

This sounds almost like a parody of an uninformed rant against capitalism.

Stock buybacks are a simple standard way to distribute company profit to it's owners (alternative options are dividends, retaining the profits in the balance sheet, or reinvesting them). This is decided by Intel's management and overseen by the board who represent the interest of the stock owners (who are widely dispersed and include lots of pension funds of commoners, not just billionaire fatcats).

The EU by way of the European Commission appears to have decided that it's of strategic interest to subsidize Intel fabs as a way to induce them to build in Europe, as opposed to Asia (which according to Intel is 30%-40% cheaper). The European middle class is not "bailing out" anyone here.

If you want to rant, a better starting point IMO is to 1) contemplate whether the European Commission is acting in the interest of the German/European citizen (and if not, how to fix this democratic deficit) 2) check if Intel's claims are truthful, and if so, why Asia is so much cheaper and whether that is worth doing something about that

In any case, I don't see what Intel's stock buybacks has to do with European taxation and inflation in this case.

[olalonde]

Subsidies are always bad for the common citizen so no, it is not acting in the interest of German/European citizen. Subsidies are the product of flawed economical thinking even when "national interest" is used as a BS justification.

[astrange]

The "never spend on anything or get into debt" mindset is common, but it's odd to find it on the forum of a VC firm. Just because something is called "subsidies" doesn't mean you don't get things back in return.

[IfOnlyYouKnew]

Subsidies such as this are a net-loss for the average citizen of Germany and whatever country would have otherwise been host to this factory. It may well be in the interest of the German citizen, and it happening means that this is indeed the believed by people who studied the specifics.

A better example for wasteful subsidies may be the competition for their new HQ Amazon ran between US cities, only to place it where they wanted to go in the first place. There, as well as in the Intel case, a deal prohibiting competition by subsidy would be in everyone's interest.

[Akronymus]

A one time subsidy that likely pays out more over time than it cost is always a net negative? While obviously there are bad subsidies, I find it hard to believe that it is always the case.

[onepointsixC]

Is it really necessary to establish the necessity of strategic domestic manufacturing capabilities in a post COVID world? We saw what happened when there was enormous need for masks, then later vaccines. The fact is that Germany as a nation that has so much of its economy linked to high tech manufacturing uniquely would benefit from securing a most domestic chip supply. The evidence for why it is necessary has already been laid bare in the past few years. The Chinese are already massively subsidizing their fabs. So is South Korea, Taiwan, and all the other major players. If you want fabs you must subsidize or die.