Posted on 06/02/2003 9:34:12 PM PDT by maui_hawaii
WASHINGTON -- National security as well as high-tech jobs could be endangered if the U.S. doesn't stop an accelerating offshore shift of semiconductor manufacturing to East Asian countries, including China, warned U.S. Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman (D-Conn.) today in a report delivered to U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
A continuing migration of semiconductor manufacturing, along with the potential loss of research and design centers to Asian nations, poses "grave national security implications," the Democratic presidential candidate said.
If that trend continues, "the U.S. will lose the ability to reliably obtain high-end semiconductor integrated circuits from trusted sources," according to the report, titled "National Aspects of the Global Migration of the U.S. Semiconductor Industry."
In a letter to Rumsfeld that accompanied the 10-page report, Lieberman, who serves on the Senate's Armed Services Committee, said the offshore manufacturing shift is occurring "at a time when these components are becoming a crucial defense technology advantage" to the U.S.
The Chinese, in particular, are using tax incentives and subsidies to build their semiconductor production capability to help bring an end to the U.S. semiconductor industry, Lieberman said.
Reversing this trend will require a variety of actions, including the enforcement of trade rules to prevent China from discounting its chips, as well as the use of defense contracts to help build up the U.S. semiconductor industry, according to the report. It also recommends increasing research and development funding.
But Craig Casey, a professor of electrical and computer engineering at Duke University in Durham, N.C., who has advised defense agencies on electronics issues, said the shift overseas "is more of an economic than military threat."
Casey said advanced development is still going on in this country and Japan, and the U.S. remains the leader in high-performance development. Intel Corp., Texas Instruments Inc. and IBM remain the leading producers, and "not until Intel pulls up its stakes and leaves California ... then it's another game," he said.
The Semiconductor Industry Association in San Jose said worldwide sales of semiconductors totaled $12.1 billion in April, unchanged from March, but a 9.7% increase from April 2002 revenue of $11.3 billion.
Domestically, the semiconductor industry employs 284,000.
What we are witnessing here is the beginning of the end of America. This can't continue for too much longer or there will be another depression in America. I have a sad feeling that's exactly what our elected officials want to happen - a depression. What better way to make government even bigger? Worked for FDR.
I say we should have the plants where there is the closest thing to free markets possible.
Here is my two cents about the problem and how to fix it.
That could only work if there was such a thing as a "free market" in the world today. There is no "free market" in the world today, just an ever-growing slave market.
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