My Take | Disquieting events expose deep and dangerous flaws in the US
A wire service says a health insurance chief’s murder, a CEO’s ouster and the South Korea crisis are related. It’s right, but not in the way intended
A peculiar weekend news summary from Bloomberg intrigues me. “It was a week of disquieting developments in leadership,” it says, “from Intel CEO Pat Gelsinger’s ouster to South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol’s declaration of martial law and the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson.”
It then concludes: “Hold your democratic ideals close, and your loved ones closer.”
I agree they all expose, in different ways, deep and dangerous flaws in US foreign and domestic policies, including public healthcare. But democratic ideals? It’s a tad remote.
Let’s start with Intel. What is effectively Gelsinger’s sacking is no surprise for anyone who has been following the fortune, or rather misfortune, of the once-fabled chipmaking company.
It has been integral to Joe Biden’s signature industrial policy under the US$280 billion Chips and Science Act, or Chips for short. That alone says everything that is wrong with the act, the flipside of Biden’s containment policy of denying the supply of advanced semiconductors to China.
Intel’s subsidies look more like a corporate bailout than a spur to innovation, or rebuilding America’s domestic chip manufacturing.
