Almost every who listens to politicians dislike the politicians spending money on what they do not like, however if the same politicians were to spend money on something they do like, the attitude quickly changes. Sometimes the reasons to spend are very sound, for the good of the long term and a whole host of very reasonable rationalized answers, but it is still government money.

In an article by Ana Swanson and Don Clark of the New York Times News Service, the Biden Administration outlined plans to spend money building computer chips in the US at a cost of $70 billion. The money included money for computer chip companies to build new factories and to do research on the next generation of chips.

The US Commerce Deptartment is in charge of the administration’s efforts said its new National Semiconductor Technology Center would bring together companies, universities, and others to collaborate on next generation chip technology. The organization would include a string of research centers, the locations of which have yet to be chosen and aims to be operational by the end of the year.

To put into perspective the $11 billion investment by the US government is coupled with the semi-conductor industry has in the past years spent about $70 billion on research and development, according to Laurie Glandomenico, the VP and Chief Acceleration Officer of MITRE, an nonprofit that operates federally funded research centers.

Companies, universities, lawmakers and local governments have been lobbying the administration to sept an outpost of the new organization in their area. Senator Chuck Schumer is pushing Albany, NY as a site. Part of a Senator’s job, no matter their political stripe, is to lobby for government research and development money). For a private sector lobbying remember the cities which proposed to Amazon for their second headquarters.

Linking to dividend paying stocks, personally people may not like the government but if the government programs help the company they are attached to, they like it just fine. If your investment is not benefiting from some form of government assistance, it is time to find alternatives.

There are more questions than answers, till the next time – to raising questions.