Submitted via IRC for Runaway1956
U.S.-based chip-tech group moving to Switzerland over trade curb fears
A U.S.-based foundation overseeing promising semiconductor technology developed with Pentagon support will soon move to Switzerland after several of the group’s foreign members raised concerns about potential U.S. trade curbs.
The nonprofit RISC-V Foundation (pronounced risk-five) wants to ensure that universities, governments and companies outside the United States can help develop its open-source technology, its Chief Executive Calista Redmond said in an interview with Reuters.
She said the foundation’s global collaboration has faced no restrictions to date but members are “concerned about possible geopolitical disruption.”
“From around the world, we’ve heard that ‘If the incorporation was not in the U.S., we would be a lot more comfortable’,” she said. Redmond said the foundation’s board of directors approved the move unanimously but declined to disclose which members prompted it.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday November 27 2019, @09:37AM
As an example of this in the other direction, after primarily US bankers nearly destroyed the world economy during the previous administration Obama chose not only to not hold anybody accountable, but to give them hundreds of billions of dollars in taxpayer funds to bail them out. Following the end of his presidency these same groups, among others, are paying him tens of millions of dollars in "speaking fees." That is in your face corruption that we've completely normalized. Imagine now, for a moment, that Obama had been a billionaire. Might he have reacted differently to these bankers' behaviors during his presidency?
We can only speak in hypotheticals so there's no clear answer, but this question and concern is one reason why if I do choose to vote democrat again (which I have not since 2008), it would likely only be for a man of extensive independent means such as Bloomberg. I rather disagree with his positions, but whatever his price is going to be - it's probably more than some millions to low tens of millions of dollars. It's the same reason that though I tend to disagree with many of Trump's positions, and especially his behavior online, I will probably vote for him in 2020, excepting the possibility of a Bloomberg/Schultz/etc winning the DNC nomination which would make things more difficult. Because while I may disagree with Trump I think he is engaging in behavior that he genuinely thinks is good for America. By contrast, I do not think that Obama's decision to give the bankers a massive payday, to try to shovel through the TPP in the most undemocratic fashion, etc were things that he felt were good for America. Those are things that I think he felt were good for himself.