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Back to Quack Off
Quack Off
by
Free
Market Duck
Is Micron a DRAM Victim
or DRAM Crook?
(2005)
Boise,
ID -- Idaho Government is the largest employer in Idaho. Micron is the
largest private employer in Idaho.
Last month, Micron
reported a profit and passed out millions in bonuses to its workers. The
Idaho Statesman oohed and aahed over how private company Micron would
stimulate the Boise economy, enriching us all. Voodoo economics.
But how, exactly,
does Micron earn its "profits?" From the free market or from corporate
welfare?
Micron is the
nation's 4th largest corporate welfare recipient of federal tariff tax
money: receiving $12 million from U.S. tariffs against alleged dumping --
selling at lower than "market" prices -- of foreign DRAM computer chips by
"competitors" such as S. Korea's Hynix Co. (Thank you, Byrd Amendment, U.S.
Congress.)
At the same time,
Micron was named by the U.S. Justice Dept as one of four co-conspirators to
fix monopoly prices for DRAM chips. Lawsuits were filed by customers IBM,
DELL, and another large private employer in Boise, HP.
Micron avoided
price-fixing indictments by the U.S. Justice Dept in the anti-trust
investigation by squealing on its buddies who paid the following fines:
Samsung $100 million, Hynix $185 million, Micron $0.00 ZERO, and Infineon
Technologies AG $160 million.
So the big question
is: was Micron a poor victim of DRAM "dumping" at lower than market
prices, or a crook co-conspirator setting high DRAM monopoly prices?
How can Micron claim low price "dumping" by Hynix and simultaneously
claim high price-fixing with Hynix?
As a footnote,
wasn't it Micron of Boise who recently pulled out their knee pads for
Governor Sponge Bob and the 2005 Idaho Legislature to suck off an $800
million corporate welfare property tax limit?
This is not the
result of a capitalist free market. This is corporate welfare by the
government, which is simply socialism on the installment plan. – FM Duck
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