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Technology Stocks : Qualcomm Moderated Thread - please read rules before posting -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JeffreyHF who wrote (195352)	8/23/2025 1:49:11 PM
From: sbfm	4 Recommendations Recommended By JeffreyHF Lance Bredvold mk511 QCOM_HYPE_TRAIN Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 197013

Extorting companies for a piece of the pie is reminiscent of China requiring companies to partner with Chinese owned companies (aka the Chinese government) as a condition to do business - which more or less ended on 2020. My concern - as an investor - is the disruption and interference with the free market of capitalism. It's hard enough to try to make educated investment decisions/guesses about companies, sectors, innovations, markets, trends, etc., in the (mildly) corrupt current system. (We're all playing in a system where information often goes to insiders before it gets to the public - for example.) One critical facet of our current free market capitalism is the constant churn of companies winning and losing. No company is cemented in place; innovations by challengers force market leaders to innovate or die. A government directed economy (or one with a heavy thumb on the scale) doesn't permit/retards this natural capitalistic result. (Otherwise China, the USSR [oopsie], Russia, and India would be economic kings as would Europes' thumb on the scale economies.) Anyone remember the "nifty-fifty?" These companies were the absolute backbone of America in the 60s and 70s. Imagine if the government decided to interfere with the free market and take ownership/rake off the top positions - Kodak, Pfizer, GE, IBM, Gillette, JC Penny, Sears, Xerox. (A bunch of the nifty-fifty are still around and thriving, but many have died or live as zombies.) The free market took care of the bad and rewarded the good. The government wields enormous economic power which creates leverage; when the government (for example) entrenches management (by agreeing to vote for it), the government can direct economic outcomes. Just look at INTC and go back a decade. How would AMD have been able to dethrone the king? The government would structure government contracts to support INTC, not permit technology transfers to foreign countries, hamper visa permits - the list is endless and only limited by the imagination. Now, to me, "too big to fail" is a very real thing and is a counter to unfettered capitalism. We can agree to disagree as to whether the GM bailout, the bank bailouts of the Great Recession, were worth it; but, the economic conditions of the time were precarious and many believed we were standing on the precipice; so, better to be safe than sorry. But, this 15% China take from NVIDIA and AMD, the 10% VOTING FOR ENTRENCHED MANAGEMENT share of INTC, owning a piece of Nippon Steel and MP materials sets the stage for further encroachments into the private free market. Where does this lead, where does this end? It doesn't matter the political party exercising the clout today; is there any doubt that both political parties - once the new model takes root - will wield the weapon? How can we make informed investment decisions/guesses when there is no predictability, no fixed rules, when the market can be distorted by your management selling a portion of YOUR COMPANY just to stay in position? INTC drove itself into its current position; no outside economic forces did this, no black swan event caused this. The free-market has allowed AMD, NVIDIA, QCOM (remember INTC failed in modems), and others to rise to the top. And, that's how (reasonably) free market capitalism is supposed to work. End of my rant; but you better fear that the government is eyeing to take something (over and above taxes) from all great US companies - including QCOM.