Intel is part of a small number of companies that are strategically important for the US to keep posturing in front of China and the EU, like Boeing or SpaceX.
Those companies know the US government will never let them fail: even if they're driven to bankruptcy by the most stupid management, they'll get taxpayer's money - i.e. OUR money - in the form of subsidies to bail them out.
Therefore, to answer your question, they need $8bn in subsidy because they deliberatively placed themselves in a position to request money from us that they know will be granted.
Hell, if I knew however much money I spent, someone would always foot the bill if I ran out, I too would spend like no tomorrow in order to get more money for free. It's plain logic.
Also they may have spent $158B on stock buybacks, but company is worth $96B. They lost a lot of money on those buybacks. Down about 70% over last 3 years.
Hell, if I knew however much money I spent, someone would always foot the bill if I ran out, I too would spend like no tomorrow in order to get more money for free. It's plain logic.
Why did $manager hire two more people? We don't need them, half the team has no idea what they're doing here and are just fucking around all day already.
Yeah but he still has some budget left, and if he doesn't spend it all next year he'll get less, and we can't have that.
Every two years the US votes for capitalists, then capitalist things happen, and people clutch their pearls as if this isn't precisely what they voted for.
One of the biggest pitfalls of buybacks is the piss-poor timing of them. You're doing good, flush with cash, and share prices are probably at a peak as a result. Shareholders would probably want to rake you over coals if you sat on cash and did nothing in order to weather a storm and perhaps do a buyback when the share prices are relatively undervalued, but you have fiduciary responsibility, so what do you do? Buy at the top and then get caught with your pants down when the shit hits the fan. Doing dumb shit to make shortsighted shareholders happy basically
I'm a shareholder and it's worrying. The share's aren't going up any more and the dividends are laughable. It's the top managers filling their pockets.