The Zax Who Stood Still

America's Lead in Potato Chips, Not Silicon Chips

Johnny can’t multiply, he can’t do differential equations, and Johnny can’t code. Jimmy can’t weld, he can’t splice wire, and Jimmy can’t lay pipe. The Red Zax know it. The Blue Zax know it. Professor McGrifter doesn’t care.

Congress passed the CHIPS Act in 2022 to re-shore semiconductor manufacturing. The fabs are funded. The plans are drawn. But we don’t have the people to build them or staff them. TSMC’s Arizona plant is delayed for lack of steamfitters, electricians, and HVAC technicians. Industry projections suggest 67,000 of 115,000 new semiconductor jobs will go unfilled by 2030. We need engineers for the clean rooms.

We need steamfitters to build them.

Johnny can’t do the engineering. Jimmy can’t do the construction. And 75% of America’s semiconductor PhDs are foreign-born, most of them trained at our own universities, in our own labs, on our own federal research grants. They want to stay. We make them leave.

We allocated the money. We announced the plan.

Then we froze.

Professor McGrifter promised to build a wall to keep people out. Tech CEOs are begging him to let people in. The H-1B cap hasn’t moved since 1990. China graduates 3.5 million STEM students a year; we graduate 820,000. The math doesn’t work, but Congress stands still. One side performs anti-alien theater. The other wants more visas. Neither addresses the fact that Johnny can’t code while we deport the engineers who can. Jimmy can’t weld, but he’s posting skincare routines.

Meanwhile, Taiwan makes 97% of the world’s most advanced chips from an island 100 miles off China’s coast, in the most dangerous neighborhood on earth. A blockade could sever the supply chain overnight. We passed the CHIPS Act to reduce that risk. But we can’t staff the fabs without engineers. We won’t reform immigration to keep the engineers.

So we’re building facilities we can’t operate while staying dependent on a supply chain that could vanish in a weekend.

Professor McGrifter wants a wall. The CEOs want workers. The Red and Blue Zax stand frozen between them. And the fabs sit partially built, waiting for workers who aren’t coming.

The North-Going Zax and the South-Going Zax stood forever in the Prairie of Prax. The world didn’t wait. China didn’t either. While America argued about electric vehicles, China built the industry. BYD became the world’s largest EV manufacturer. Chinese firms now dominate batteries, motors, and the supply chains behind them. Ford wrote down $31 billion. GM stalled. BYD iterated, produced, and took the markets we assumed were ours.

They have the engineers. We don’t.

We stood frozen arguing about direction. China built the highway around us. By the time we moved, they were gone.

Johnny can’t multiply. Jimmy can’t weld. The Red Zax did nothing. The Blue did the same. Professor McGrifter sold crypto, bibles and golden high-tops and laughed all the way home.