Unless their plan is “let’s get permissions so that if the subsidy is put in place, we’re ready to build.”

That doesn’t suggest that they’d build without the subsidy, but that they want to be able to take advantage of the subsidy right away, if it gets put in place.

They could officially ask, to lend weight to passing the bill, it passes, take money, never build.

See Wisconsin and Foxconn.

Right. So spend time designing plants specific to local build codes, environment and terrain, paying architechs, examining land conditions, paying legal and lawyers, all to get permits to build, when you can wait until after, and do the same?!

Sure, companies love to spend hundreds of thousands on unknowns, for no real reason.

There could be a time advantage, where the probability weighted expected benefits of starting N years ahead of time is much larger than the sum spent preparing.

You could think of it as purchasing an option, which businesses definitely do.

Hundreds of thousands out of a possible expenditure in the tens of billions is literally nothing.

By that logic, why don't they just gove me, or you, 500k right now?

Hmm?

Why not?

Because any company behaving that way, would be bankrupt in a year. 500k is nothing on terms of overall expenditures, but companies drool over cutting production costs by .1 cents, here and there.

Because it adds up! Because spending 500k for Silly Reasons, done over and over, means profit disappears.

500k is nothing to waste. $1 is nothing to waste.

The arguments in this thread are bizarre. They boil down to Samsung spending cash, just in case subsidies appear.

Yet there is no difference in terms of getting a subsidy, if they do the work before, or after it becomes law!

None! No difference! If there was, everyone would be doing it.

So I am expected to believe, Samsung is spending loads of cash, because maybe a bill might be passed, sorta possibly hopefully?!

Where instead, they could wait until the bill is passed, and spend the cash for a guaranteed return.

Competent companies don't spend money this way. Especially, they don't posture that they are ready to build, when there is no subsidy in place, and may never be one!

Is everyone here a Samsung fan or some such? Totally bizarre logic.

Companies spend hundreds of thousands on unknowns that don't pan out all the time. Sometimes their reasons are even pretty good!