Simple proposals for simple people.

SK Hynix went public today in America.

Background: SK Hynix is already a public company and is not doing a traditional corporate spin-off or initial public offering. It has been listed on South Korea’s KOSPI index (Ticker: 000660) for decades, where it sits as the country’s second-most valuable company. The event happening today (July 10, 2026) is a blockbuster U.S. dual-listing on the Nasdaq. SK Hynix priced its American Depositary Receipts (ADRs) at $149 each, successfully raising $26.5 billion. This marks the largest-ever U.S. listing by a foreign company, eclipsing Alibaba’s $25 billion debut in 2014, and positions it as the second-largest stock sale in history behind SpaceX.

SK Hynix chose a U.S. ADR listing to solve very specific capital and structural limitations inherent to the South Korean market:

1. Erasing the "Korea Discount"

South Korean companies traditionally suffer from a structural valuation gap known as the "Korea Discount". Despite holding a dominant 56% global market share in critical high-bandwidth memory (HBM) chips for AI, SK Hynix has traded at a discount compared to U.S. peers. For example, its U.S. rival Micron has historically enjoyed a higher forward price-to-earnings ratio despite having less market share in key memory segments. Listing directly on the Nasdaq forces Wall Street to price the company alongside its direct tech peers. 

2. Access to the Deepest Pool of Capital

An incredible surge in AI infrastructure demand—cemented by Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang naming SK Hynix as their most critical memory partner—requires unprecedented amounts of cash. The domestic KOSPI pool is too small to fund the multi-billion-dollar fabrication plants ("fabs") needed for next-generation HBM4 chips. The Nasdaq gives them frictionless access to the world’s largest institutional allocators. The immense global demand was proven by the book-building process, which closed seven times oversubscribed with billions in cornerstone backing from funds like Coatue and Baillie Gifford. 

3. Resolving KOSPI Market Volatility and Overconcentration 

The South Korean market has suffered severe turbulence due to localized risk factors and massive sector concentration. Together, Samsung and SK Hynix make up more than half of the entire KOSPI’s index weight. Local regulatory hurdles, currency restrictions with the Korean Won, and geographic friction have historically prevented major international investors from easily trading the stock in Seoul.

Yes, a portion of the capital will be deployed in the U.S., but the vast majority is earmarked for South Korea. 

SK Hynix is balancing a massive localized expansion in its home country while building its very first manufacturing presence on American soil. [1, 2]

The $26.5 billion windfall will be split across two primary geographic regions: [1]

1. The United States Investment (~$4 Billion)

SK Hynix is directly using this capital to fund its highly anticipated expansion into the U.S. market. [1]

• The Indiana Fab: The company is currently building a $3.87 billion advanced packaging facility in West Lafayette, Indiana. [1]

• What it Does: This factory will not fabricate raw silicon wafers; instead, it will specialize in the "back-end" packaging process. This is where individual memory chips are intricately stacked into massive High-Bandwidth Memory (HBM) units. [1, 2]

• The Nvidia Connection: By building this facility in Indiana, SK Hynix can package its memory chips right next door to its primary U.S. clients, like Nvidia, drastically shortening the AI chip supply chain and lowering geopolitical risk. [1, 2]

• U.S. Subsidies: This project is also being heavily offset by $458 million in direct funding from the Biden Administration's CHIPS and Science Act. [1, 2]

2. The Domestic Investment (~$22+ Billion)

Despite the historic U.S. fundraise, SK Hynix’s primary manufacturing and research core remains domestic. The remaining bulk of the cash is legally and structurally funneled back into massive South Korean infrastructure. [1, 2, 3]

• The Yongin Semiconductor Cluster: The core of their capital expenditure is funding the mega-fab complex in Yongin, South Korea. This is an incredibly expensive project aimed at drastically multiplying their raw HBM output to stay ahead of Samsung. [1, 2, 3, 4, 5]

Next-Gen Machinery: Billions of dollars will go toward procuring Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) lithography machines from the Dutch manufacturer ASML. These machines cost upwards of $200 million to $350 million each and are required to print the microscopic circuitry for next-generation HBM4 chips. [1, 2]

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We need a Robin’s hoodie. As merch you see. Purely as merch. And we don’t need or want you to buy said merch. In fact we don’t want you to buy the merch.

The solution said Bernie is a Billionaire’s Tax and the simple proposal is 4T over 10 years. 989 billionaires in the US as of 2026 Forbes count. It breaks out to about 404M per billionaire per year. Seems reasonable but some won't be able to afford it if their fortune is only a billion. Others - about 20 - have over 100 Billion. It seems like an interesting proposal to reduce inequity and seems suspiciously simple. Too simple. Like a burger advertisement. 99c Wendy’s cheeseburger sale price value menu.

That’s how I view the world. With 0 Trust for everyone. If something sounds too good to be true it probably is. If something sounds too simple, it probably is.

Now I am not quite sure how to connect these two threads. SK Hynix raising money for their Korean plants in the US with a proposed simple suspicious proposal for a tax on billionaires. The problem as I see it is that 4T over 10 years doesn’t solve anything. That’s a small amount of money: 400B per year. It could probably solve housing for 40 Columbuses. Or perhaps housing for a couple of large cities like New York and Philadelphia.

Where’s the rest of the funds pal? If the billionaires only got so much where’s the rest of it?
I dunno. It’s there somewhere. We can afford to fund these foreign companies somehow. Pentagon spent a cool 100B on Iran and now they want more. War’s still ongoing. 300B or so is what regular Americans shelled out for the increase in the price of gasoline.

Gotta think for yourself dear Americans. Sound bites will not solve our problems. 10 second commercials won't solve anything. Instead of giving your attention and eyeballs and donations to either Democrats or Republicans, we suggest you donate your funds to help starving children. Or children with terrible diseases who need very expensive medications. In the final accounting you will remember the things you did to help the most vulnerable.

If this post helps awaken your conscience, then it was worth writing.

To send high-value, specialized pediatric medications to the world's most vulnerable and low-resource regions (such as sub-Saharan Africa, parts of Asia, and conflict zones), you can support major global health logistics nonprofits. Because individual donors cannot easily ship sensitive prescription narcotics or cold-chain biologics across international borders, these established organizations handle the complex compliance, security, and distribution pipelines to get expensive treatments directly to frontline clinics. [1, 2]

Highly Reliable Global Health Nonprofits

• Direct Relief: They specialize in equipping healthcare providers in over 80 countries with critical medical resources. They have dedicated global programs, such as partnering with pharmaceutical companies like Teva, to distribute expensive oncology and hematology medications specifically to children in sub-Saharan Africa. [1]

• Americares: This highly rated organization delivers more than $1 billion in donated medicine and supplies annually to a network of 4,000 health centers in low-resource countries. They track the delivery pipeline to ensure high-value medications are administered safely to patients who need them most. [1, 2]

• Catholic Medical Mission Board (CMMB): CMMB runs a massive Medical Donations Program that partner with pharmaceutical manufacturers to source and ship highly valued, expensive medicines to thousands of partner hospitals in resource-poor nations. [1]

• MAP International: A global health organization providing life-saving medicines and supplies to overwhelmed hospitals and clinics in the world's poorest countries and emergency zones.

Condition-Specific International Initiatives

• The Global Platform for Access to Childhood Cancer Medicines: A groundbreaking joint initiative by St. Jude Children's Research Hospital, the WHO, and UNICEF. It explicitly works to source and distribute high-quality, expensive childhood cancer medications at no cost to families in low- and middle-income countries. [1, 2]

• Partners In Health (PIH): PIH builds deep, localized healthcare infrastructure in impoverished countries like Haiti, Malawi, and Sierra Leone. They focus on treating complex pediatric illnesses, including childhood cancer and severe chronic conditions, ensuring children receive advanced medications that are normally unavailable in those regions.

Name the military academy that literally cannot be racist.