> The unfortunate message to investors is clear: the U.S. is no longer a reliable place for long-term energy investments.
Absolutely this, there’s no longer any confidence to begin a project anymore. Would like to see the legal action go ahead against the government and set a standard that contracts can’t be treated just as “suggestions”.
sschueller · 4h ago
The US getting 10% of Intel without any payment is very bad. Was there no shareholder vote?
If I was pharma I would think twice before investing In a factory that can be taken by the state just like that.
EDIT: I was not aware that something was paid. Every time I saw trump on TV he said he got it for nothing. Yeah I know he lies a lot and I should have checked more into it. This is dangerous however as internationally you don't always get the details right away and generally one believes what a head of state says.
mort96 · 3h ago
> The US getting 10% of Intel without any payment is very bad. Was there no shareholder vote?
> Under the agreement, the U.S. will purchase a 9.9% stake in Intel for $8.9 billion, or $20.47 per share, which represents a discount of about $4 from Intel's closing share price of $24.80 on Friday.
So they bought a 9.9% stake at a slight discount. (And just have to go back a couple of weeks to find Intel's stock price at under $20.47 per share, so I'm not sure you can really call it a real "discount").
hshdhdhj4444 · 3h ago
Much of that money is money that was granted by Congress already.
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
> Much of that money is money that was granted by Congress already
Not to buy shares.
op00to · 3h ago
How is $4 off the closing price not a discount?
mort96 · 3h ago
I don't know when the deal was agreed. Two weeks ago, on august 8th, the share price was $19.95, so if the price was set then, the US over-paid a bit.
I don't know how long it takes between when the price is set and when the deal becomes public. If the final price was set on friday, then yeah, there was a slight discount (though even then, the discount was within Intel's normal random short term share price fluctuations).
Maybe it's completely fair to call this a proper discount, I'm genuinely not familiar enough with the finance world to say. Regardless, I feel that this is important context; it's not like Intel's share price has been stable at between $24 and $25 per share for years and then the US comes in and buys at $20.
op00to · 3m ago
I suppose it’s a difference of viewpoint, but I understand what you’re getting at. Thanks for explaining it. I wouldn’t consider locking a mortgage at 6% and then having rates rise in the interim as a discount, maybe a lucky break!
jackstraw42 · 3h ago
ah, so the government missed a dip and made their own. nice.
andyjohnson0 · 3h ago
> The US getting 10% of Intel without any payment is very bad. Was there no shareholder vote?
I assumed they were buying shares like any other investor. How are they getting it for free?
hshdhdhj4444 · 3h ago
I just want to point out ther the government buying shares just like any other private investor would have been roundly condemned across the political board even a year ago.
mort96 · 3h ago
They are buying the shares like any other investor, but the white house lied about that. Plenty of people just repeated Trump's Truth Social post which claimed: "The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars".
In reality, the US bought a 10% stake for roughly $8.9 billion, paying market price for the shares.
bbarnett · 3h ago
Best as I can tell, the weird, broken logic is "these funds were already allocated via the chips act and another act, but we axed that, so buying the shares instead is free".
So sure, no new funds, of which "free" is a nutty, insane interpretation, but whatever.
Weird ways to convey it aside, I do like shares as a guarantee for grants, which is not a new thing, but I'd still like to enforce funds allocation for those funds. Not sure if that's happening still.
andyjohnson0 · 3h ago
Thanks for clarifying
ysofunny · 3h ago
they were bailing out Intel. they have bailed out Intel
BLKNSLVR · 2h ago
It was essentially bribery.
Under Biden there was money to be granted (as in: via a grant, Congressionally approved) to Intel. Trump then held the grant hostage in return for government ownership of Intel shares.
There's also a threat that this deali supposedly eases around the Intel CEO that Trump said was 'too connected' to China.
It's either borderline or blatantly illegal, but there are likely no parties eligible to contest, or interested in contesting, it in court.
(Based on my memory of someone's breakdown of a few examples like this - there's a chance I'm conflating a couple of different but related things, the deal with Nvidia to allow selling of some more advanced chips to China being another)
bilekas · 3h ago
Where did you read there was no payment? That's not true, the US is not Russia. Not yet at least.
rnrn · 3h ago
This was in the “truth” posted by Trump on his social media announcing the deal:
> It is my Great Honor to report that the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future. I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars. This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL. Building leading edge Semiconductors and Chips, which is what INTEL does, is fundamental to the future of our Nation. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Thank you for your attention to this matter.
The president has been known to not know all the facts or exaggerate about what is known. Personally, and sadly, his tweets are worthless than my fortune cookies.
There is an important difference between these scenarios:
1) A member of the opposition party tweets "The president stabbed a kid" without any proof. I go on facebook and post "WTF why did the president stab a kid? He is so evil."
2) The president tweets "I just stabbed a kid" without any proof. I go on facebook and post "WTF why did the president stab a kid? He is so evil."
_heimdall · 3h ago
In general its a good rule to avoid using any politician's quote as fact. Especially at the federal level, they've all made a career of exaggerating and telling partial truths to earn media coverage and votes.
macintux · 3h ago
Let’s not “both sides” his behavior. This president lies about everything, and actively causes harm by lying maliciously about people he would like his followers to target.
johannes1234321 · 2h ago
There is quite a difference between. exaggeration and blunt lies.
Also most exaggeration happens during campaigns for getting votes, but rarely the result is a strong enough mandate to push all things through, thus one has to compromise ... but campaigning on "well, realistically my options will be limited" doesn't really work, especially as the campaign promises form the negotiation base lateron.
But in that regard Trump is special, also.
koolba · 2h ago
This is nothing new here ands it’s no different than Biden stopping border wall construction after he was elected. It’s not special just because Trump is doing it to a wind farm.
vannevar · 1m ago
The difference is that the border wall was an expensive publicity stunt and this is a working wind farm that will actually accomplish its intended purpose if completed. it's worth noting that border wall construction in fact resumed under Biden because the money was legally appropriated for that purpose and the President lacked the power to redirect the funding on his own (https://www.factcheck.org/2023/10/bidens-border-wall-explain...).
mrtksn · 4h ago
Trump appears to have particular hatred for the wind farms, not necessarily for all the renewables. He was talking about it, he brings it up when visiting European countries. What's up with that is it like a NIMBY thing?
They mention things like wind farms killing birds other says it's making noise or looking ugly but even though I never lived around a wind farm, I have came close to some large wind farms and they looked futuristic to me I didn't hear any noise. I'm not convinced that is uglier or noisier than any other modern infrastructure, like roads or planes.
Is this about money? is this ideological? what is this, what's going on?
jakub_g · 4h ago
There's a wind farm next to his golf course in Scotland which "ruins his view".
Wild that America is signing away a good source of energy and true energy independence for the sake of one old man's golf course.
Gigachad · 3h ago
That's what happens when you put a clown in charge.
mrtksn · 3h ago
From nihilistic point of view, it makes perfect sense.
Old man gave people what they wanted and now he is taking what he wants. He’s old, his offsprings are wealthy beyond comprehension and they will be fine.
dartharva · 2h ago
I never understood this talking point either. There are many small wind farms erected in key hillstations near my city - and the scenery looks even more beautiful with them! Most people I know agree that wind farms are rather picturesque, I never understood this peculiar American distaste for them.
danaris · 29m ago
It's because they're anti-fossil-fuels, which, in America, means they're automatically a Liberal Plot to a certain breed of low-information voter. I've seen signs—like, full-on billboards—along the rural highway I live near saying things like "WINDMILLS KILL Families, Friendships, Wildlife, Property Values".
ZeroGravitas · 26m ago
Wind farms have been the subject of a long running disinformation campaign from fossil fuel interests.
They got cheaper earlier than solar, and while both are still declining in cost solar is now pulling ahead and is likely to be the majority threat to fossil fuels going forward.
He's mostly just repeating half remembered lies from Fox News and allied media.
andyjohnson0 · 3h ago
> Is this about money? is this ideological? what is this, what's going on?
The proximate cause is that the fossil fuel lobby went all-in on getting Trump elected. They paid big miney [1] and they expect a payback for that. Moves against renewables, electric vehicles, regulation, etc. are part of the transaction.
More widely, renewables occupy an adjacent space in the conservative worldview to environmentalists and the liberal left. Being seen to destroy them reinforces Trump's leadership of his base. And emphasising use of traditional, domestic, fossil-based energy sources appeals to nationalist/traditionalist sentiment.
>Trump appears to have particular hatred for the wind farms,
You'd think a "drill baby drill" attitude would be more in line with his platform but a tiger can't change its stripes. Waspy east coast democrats all hate wind farms because they and their buddies all own waterfront property.
Personally, I think he's missing a great opportunity to really stick it to people who deserve to have it stuck to them (for a variety of reasons somewhat tangential to red/blue politics) while furthering the energy, economic and industrial goals of the nation.
potato3732842 · 3h ago
This has nothing to do with national security, or trump, or anything else in the past few years other than that being the hook some slimy editor uses to get your eyeball dollars to their website.
This is just another round of a fight that's been happening for over 20yr now.
Wind farms in this area have been a constant political football. Regardless of the pretext the real story is that the people who have a view they want to protect, the tourism industry and the hippie/nature/biology types are on the no-wind side and the climate types, greenies, domestic energy and big business types are on the other. Sometimes one side wins, sometimes another side wins. But nothing ever gets built.
palmfacehn · 2h ago
I doubt it is about ads as much as it is about politics. From NPR's editorial stance, Trump is an a priori bad. Therefore, all coverage needs to be framed to justify their starting premise.
It isn't so different from the previous administration's regulatory uncertainty around drilling permits. The allegedly pro-biz anti-regulation Republicans like gov regulation here, while the pro-regulation Democrats don't like it. If anything, it lays bare the hypocrisy of both sides. NPR is just along for the ride to once again tell us, "Trump bad".
The problem with these partisan sources is that even if there were a deeper rationalization for killing the project with regulations, such as a valid national security situation, we wouldn't expect NPR to cover it. Looking elsewhere I didn't find much.
>"The bureau is seeking to protect U.S. national security and prevent "interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas," Giacona said.
There are multiple sources indicating this administrations stance on wind power. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/28/are-trum... for instance. It would seem the foreign production source (China) is probably the only related to US security. The other statements about price or environmental impact have no particular basis in data or direct US security impact.
This analysis of using foreign sourcing as a reason to kill energy projects roughly lines up with portions of the official press release: https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/department-interior-curbs-...
Although they amend that with statements about land use and environmental impact.
From a strictly personal analysis, it’s hard though to frame the current administrations aggregate actions as anything but an attempt to cripple wind and solar based industries, which have far less environmental impact and carbon footprint than any other industry except maybe nuclear. But nuclear struggles due to buy in costs and public perception.
palmfacehn · 13m ago
Perhaps you've misread my comment.
I found the same Reuters story and quoted it above. If NPR were a bit less partisan, I wouldn't feel the need to look further afield to find the rationale. The omitted specifics around "national security" suggested that perhaps there was more to the story. From there I looked towards Reuters. If NPR's editorial stance were different, perhaps I wouldn't have needed a second opinion.
>>The problem with these partisan sources is that eveniftherewere a deeper rationalization for killing the project with regulations, such as a valid national security situation, wewouldn'texpectNPRtocover it. Looking elsewhere I didn't find much.
Personally, I would like to see wind farms compete on a laissez-faire basis. Regulatory uncertainty is an added cost for everyone. Similarly, I didn't like the previous administration's ideological war on oil and gas. However, from NPR's editorial perspective, there weren't enough regulatory hurdles.
I've noticed in that past few weeks that some massive crain ships, Bokalift 1 and 2, have sometimes loitered in Narragansett Bay.
I wonder if that's related to this.
cr1895 · 3h ago
Probably not. It seems to have come as a surprise. They are not loitering - either the wave conditions did not allow for installation or they are in port for resupply.
avisser · 1h ago
Washington bridge rebuild maybe? The demolition of the piles is all that's left.
fuckaj · 3h ago
Because national security is too good and they want to make it worse?
incone123 · 4h ago
The title on the article is "Trump administration halts work on an almost-finished wind farm"
The amended title here gave me the false impression that NPR had started speaking valley girl.
hypeatei · 3h ago
It's probably to avoid mass flagging of anything mentioning "Trump"
Some don't like their dear leader being shown in a negative light here.
incone123 · 2h ago
It was the adding of 'because...' that I thought was unhelpful. However, some sites a/b test their headlines so it is possible that NPR have used the one given.
stuaxo · 4h ago
Now, if Russian firms were building it, it would probably continue.
JumpCrisscross · 4h ago
The honest truth is we’re in Sri Lanka and Argentina territory—bring in a Trump or a Kushner as a privileged LP and the project can go forward.
hliyan · 2h ago
Sri Lankan here. As of last year, the majority of Sri Lankans voted to send home the two historically establishment parties (who ran the country to the ground) and elected a third party into power with a 2/3rds majority in parliament and the presidency (an unprecedented upset). As someone who has viewed the US system favourably since childhood, it pains me to say that at present, Sri Lanka is probably marginally better than the US in terms of freedom of speech and independence of insitutions. Also painful is the fact that a such a third party upset is structurally impossible in the US. Here's wishing you all the best.
wcoenen · 4h ago
Or make a deal to pay a cut of revenue, like Nvidia and AMD did. Or a deal to give shares to the government, like Intel did.
Perhaps the government can set up some type of holding company which holds such shares and receive the stream of protection money. Next, arrange for investors to only be able to acquire shares of this company if they also trade in some US debt, like France once did with the Mississippi company.
JumpCrisscross · 2h ago
> make a deal to pay a cut of revenue, like Nvidia and AMD did. Or a deal to give shares to the government, like Intel did
Those are deals with the state. The point is if you personally enrich Trump and his cronies, you get approved. If you don’t, you don’t.
perihelions · 3h ago
Additional context missing in the NPR: Denmark is the majority owner of the offshore wind company, Ørsted, holding 50.1% of its shares (has to hold a majority by law[0]). This is could be Trump retaliating against or pressurizing the Danish government—likely his ongoing attempt to anschluss Greenland.
edit to add: Moreover, Denmark's foreign minister visited California this Friday, and met with Gavin Newsom[1]—obviously a provocation to Trump, given Newsom's political actions. A connection FT also made[2].
I don't know why I'm being mass-downvoted. This is a perfectly valid theory—it'd be a continuation of a retaliation threat Trump himself made, overtly [3].
The theory is interesting, but the use of "anschluss" isn't warranted.
ImPostingOnHN · 33m ago
> I don't know why I'm being mass-downvoted.
You aren't, and your post hasn't even existed for a tenth of one day, give it at least a week or so to settle out before raising your blood pressure about a score you might've had for a fraction of a moment before it changed.
That said, regardless of the (imo probable) correctness of your theory, commentary about being downvoted runs contrary to HN's posting guidelines, so you might expect downvotes in the future for that alone.
wosined · 1h ago
You are downvoted, because you are making too much sense, yet you don't have the correct opinion.
Absolutely this, there’s no longer any confidence to begin a project anymore. Would like to see the legal action go ahead against the government and set a standard that contracts can’t be treated just as “suggestions”.
If I was pharma I would think twice before investing In a factory that can be taken by the state just like that.
EDIT: I was not aware that something was paid. Every time I saw trump on TV he said he got it for nothing. Yeah I know he lies a lot and I should have checked more into it. This is dangerous however as internationally you don't always get the details right away and generally one believes what a head of state says.
I know that this is how it was reported everywhere including here, but I recently learned that it's apparently false. The US just bought shares. From https://www.reuters.com/business/us-take-10-equity-stake-int...:
> Under the agreement, the U.S. will purchase a 9.9% stake in Intel for $8.9 billion, or $20.47 per share, which represents a discount of about $4 from Intel's closing share price of $24.80 on Friday.
So they bought a 9.9% stake at a slight discount. (And just have to go back a couple of weeks to find Intel's stock price at under $20.47 per share, so I'm not sure you can really call it a real "discount").
Not to buy shares.
I don't know how long it takes between when the price is set and when the deal becomes public. If the final price was set on friday, then yeah, there was a slight discount (though even then, the discount was within Intel's normal random short term share price fluctuations).
Maybe it's completely fair to call this a proper discount, I'm genuinely not familiar enough with the finance world to say. Regardless, I feel that this is important context; it's not like Intel's share price has been stable at between $24 and $25 per share for years and then the US comes in and buys at $20.
I assumed they were buying shares like any other investor. How are they getting it for free?
In reality, the US bought a 10% stake for roughly $8.9 billion, paying market price for the shares.
So sure, no new funds, of which "free" is a nutty, insane interpretation, but whatever.
Weird ways to convey it aside, I do like shares as a guarantee for grants, which is not a new thing, but I'd still like to enforce funds allocation for those funds. Not sure if that's happening still.
Under Biden there was money to be granted (as in: via a grant, Congressionally approved) to Intel. Trump then held the grant hostage in return for government ownership of Intel shares.
There's also a threat that this deali supposedly eases around the Intel CEO that Trump said was 'too connected' to China.
It's either borderline or blatantly illegal, but there are likely no parties eligible to contest, or interested in contesting, it in court.
(Based on my memory of someone's breakdown of a few examples like this - there's a chance I'm conflating a couple of different but related things, the deal with Nvidia to allow selling of some more advanced chips to China being another)
> It is my Great Honor to report that the United States of America now fully owns and controls 10% of INTEL, a Great American Company that has an even more incredible future. I negotiated this Deal with Lip-Bu Tan, the Highly Respected Chief Executive Officer of the Company. The United States paid nothing for these Shares, and the Shares are now valued at approximately $11 Billion Dollars. This is a great Deal for America and, also, a great Deal for INTEL. Building leading edge Semiconductors and Chips, which is what INTEL does, is fundamental to the future of our Nation. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! Thank you for your attention to this matter.
“The United States paid nothing for these Shares”
https://truthsocial.com/@realDonaldTrump/posts/1150744446179...
The president has been known to not know all the facts or exaggerate about what is known. Personally, and sadly, his tweets are worthless than my fortune cookies.
> https://finance.yahoo.com/news/trump-says-everybody-eggs-now...
1) A member of the opposition party tweets "The president stabbed a kid" without any proof. I go on facebook and post "WTF why did the president stab a kid? He is so evil."
2) The president tweets "I just stabbed a kid" without any proof. I go on facebook and post "WTF why did the president stab a kid? He is so evil."
Also most exaggeration happens during campaigns for getting votes, but rarely the result is a strong enough mandate to push all things through, thus one has to compromise ... but campaigning on "well, realistically my options will be limited" doesn't really work, especially as the campaign promises form the negotiation base lateron.
But in that regard Trump is special, also.
They mention things like wind farms killing birds other says it's making noise or looking ugly but even though I never lived around a wind farm, I have came close to some large wind farms and they looked futuristic to me I didn't hear any noise. I'm not convinced that is uglier or noisier than any other modern infrastructure, like roads or planes.
Is this about money? is this ideological? what is this, what's going on?
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo
Old man gave people what they wanted and now he is taking what he wants. He’s old, his offsprings are wealthy beyond comprehension and they will be fine.
They got cheaper earlier than solar, and while both are still declining in cost solar is now pulling ahead and is likely to be the majority threat to fossil fuels going forward.
He's mostly just repeating half remembered lies from Fox News and allied media.
The proximate cause is that the fossil fuel lobby went all-in on getting Trump elected. They paid big miney [1] and they expect a payback for that. Moves against renewables, electric vehicles, regulation, etc. are part of the transaction.
More widely, renewables occupy an adjacent space in the conservative worldview to environmentalists and the liberal left. Being seen to destroy them reinforces Trump's leadership of his base. And emphasising use of traditional, domestic, fossil-based energy sources appeals to nationalist/traditionalist sentiment.
So its money and ideology.
[1] https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2025/01/the-fossil-fuel-i...
You'd think a "drill baby drill" attitude would be more in line with his platform but a tiger can't change its stripes. Waspy east coast democrats all hate wind farms because they and their buddies all own waterfront property.
Personally, I think he's missing a great opportunity to really stick it to people who deserve to have it stuck to them (for a variety of reasons somewhat tangential to red/blue politics) while furthering the energy, economic and industrial goals of the nation.
This is just another round of a fight that's been happening for over 20yr now.
Wind farms in this area have been a constant political football. Regardless of the pretext the real story is that the people who have a view they want to protect, the tourism industry and the hippie/nature/biology types are on the no-wind side and the climate types, greenies, domestic energy and big business types are on the other. Sometimes one side wins, sometimes another side wins. But nothing ever gets built.
It isn't so different from the previous administration's regulatory uncertainty around drilling permits. The allegedly pro-biz anti-regulation Republicans like gov regulation here, while the pro-regulation Democrats don't like it. If anything, it lays bare the hypocrisy of both sides. NPR is just along for the ride to once again tell us, "Trump bad".
The problem with these partisan sources is that even if there were a deeper rationalization for killing the project with regulations, such as a valid national security situation, we wouldn't expect NPR to cover it. Looking elsewhere I didn't find much.
>"The bureau is seeking to protect U.S. national security and prevent "interference with reasonable uses of the exclusive economic zone, the high seas, and the territorial seas," Giacona said.
There are multiple sources indicating this administrations stance on wind power. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jul/28/are-trum... for instance. It would seem the foreign production source (China) is probably the only related to US security. The other statements about price or environmental impact have no particular basis in data or direct US security impact.
This analysis of using foreign sourcing as a reason to kill energy projects roughly lines up with portions of the official press release: https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/department-interior-curbs-... Although they amend that with statements about land use and environmental impact.
From a strictly personal analysis, it’s hard though to frame the current administrations aggregate actions as anything but an attempt to cripple wind and solar based industries, which have far less environmental impact and carbon footprint than any other industry except maybe nuclear. But nuclear struggles due to buy in costs and public perception.
I found the same Reuters story and quoted it above. If NPR were a bit less partisan, I wouldn't feel the need to look further afield to find the rationale. The omitted specifics around "national security" suggested that perhaps there was more to the story. From there I looked towards Reuters. If NPR's editorial stance were different, perhaps I wouldn't have needed a second opinion.
>>The problem with these partisan sources is that even if there were a deeper rationalization for killing the project with regulations, such as a valid national security situation, we wouldn't expect NPR to cover it. Looking elsewhere I didn't find much.
Personally, I would like to see wind farms compete on a laissez-faire basis. Regulatory uncertainty is an added cost for everyone. Similarly, I didn't like the previous administration's ideological war on oil and gas. However, from NPR's editorial perspective, there weren't enough regulatory hurdles.
https://www.npr.org/2021/07/13/1015581092/biden-promised-to-...
I wonder if that's related to this.
The amended title here gave me the false impression that NPR had started speaking valley girl.
Some don't like their dear leader being shown in a negative light here.
Perhaps the government can set up some type of holding company which holds such shares and receive the stream of protection money. Next, arrange for investors to only be able to acquire shares of this company if they also trade in some US debt, like France once did with the Mississippi company.
Those are deals with the state. The point is if you personally enrich Trump and his cronies, you get approved. If you don’t, you don’t.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ørsted_(company)#Shareholders
edit to add: Moreover, Denmark's foreign minister visited California this Friday, and met with Gavin Newsom[1]—obviously a provocation to Trump, given Newsom's political actions. A connection FT also made[2].
I don't know why I'm being mass-downvoted. This is a perfectly valid theory—it'd be a continuation of a retaliation threat Trump himself made, overtly [3].
[1] https://www.nbcbayarea.com/california-3/newsom-partnership-d... ("Newsom signs partnership with Denmark on climate and tech" (Aug. 22))
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/27bce438-9008-4c46-979a-26217e75a... ( https://archive.is/r2FfQ ) ("Ørsted hit by US stop-work order on Rhode Island wind farm")
[3] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-01-07/trump-... ("Trump Threatens Denmark With Tariffs Over Greenland" (Jan. 7))
You aren't, and your post hasn't even existed for a tenth of one day, give it at least a week or so to settle out before raising your blood pressure about a score you might've had for a fraction of a moment before it changed.
That said, regardless of the (imo probable) correctness of your theory, commentary about being downvoted runs contrary to HN's posting guidelines, so you might expect downvotes in the future for that alone.