It was the perfect political photo op. The occasion was the September 2022 groundbreaking for Intel’s INTC, +2.33% massive $20 billion chip-manufacturing complex in the suburbs of Columbus, Ohio. Backhoes dotted a construction site that stretched across hundreds of flat, empty acres. At a simple podium with the presidential seal, President Joe Biden talked about putting an end to the term “Rust Belt,” a name popularized in the 1980s in reference to the Midwest’s rapidly declining manufacturing sector.
