Don’t Count Tech Out

This is a partial transcript from "Your World with Neil Cavuto", January 22, 2004, that was edited for clarity.

Watch "Your World w/Cavuto" weekdays at 4 p.m. and 1 a.m. ET.

NEIL CAVUTO, HOST: Well, who says tech stocks (search) can’t continue to rumble? Not my next guest. T.J. Rodgers runs Cypress Semiconductor, among the biggest chip players on Earth. And right about now, also among the most successful, out with earnings today that beat Street estimates.

With us now, T.J. Rogers.

T.J., good to have you.

T.J. RODGERS, CYPRESS SEMICONDUCTOR CEO (CY): Hi.

CAVUTO: First of all, on the earnings, is it a sign, as Intel has said and others have noted, including IBM, that technology is back?

RODGERS: Yes. You know, I heard your Viagra piece a minute ago, and we are getting a fast start and high quality on this upturn here. It’s as good as you can get.

CAVUTO: All right. Well, we’re going to leave the Viagra thing alone, T.J., if that’s OK with you. But let me ask a little bit about what’s happening. You know, a lot of your businesses is in the network arena, and John Chambers, CEO of Cisco Systems, he’s been here saying things are picking up. Do you buy that?

RODGERS: Oh, absolutely. And it’s broad-based. Cisco has been turned on for a while. We’ve seen them four quarters.

What is happening is some of the other players in the telecom side are starting to turn on right now, and its broad based. Every division and every sector of our business is up on a quarter basis.

CAVUTO: All right. Now, there is a debate on Capitol Hill, as we speak, to continue tax cuts, to make them more permanent. It might prove a lot easier said than done. For a guy of your caliber and a company of your size, does it make a difference whether these tax cuts become permanent, whether they be on dividends or anything else?

RODGERS: Any time we can move money from the public sector into the private sector and get the efficiency of better investment in the private sector, we are better off. So those tax cuts, I’m not worried about next quarter’s report or is 2005 going to be better. But those tax cuts will make the American economy more efficient, and that is really what is important.

CAVUTO: I always love talking politics with you, T.J., if you can indulge me. And the Democratic camp now, which seems to have shifted gears toward Kerry, is his view on rescinding only part of the tax cuts and not all of them palpable to you or what?

RODGERS: Well, you know, the tax cut we got from President Bush was kind of anemic. If you look at the two tax cuts that made a big difference, one came from a Democrat, John Kennedy, and one came from a Republican, Ronald Reagan. And both of those changed the economy.

And the current tax cut isn’t as big as either of them. And watering it down is worse yet. So, no, I think if we left the money with the American people and let them do what they want with their own money, we’d be better off. Every American would be better off.

CAVUTO: All right. T.J. Rodgers, always a pleasure. Out of San Jose, California, the man who runs Cypress Semiconductor.

Thank you, sir.

RODGERS: Thank you.

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