The technology industry is rife with bottlenecks

Sourcing high value MLCC capacitors is a real problem. I often design something into my board, only to find out it has gone out of stock. It’s like playing whack-a-mole.

Thank you

I'm still royally $EXPLETIVE_HERE about Analog Devices buying Linear Technology a couple of months ago. AD and LTC used to be the mutual second source suppliers for critical components in lots of my projects. For almost every part AD had there was a matching counterpart in LTC's portfolio and vice versa. And often enough I could design my PCBs in a way that they even could be populated with either chip, depending on availability. Most of the ICs are still available in their AD and LTC variants, but I wonder for how long.

I've similar feelings about the acquisition of National Semiconductor by Texas Instruments (primary and second source for high speed ADCs).

That line of thinking didn't stop World War I from happening[1].

[1] - https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/monkey-cage/wp/2014/04/0...

"Political scientists often argue that international economic relationships can decrease the likelihood that states will engage in war. Nations that might otherwise be inclined to fight can be deterred, informed or transformed by economic interdependence.

World War I has been called the “Achilles Heel” of such theories. In the decades before the war, Europe experienced unprecedented growth in international economic interdependence, both through trade and capital flows. Yet war not only broke out, but the scale of its destruction was unprecedented. Economic liberalism went into retreat. How could anyone sustain the notion that trade could prevent war when the most destructive war in history had followed an era of expansive international trade? For decades, scholars and policymakers alike pointed to World War I as providing strong evidence against the liberal case."