Earlier quoted context omitted.
Have you even been to the developing world? We mostly drive old junkers that were discarded by Americans and Europeans after 15 years of use for breaking and polluting too much.
this comment is a textbook example of how out of touch many here are. The developing world also makes cars. India - to name just one - is among the largest exporters of vehicles to several countries in Africa. No, people in the developing world do not drive hand-me-downs from the West.
Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
671–680 of 720 posts
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#672Come on, we all know this problem and we all know the solution. It's probably red-circuits that we are talking about here. We've all been there: you have your yellow belts full of green-circuits, but the red ones are just so much more complex. You need to set up the entire oil production chain for that, which is tedious and you probably rushed it just 'get a few red circuits so I can get my electric furnace'... I say…
I feel like the world could use a series of Katherine of Sky-narrated video tutorials on how to build out real-world infrastructure and supply chains.
"...and now let's see if we can get our shipping container shortage worked out; wait, what's this? Oh no, we've got a ship stuck sideways in the Suez, and all of the stuff and all of the things are stuck in a traffic jam in the Mediterranean and the Red sea. The sadness is real."
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#673So new cars are going to be come more expensive due to supply limitations and in turn used cars will continue to become more expensive as they can rise to a certain % of the new car price. At the same time housing prices continue to sky rocket. Seems like not a great time for someone just stepping into adulthood and financial responsibility.
It's been "not a good time" since 1975. Prior to that, at least in first world countries, you could start with less intelligence and have a much better chance at class improvement and even financially secure retirement than now. On the other hand, if you're in politics, finance, or executive business management, it's been a really, really great last 40+ years.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#674Earlier quoted context omitted.
"put it all on black!"
yeah. That might work out, but my investments are diversified more. I have real estate in the form of my house. I have stocks and bonds in my 401k. I have government in my social security. They are completely separate, so if any one fails I'm still okay. (well if the government fails I'm probably in trouble no matter what, but social security is limited at best)
I've tried to diversify to more international mutual funds, but they also tend to have higher fees.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#675Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought Toyota invented not doing that.
And then they invented that maybe they should keep poorly sourceable parts at hand. And chips are those. Unlike nuts, bolts, metal and plastics. Which you can easily find replacements for.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#676Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm not sure that the population can relate to building a semiconductor ecosystem in the USA -- when a state gives incentives to bring movie production there, people think "Well look at all of those jobs and movies give our state great exposure", but when the government wants to spend billions helping to build a next-gen fab plant here, then it's like "wait, I paid thousands of dollars for my phone and computer, why…
People understand just fine. They understand that pretty much everything they own these days has a computer chip inside it. Using a simple example people understand they can't get consumer electronics like Xboxs, Playstations, and Switches because of the electronics shortage. People understand there is a car part shortage due to electronics. These aren't high information people talking to me about this. It's understo…
Japan really has no presence in this business. Japanese automotive chip makers like Renesas had fabbed chips in-house, but decided to outsource everything to TSMC back in 2018. In fact, most automotive chip makers, such as Infineon and NXP also use TSMC -- the company has something like 70% of the market share.
Now, the real issue here is that the automotive chip business is fairly low-tech and low-margin business. TSMC has been around and has been making MCUs used in cars for a long time, but it seems others are less willing to jump in b/c it's going to take years to recoup their investment.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#677Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#678Earlier quoted context omitted.
> It always puzzles me why China is so antagonistic with its neighbours. > The issue is that China needs energy and other natural resources to sustain production which the US and allies can effectively blockade. You just answered your own question. They are so hostile, and aggressive exactly because of that immense insecurity, and fear. It's the mental model you pickup growing in any red country: you never acknowledg…
Interestingly, fear of Western blockade and interruption of import of vital resources was what motivated the Japanese to go to war in 1941.
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#679Earlier quoted context omitted.
Subsidies in theory can work for some problems. My argument is that the US government is not capable of executing them in a competent manner. The collapse of family-run farms is a "downside of abundance" in the same way drowning is a downside of abundance of water.
Thanks for clarifying, although I disagree that a collapse of family run farms (while bad) is worse than scarcity of food, both at the personal and national security level. I personally wouldn’t want the government to necessarily optimize for “number of family farms” at the expense of other concerns
Re: Chip shortage: Toyota to cut global production by 40%
#680Earlier quoted context omitted.
When I was in my early 20s, someone gave me this exact advice. I didn't have much money and they said that real estate was too expensive and I should just invest/rent. Fast forward to today, I paid 8x more for my small sad house than I would have then and my investments on my small amount of money didn't make up the difference. The market is so screwed up that even a crash that halved the price would still be 4 times…
Finance guy here, two things. You are looking at it in retrospect. "I should have bought a house" is no different than "I should have bought X stock" when you're looking at the price history backwards. At the time, it could have gone up or down. EG we just bought a house, I have many reasons to expect that it could drop in value over the next bunch of years. Second, you may not be doing proper calculations. I would n…