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Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

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Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#151

Post by williamdclt »

azinman2 wrote: post #138
mywacaday wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm curious why you think China will decline or be eliminated, I always thought that China was a reliable as a production/trading partner and that they planned for decades ahead with programs like Belt and Road Initiative unlike western politics that only looks as far as the next election. Very open to correction on this though, thinking about it not sure what formed my opinion on this.

It’s foolish to be completely dependent on anyone else, no matter how stable the CURRENT situation is. We’ve seen this with the gulf countries and Strait of Hormuz, China with rare earth metals, Ukraine with grains, etc. Once China goes to take Taiwan all bets are off…

Your example are somewhat funny (in a not-so-funny way), the most obvious example for "foolish to be completely dependent on anyone else, no matter how stable the CURRENT situation is" is the US, from a european perspective

Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#152

Post by fhn »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #67
joshstrange wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No company can plan based on the tariffs. There is zero guarantee that then next government won't revoked them or that the current one won't flip-flop. Local manufacturing doesn't swing on a 2-4 (or 6 or 8) year timescale. There needs to be consistency. The company that moves (or starts) manufacturing here today might get run out of business when/if tariffs are repealed and their competitor already has production lin…

Any company should definitely be planning for the inevitable decline or elimination of China as a production and/or trading partner. If not caused by politics, then by demographic crash.

can you explain more on this "demographic crash" because I am not in the loop. Are you talking about population decline which I'm sure will have some effect but elimination?

Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#153

Post by azinman2 »

williamdclt wrote: post #151
azinman2 wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s foolish to be completely dependent on anyone else, no matter how stable the CURRENT situation is. We’ve seen this with the gulf countries and Strait of Hormuz, China with rare earth metals, Ukraine with grains, etc. Once China goes to take Taiwan all bets are off…

Your example are somewhat funny (in a not-so-funny way), the most obvious example for "foolish to be completely dependent on anyone else, no matter how stable the CURRENT situation is" is the US, from a european perspective

Exactly. This is true for everyone.

Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#154

Post by kipchak »

matwood wrote: post #60
throwawaytea wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're conflating better for apple (and shareholders) with better for the country overall.

The US economy has been one of the best performing economies ever, which has been great for the country overall. Deeper economic ties with other super powers is also a pretty good at keeping the peace. While there are some specific issues, it's hard to argue it hasn't been good for the country overall.

In terms of the country's overall health I think you could argue we've sold industrial capacity for wealth, and it's too early to say if it was a good trade. Reliance on China for Rare Earth Minerals is commonly referenced, [1] but China is in general a major supplier to the DoW, which negatively hampers our ability to for example credibly deter an invasion of Taiwan. Arguably Post WWII Pax Americana, which relies on industrial capacity, has kept the peace more so than economic interdependence. For example Pre WWI Germany and the UK were each others' largest trading partner, and a conflict was argued to be economically unthinkable. [2]

It also increases the immiseration of those in the areas replaced[3], which is likely a contributor to rising populism and political instability. Most of this malaise is just hidden in places like the Rust Belt.

[1]https://www.csis.org/analysis/rare-earth-export-restrictions...

[2]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Great_Illusion

[3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Disease_of_despair

Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#155

Post by parineum »

smallmancontrov wrote: post #148
parineum wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say that like economic growth hasn't led to cheaper food. We used to actually have starving people in this country, now we talk about "food insecurity".

Ah, so now the bar has fallen to "people aren't literally starving (yet)." Amazing.

Yes, "People aren't literally starving" is incredible progress for humanity. Progress which has coincided with the incredible wealth creation (not transfer, those things are different) of modern times.

Would you prefer to go back to a time were people were literally starving?

Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#156

Post by fhn »

mywacaday wrote: post #78
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company should definitely be planning for the inevitable decline or elimination of China as a production and/or trading partner. If not caused by politics, then by demographic crash.

I'm curious why you think China will decline or be eliminated, I always thought that China was a reliable as a production/trading partner and that they planned for decades ahead with programs like Belt and Road Initiative unlike western politics that only looks as far as the next election. Very open to correction on this though, thinking about it not sure what formed my opinion on this.

China is not a good trading partner at all. They put up barriers for companies entering their market, mandatory China employee in your company, IP theft, they subsidize and flood the market killing competition, most everything they make is lowest quality possible, lots of fraud even within China.

Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#157

Post by fhn »

pjc50 wrote: post #103
FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any company should definitely be planning for the inevitable decline or elimination of China as a production and/or trading partner. If not caused by politics, then by demographic crash.

Over what timescale? Is the presumption that China, the country of one child policy, will do nothing about the problem?

they already have in 2016. https://www.cnn.com/2026/01/01/china/china-one-child-anniver...

Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#158

Post by thewebguyd »

FuriouslyAdrift wrote: post #67
joshstrange wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No company can plan based on the tariffs. There is zero guarantee that then next government won't revoked them or that the current one won't flip-flop. Local manufacturing doesn't swing on a 2-4 (or 6 or 8) year timescale. There needs to be consistency. The company that moves (or starts) manufacturing here today might get run out of business when/if tariffs are repealed and their competitor already has production lin…

Any company should definitely be planning for the inevitable decline or elimination of China as a production and/or trading partner. If not caused by politics, then by demographic crash.

That's already happening for the big players, or at least Apple anyway. A big chunk of iPhones are now made in India, Airpods, iPads, macbook assembly is now largely happening in Vietnam and Thailand.

Granted, I don't think continuing to shift to places with slave wages is a good thing overall, but we need complete factory automation to solve that problem (the problem of wanting cheap goods AND ethical labor). But the major players have seen the writing on the wall ever since covid lockdowns and have been slowly moving out of China since.

Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#159

Post by fhn »

fragmede wrote: post #33
joshstrange wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No company can plan based on the tariffs. There is zero guarantee that then next government won't revoked them or that the current one won't flip-flop. Local manufacturing doesn't swing on a 2-4 (or 6 or 8) year timescale. There needs to be consistency. The company that moves (or starts) manufacturing here today might get run out of business when/if tariffs are repealed and their competitor already has production lin…

Apple invested 3x the Marshall Plan into China. Imagine if they'd spent that on the US instead.

Why would they spend that on the US??? This is an investment and they want maximum gain which is definitely NOT in the US.

Re: Apple to increase spend with Broadcom to produce billions more U.S. chips

#160

Post by cyberax »

dhx wrote: post #135
jorts wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their aging population will pose an extremely serious problem in the coming decades.

If demographics are a problem for chipmaking in China, then it's good to compare against key chipmaking countries. To compare, 2024 (UN) fertility rates (highest-lowest):[1] US: 1.62 Japan: 1.23 China: 1.02 ROC: 0.86 ROK: 0.75 (where an increase to 0.8 in 2025 was cause for celebration, as is a predicted increase to 0.85 by mid 2026)[2] Alternatively (and perhaps accounting for migration etc), UN 2024 forecasts popul…

One thing missing is that the population growth in the US is mostly reliant on immigration (https://www.census.gov/data/tables/2023/demo/popproj/2023-su...). And our most favoritest political party is working on stopping it.
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