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Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

reuters.com

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Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#341

Post by a9h74j »

baybal2 wrote: post #124
intricatedetail wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would cause pretty much all STM32 microcontrollers to be not available and any amount that shows up disappears within minutes? Then you can buy pretty much any part from China without issue?

Chinese people stopped hoarding luxury apartments, and started hoarding microchips — a popular explanation

> a popular explanation

When I was a kid, the urban legend question was: What if all of the Chinese jumped off a platform at the same time? Would it shake the other side of the world?

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#342

Post by jrockway »

birdyrooster wrote: post #321
drdeca wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It seems to me like most of the (alleged) benefits of scalpers would be equally well achieved by selling (some fraction of) the items in auctions, instead of just picking a price. However, my impression is that consumers would view this in a negative light, and that the harms to the seller’s reputation would be enough to outweigh the initially increased income. This seems to be the source of the inefficiencies that s…

I and many other gamers have a negative view of Nvidia because of their inability to thwart scalpers and crypto miners. To quote a wise man, "so Nvidia, fuck you!"

It's not really NVidia's fault. The problem is that you can buy a GPU for $1000 and use it to print $2000 of money. That's annoying because most people just want to play a computer game, not print $2000 worth of money.

The other thing NVidia could do is keep all their GPUs for themselves and mine crypto.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#343

Post by fortran77 »

leppr wrote: post #276
coryrc wrote: post #228

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's the difference between scalpers and Digikey hypothetically raising their prices sixfold?

It's better that the producer gets the correct price for their items. That way they can invest in their infrastructure or bid up source materials, getting closer to being able to meet demand. On the other hand profits going to the scalpers doesn't contribute towards fixing the problem.

Digikey isn’t a producer.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#344

Post by lmm »

basilgohar wrote: post #314
abfan1127 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

this is false. the supply would be gone at those low prices. Now they can be had for those who want it badly enough.

Your statement is false. Demand would be met with an increase in supply, satisfying all needs for the product and without the "help" of scalpers who sidestep supply-and-demand by artificially creating scarcity to drive up demand for their own profit. This is no help to anyone but themselves. If there's a legitimate demand that will be used, then there's a good case for production to be increased to meet such demand,…

> Demand would be met with an increase in supply, satisfying all needs for the product and without the "help" of scalpers who sidestep supply-and-demand by artificially creating scarcity to drive up demand for their own profit. This is no help to anyone but themselves.

There's no "artificial" demand. Think about it - the "scalper" isn't going to buy something that they can't sell on, they'd just lose money that way. (Maybe some of them make bad judgements - but they'll naturally go out of business in that case).

> If there's a legitimate demand that will be used, then there's a good case for production to be increased to meet such demand, and all parties who need something would have their needs met.

"Scalpers" improve the quality of that signal and make it easier to increase production with confidence.

> This is also known as cornering the market, a well-known and despised practice

Views on true corners are certainly mixed (there's an argument that it punishes dishonest market makers), but in any case it only applies to buying up the whole supply, which no individual "scalper" does or can.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#345

Post by lmm »

TeMPOraL wrote: post #234
bluecalm wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, they provide value. They make it possible for people/entities who needs things the most to actually get them instead of those who happen to be first in line or in lucky position to get access to supply.

Correction: they make it possible for people/entities who can afford to waste most money to get them instead of those first/lucky. But how is that a better outcome? And why should this involve people spending more money, and all the delta going to the person who was first in line or in lucky position to secure a loan and buy off all the supply?

> they make it possible for people/entities who can afford to waste most money to get them instead of those first/lucky. But how is that a better outcome?

It's not "waste", it's the people who are willing to spend the most money, which are presumably the people who want/need the thing most, so it's better than allocating the thing at random.

> And why should this involve people spending more money, and all the delta going to the person who was first in line or in lucky position to secure a loan and buy off all the supply?

The person who makes a good judgement about what things are underpriced is selling a service to the market and earning their cut. A seller who's paying attention should see the rush and raise their prices (and ideally increase production to match that).

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#346

Post by lmm »

yxwvut wrote: post #278
chrisseaton wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't get how it hurts anyone to have to pay market rate. If your product doesn't work at market prices, then that's your problem - not scalpers.

This kind of perspective where any intervention-free (often equated with 'free market') outcome is ipso facto a socially good outcome is so frustrating because it transcends policy discussions into morality/dogma. Are you opposed to efforts to curtail rent seeking more broadly?

Making honest prices illegal is the most destructive intervention you can do. "Scalpers" aren't rent-seeking, quite the opposite.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#347

Post by nitrogen »

lmm wrote: post #344
basilgohar wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement is false. Demand would be met with an increase in supply, satisfying all needs for the product and without the "help" of scalpers who sidestep supply-and-demand by artificially creating scarcity to drive up demand for their own profit. This is no help to anyone but themselves. If there's a legitimate demand that will be used, then there's a good case for production to be increased to meet such demand,…

> Demand would be met with an increase in supply, satisfying all needs for the product and without the "help" of scalpers who sidestep supply-and-demand by artificially creating scarcity to drive up demand for their own profit. This is no help to anyone but themselves. There's no "artificial" demand. Think about it - the "scalper" isn't going to buy something that they can't sell on, they'd just lose money that way.…

Think about it - the "scalper" isn't going to buy something that they can't sell on, they'd just lose money that way.

The only reason they can sell something on is because they created an artificial scarcity of the thing. If widget X has a well-matched supply and demand, and a scalper decides to buy 10% of widget X, then 10% of the demand is now unmet, some of the buyers go out of business, and the maker of widget X now has 90 something % of their previous market.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#348

Post by tuatoru »

hef19898 wrote: post #175
j-bos wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My understanding is that JIT, as performed by Toyota, takes into account the differences in difficulty of sourcing different inventories. If this is true, one would expect that Toyota faced shortages later than other manufacturers. Does anyone have a source proving or disproving this?

Toyota was among the last to be hit. Also, JIT is not having zero inventory. It is about having the right amount of inventory.

The conventional wisdom is that Toyota (and Honda, Nissan, etc.) learned the value of keeping buffer stocks after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#349

Post by Retric »

lmm wrote: post #344
basilgohar wrote: post #314

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Your statement is false. Demand would be met with an increase in supply, satisfying all needs for the product and without the "help" of scalpers who sidestep supply-and-demand by artificially creating scarcity to drive up demand for their own profit. This is no help to anyone but themselves. If there's a legitimate demand that will be used, then there's a good case for production to be increased to meet such demand,…

> Demand would be met with an increase in supply, satisfying all needs for the product and without the "help" of scalpers who sidestep supply-and-demand by artificially creating scarcity to drive up demand for their own profit. This is no help to anyone but themselves. There's no "artificial" demand. Think about it - the "scalper" isn't going to buy something that they can't sell on, they'd just lose money that way.…

> The scalper isn’t going to buy something they can’t sell on

That assumes they have perfect information which they don’t they can only estimate demand. It’s perfectly rational for a scalper to regularly purchase more tickets than they sell due to the kind of markup their looking for. At say 4x they could on average sell 1/2 the tickets while doubling their investment.

And of course that assumes they never run into logistical issues.

Re: Chip shortage leads carmaker Opel to shut German plant until 2022

#350

Post by sytelus »

We are in for The Great Supply Crisis. This is everywhere from fuel to agriculture to chips. I believe the high level picture is that a significant percentage of labor force has decided not to return to work and that causes staffing crisis and that causes reduced outputs. Even though chip industry don't suffer from staffing, their suppliers do.
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