481–490 of 761 posts
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What is so attractive to attempt the greatest amphibious assault in human history just to get an island with a bunch of people who will hate you and have nowhere to run away.
The thing about autocracies, there is nobody to stop an obviously wrong decision (for example, Russian invasion of Ukraine).
I see the point being made here, and yeah 5%-20% extra for what amounts to insurance against geopolitics isn't too bad, but doesn't this all fall apart when China catches up? That 5%-20% is worth it now because no one else can fabricate competing chips. In a competitive market, 5%-20% can be the difference between having the price edge or not. I understand why the USA wants TSMC to manufacture outside of Taiwan, but…
With China, the issue isn't really the quality of the product. It's the geopolitical issues. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and other countries even Philippines and Vietnam don't want to depend too much on China. A lot of island disputes and so on and so forth. My guess right now is that China will never catch up because Europe, US, Australia, and many other developing countries will avoid depending on China critically. This…
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A big part of AMD's turnaround was going fabless. I think the big fear here is that if Intel does the same, there won't be much competition left in the fab space. Is Samsung still competitive with TSMC?
> A big part of AMD's turnaround was going fabless. Part of it, sure, but they were still fabless and in the ditch before Zen. Unless you're referring to going with TSMC instead of GloFo as going fabless.
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Even 5% more expensive means 80% of people buy the taiwan version for $475 instead of $500. 20% more expensive and 99.9% of people buy the $500 one instead of the $600 one. Never make the mistake of falling for people's virtue signalling and pay attention instead to how they actually apply those virtues (spoiler: saving money is the #1 acted upon virtue, being far stronger than any other).
That what tariffs are for. Increases the cost of the foreign good to parity with the domestic good (hopefully)
If that is the cost of keeping the value within the western economies, we should pay. Plain and simple. I'd even argue it's cheap.
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The thing about autocracies, there is nobody to stop an obviously wrong decision (for example, Russian invasion of Ukraine).
Yes, because in Western democracies we were very successful at stopping invasions such as Iraq x2, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Korea, etc.
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Is something the gov should subsidize or at least organize competitors to act like a cartel[0]? Such that the market forces don't push pricing that the plant would naturally die. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoebus_cartel
The phoebus cartel whine is bullshit - incandescent light bulbs should be limited to 1000 hours because 1) the cost of electricity used by the bulb is easily as much as the replacement bulb (in the 1920s/1930s), and running the bulb hotter makes it more energy-efficient, and 2) because running incandescents cold makes the light look sickly and awful. Light bulbs were mostly being sold by electric companies at the tim…
I was just talking about organization of competitive companies for price manipulation, but specifically controlled for the benefit of the public - such that we don't lose the US plant due to natural market forces.
It's why ULA is still in business despite SpaceX being significantly cheaper.
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With China, the issue isn't really the quality of the product. It's the geopolitical issues. Japan, Korea, Taiwan, and other countries even Philippines and Vietnam don't want to depend too much on China. A lot of island disputes and so on and so forth. My guess right now is that China will never catch up because Europe, US, Australia, and many other developing countries will avoid depending on China critically. This…
The problem for America is, it's no longer dependable either...so it's not just , do we get the chips for 20% cheaper or not.
US has become less dependable but a lot of countries still depend on US maybe less but not as allergic as depending on China.