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Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

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Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#501

Post by tonyedgecombe »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #152
mattnewton wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The government is slowly waking up to how important chips are and how far behind domestic sources have fallen from foreign (mostly Chinese and Taiwanese) sources. That's what the 2022 CHIPS act was about. These things just take a lot of time, there are tremendous headwinds to fight, and the US government + US media increasingly seems unable to see through projects past the next election cycle.

What folks don't talk about, is that the reason for all the offshoring, is good old-fashioned American Greed™. Lots of billionaires in the US, got that way, by exporting all their production to China. Because they did it, lots of lower-tier people had to do the same, or go out of business. Since we worship billionaires, that little bit never seems to get mentioned, as it makes them look bad. The only cure is to cost…

I'm not sure I would call it greed. More like survival. Once your competitor finds some cost saving measure then you have the choice of following or going out of business.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#502

Post by tw1984 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #326
Avicebron wrote: post #272

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authoritarian central planning isn't an inherent trait of engineers and nor should we aspire for it to be.

China hasn't done much central planning for many decades.

No, central planning is key to the state capitalism employed by China, it is done on ALL strategic industries.

They just no longer do any central planning on nonsense matters like how much ice cream need to be produced for the summer and how much coffee shops are required for Shanghai.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#503

Post by viraptor »

henrikschroder wrote: post #452
viraptor wrote: post #390

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If things work so well that everyone's quality or life is improved, why would there be dissent large enough to worry about. It's the same category as: Why would a company with happy well paid workers be worried about unions and try to stop them forming.

> If things work so well that everyone's quality or life is improved, why would there be dissent large enough to worry about. Have you met people?

Sure. There's always going to be someone opposing something. But I'm not aware of cases where a disagreement in an environment good for everyone was large enough that it caused the leadership/government collapse. Similarly on a small scale, the number of grumpy people at companies I worked at scaled more or less with how good things were for everyone.

In other words, if things are good enough, there will be more people disagreeing with the totalitarian part than with the overall conditions.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#504

Post by bz_bz_bz »

f33d5173 wrote: post #453
ijustlovemath wrote: post #91

Helene survivor here. What's wild to me is that, regardless of the small scale of this facility, it's only a few hundred meters from a 1% flood zone: https://msc.fema.gov/portal/search The address I found for the facility is 9101 Windmill Park Lane Hudson, TX 77064 This seems ill advised given recent events like Hurricane Harvey

I don't know what the topography of houston is like, but here in toronto, a few hundred meters would move you from the bottom of a deep river valley to the top of it. I would imagine they made sure they could get insurance before building and wouldn't have picked any place with a significant risk.

The topography of Houston is that everywhere is a few hundred meters from a flood zone. You are exactly right; the area did not even come closer to flooding during Harvey and is a good 30ft higher than the flood zone OP is referencing.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#505

Post by mullingitover »

Avicebron wrote: post #272
SaltyBackendGuy wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This reminds me of a great freakonomics podcast that talked about China being run by engineers and America being run by lawyers. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/china-is-run-by-engineers-a...

Authoritarian central planning isn't an inherent trait of engineers and nor should we aspire for it to be.

It’s funny because the foundation of neoliberal economies is the corporation: a strict authoritarian planned economy.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#507

Post by tw1984 »

rockskon wrote: post #486
vsgherzi wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

we don't have to entirely replace Chinese manufacturing to build back American manufacturing that's a false dichotomy.To compete we'll just have to be more revolutionary than the manufacturing industry already is.

And what exactly will stop China - a country infamous for copying U.S. technology - from copying whatever the U.S. comes up with?

forcing the US to copy Chinese designs?

Ford is openly discussing the idea to have joint ventures with Chinese EV makers, the whole idea is to get Chinese EV techs in exchange for US market access.

TikTok takeover is another good example.

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#508

Post by harrall »

jacquesm wrote: post #422
HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #416

Earlier quoted context omitted.

why can't we go "wow they're getting really good, maybe we should invest harder in education and research?" That makes wayyy more sense to me

Because it would first require one to acknowledge that they are no longer ahead. In some cultures this sort of thing is extremely difficult.

In humans*

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#509

Post by maxweylandt »

HeWhoLurksLate wrote: post #416
shimman wrote: post #361

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These people are just trying to find an alternative narrative because the vast majority of the population have been rejecting neoliberalism for a good 30 years now. So they spin up the foreign enemy is better than us, so we need to deregulate more and not hold monopolies accountable. If we broke up Google or Amazon, suddenly we're just as bad as China!

why can't we go "wow they're getting really good, maybe we should invest harder in education and research?" That makes wayyy more sense to me

Comedian Ronny Chieng has a bit about this: (sorry for short) https://www.youtube.com/shorts/1cmCueTZz1A

Re: Mac mini will be made at a new facility in Houston

#510

Post by ThePowerOfFuet »

brudgers wrote: post #491
ryandrake wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Something about having the whole supply chain in one place I can't find the source but I thought I read somewhere that the major manufacturing cities in China are all geographically laid out like giant assembly lines. The companies that process the raw materials are located mostly inland, then the companies that form those raw materials into metal and plastic stock are next door, and then the companies that take th…

The US can't even zone a residential neighborhood without lawyers and special interests jamming things up for decades through endless impact studies and litigation. Famously, Houston has no zoning.

The downside is that then nothing prevents a fireworks factory, or tannery, or whatever, right in the middle of a residential area.

Or, as they say everything is bigger in Texas, why not think big... an oil refinery!

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