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from the article the U.S., Japan and Germany have asked Taiwan and South Korea, the two key chip manufacturing economies, to help prioritize chips for the au
by andrekandre 6y ago
from the article
the U.S., Japan and Germany have asked Taiwan and South Korea, the two key chip manufacturing economies, to help prioritize chips for the automotive industry, which is crucial to the world economy. This has further squeezed production of semiconductors for consumer electronics and computer products.
does "crucial to the world economy" mean consumer supply of automobiles (a.k.a jobs) or industrial use like in trucks, forklifts etc??
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- detaro 6y agoIt means "crucial to automotive industry in these 3 countries, and it's important to politicians in those countries to look like they support their automotive industry". They need to do something, and it's not like they can do anything substantial that'll fix the problem now, so letter on highest level asking nicely it is.
- mr_toad 6y agoCrucial to the automotive industry -> crucial to their campaign funds.
- tlibert 6y agoIf politicians are incentivized to protect jobs that’s a good thing, no?
- olliej 6y agodepends - what if they favor a small industry over larger ones? (in the US the quintessential example is the coal industry vs. almost any other because of the insane way the government is elected)
- thephyber 6y agoI’m of the mind it is terrible. How well did Wisconsin’s deal with FoxConn go? Politicians gave up something in the 7 figures per job that was ostensibly created on that project, but the state went into debt to do lots of the infra and the properties sit idle. The F-35 is a defense project, but more than that, it is an unkillable jobs program distributed throughout nearly every Congressional district. Politicians cite jobs created as if every “job” held equal weight. In fact, we have lost lots of salary jobs with benefits in the past decade, mostly replaced with independent contractor hours. Politicians don’t care because they are optimizing for the metric most commonly looked at. Also, it creates a perverse incentive where no politician feels like they can ignore the bad metric because it is the good sound byte (a la “tough on crime” rhetoric when being consistent on crime is far more effective). Instead of working on healthier long term goals, they work on junk food goals.
- schraeds 6y agoCrucial as in $100 of silicon enables a $30,000 dollar sale for auto instead of $3,000 for a computer
- azinman2 6y agoBut which provides more value to the economy over time? That such a large percentage of the economy was able to stop driving and work from home does say a lot about the value of computers today.
- deleted 6y ago[deleted]
- tablespoon 6y ago> But which provides more value to the economy over time? Probably the thing that's not another iPad (e.g. the luxury content consumption device).
- EvilEy3 6y agoA) iPad costs 350$, it's not luxury by any means B) iPad can be used for work, studying and much more, not only consumption
- Terretta 6y agoThe iPad Pro with the trackpad keyboard is indeed more of a content consumption device than the typical office PC, but it's also more of a work creation device than the typical office PC, particularly if its user ever has to do work from a different chair.
- genmud 6y agoAnd yet, the majority of the auto industry decided they should cancel their chip orders as soon as the pandemic hit because it might be an economic downturn. Apple alone spends more money on semiconductors than the ENTIRE auto industry. They played stupid games and won stupid prizes with this chip shortage.
- postingawayonhn 6y agoIt means it supports a lot of jobs. Large auto plants can directly employ 10,000+ people.
- foobiter 6y agoalso more money from tarfiffs, taxes, shipping, local assembly plants rather than offshore... moving massive machinery all over the world nonstop is really enormous compared to just about anything in retail
- azinman2 6y agoSo do computers.
- tablespoon 6y ago>> It means it supports a lot of jobs. Large auto plants can directly employ 10,000+ people. > So do computers. Computers don't directly employ anyone, yet. Nitpicking aside, the vast bulk of the jobs enabled by computers in the US, Japan, and Germany will be completely unaffected by computer production delays. I'm guessing there's far more auto than computer production in those countries, so auto production difficulties have a more immediate effect.
- azinman2 6y agoCars similarly don’t directly employ as they’re not sentient beings. Computer production is just one part of the economic puzzle. The real question is what economic activity do computers and automobiles enable.
- tablespoon 6y ago> Cars similarly don’t directly employ as they’re not sentient beings. Yes, but auto plants do directly employ people.
- 6y ago
- Evan__ 6y agoI'd guess it's skewed towards the former.
- zsmi 6y agoI saw that too and I wondered how they accomplished that. Can a commercial grade line be tweaked produce more automotive grade parts? Or were they forced to take down entire lines and retool them? If so, that would definitely have... repercussions.
- olliej 6y agoThe big issue is latency, as time from wafer entering a fab to chip coming out the other end can be in the order of months depending on complexity.
- golemiprague 6y agoI think it is more crucial because most people only got the one car they need so once a car go out of use you need to immediatly manufactur a different one to fill up the gap. With electronics it is a bit different, people hoard them and even if someone's tablet breakes there is a good chance that there is another one in the house or you can use a laptop instead or your phone or whatever.
- fakedang 6y agoI know of many people who have multiple cars but only one crucial electronic device that is a must-have. Your car can also likely be serviced faster than your computer or mobile phone, when either goes kaput. Your argument can go both ways.
- Shivetya 6y agoWell I do know the the fire in Japan which wiped out a very important plant resulted in BMW shipping a brand new motorcycle without TPMS or even its radio. Worse for my dealer, they were were only allocated three the entire year, a dealer where they expected two dozen of that model. Crucial as a definition in that the downstream effects are massive.