7 ms·

But we saved some money by shuttering all our factories and outsourcing everything, so, who's to say what the right answer was. (/s)

34ylkjj45y 5y ago
mym1990 5y ago
"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.
- roughly 5y ago
  Autonomous agents responding to their environments can create some really wondrous outcomes and also some really, really stupid ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mill
- baq 5y ago
  economists have a certain tendency to disregard tail events, which happen much more often than they think, as they don't follow the normal distribution. there's been a plethora of six sigma market movements in the past few years, and six sigma by definition should happen once every 3 million observations or so...
  - lazide 5y ago
    ML models do the same thing - it’s over fitting.
- stingraycharles 5y ago
  And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice. What we didn’t do enough is take the geopolitical landscape into this equation (or a potential pandemic, for that matter), which I hope changes after recent developments. I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business.
  - netizen-936824 5y ago
    Business are still run by people. Nobody was forced to see someone else doing something shitty and then say "well I just need to be a bigger asshole than that guy! Must be okay 'cause it's not illegal" People have far too simplistic models of how things work, this is the consequence of a lack of understanding and shortsightedness
    - lotsofpulp 5y ago
      Businesses also need to have customers. No clothes maker was forced to manufacture in poor countries, but the alternative was to simply stop existing since insufficient customers are willing to pay the price premium for purely American made clothes. Hence the only solution would have been legislation forcing domestic manufacturing.
      - netizen-936824 5y ago
        That's assuming that our current model is the only/best way of doing things, which is a bit shortsighted
        lotsofpulp 5y ago
        You will have to elaborate on what life looks like without businesses selling to customers, and otherwise going out of business if they do not sell to customers. At least it does not seem to involve any conventional use of the word business.
        netizen-936824 5y ago
        Exactly, and that might be a good thing. I don't have the answer to that question but it sure seems to me like our current system ruins lives and the environment to enrich the few who are willing to step on everyone else. Doesn't seem ideal to put it lightly
        5y ago
- car_analogy 5y ago
  Until running into an agent that does exhibit collaboration on large-scale, long-term effects, that uses these economic principles against countries foolish enough to hold on to them.
  - eru 5y ago
    Who are you talking about? So far the free world has trumped everything and keeps going from strength to strength. Russia has a tiny and impoverished economy. China is still rather poor. (And only started to grow richer when they reformed in the direction of economic freedom starting in 1978-ish.)
    - car_analogy 5y ago
      As to who, see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30458506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30458506 And "direction" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your statement about China. They were, and still are, very protectionist of their internal market, using official and unofficial means. Not to imply western countries are exempt - they also made (and make) use of protectionism in growing their industries. Only after industries matured, would the market be opened, and economic propaganda launched how unrestricted trade was the only way to prosperity (and, by pure chance, this would give the now globally-competitive industries new export markets). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism#In_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism#In_the_United_St...: Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, was of the view, as articulated most famously in his "Report on Manufactures", that developing an industrialized economy was impossible without protectionism because import duties are necessary to shelter domestic "infant industries" until they could achieve economies of scale. The industrial takeoff of the United States occurred under protectionist policies 1816–1848 and under moderate protectionism 1846–1861, and continued under strict protectionist policies 1861–1945. In other words, protectionism has a proven track record of developing economies, while unrestricted free trade is only theoretically able to accomplish this. Of course economists are immune to empirical proof - from that same wikipedia article: There is a broad consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare, while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers has a positive effect on economic growth.
- rob74 5y ago
  Yup... and another result of that is climate change.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - eru 5y ago
    The Soviet Union managed to contribute to economic disasters even without much capitalism. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
- hammock 5y ago
  >"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road. An excellent and accurate elaboration of the modern economic theory that led us, nevertheless, to our current precarious position.
  - munk-a 5y ago
    Modern economic theory doesn't disallow subsidies - it's very possible to exist in a primarily capitalist society with either tariffs or domestic business subsidies to ensure certain key industries remain on local shores - it might be politically infeasible for such laws to be passed in the US, but it is a very reasonable response.
    - hammock 5y ago
      It doesn't disallow them but it discourages them - the ruling class of the Western world has been on the side of globalization for many decades now (still is) and that is really what is in question.
    - pirate787 5y ago
      The United States has all kinds of tariff and other subsidies for key industries. Foreign airlines and shipping companies are literally blocked from providing domestic US services. (That's also why all major US cruise ships touch a foreign port in their journey). Steel and autos and much of agriculture are also heavily protected. These are all anti-consumer and bad public policy.
      - lastofthemojito 5y ago
        > That's also why all major US cruise ships touch a foreign port in their journey In a pedantic sense, major US cruise ships don't need to touch a foreign port in their journey. The catch being there is only one major US cruise ship - The Pride of America, which generally does Hawaiian cruises: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_of_America The other major cruise ships you see operating in the US are actually foreign-flagged so they can avoid US environmental, gambling and employment regulations, etc. These are the ships that must touch a foreign port during their journeys.
- Terry_Roll 5y ago
  Thats what we get told, but there is always strategic reasons with so much stuff which few people get to hear about. On the news a while ago, the news was going on about how the UK is banning dual use goods, so this tells us some Govt dept has audited potentially every business and its goods and compiled a list of devices which can be considered multi use. You see this alot with chemicals, Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a litre and then some internet forum started going on about how it can be used for bomb making. Its why we dont get taught everything, not even in the news. Anyway oil prices have gone up which will push more people towards electric vehicles, and yet Russia has the largest oil reserves in the world, so no doubt they will benefit, because if another internet forum is to be believed, the Saudia's have all but exhausted their oil reserves which is one of the reasons for them IPO'ing their national oil producer. Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it!
  - Dracophoenix 5y ago
    >Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a litre and then some internet forum started going on about how it can be used for bomb making. It's the chief component in dynamite. >Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it! When do you need an export license for an app?
    - Terry_Roll 5y ago
      This was like 5-10years ago, I developed a bug reporting app and developed a form of encryption which was uncrackable. Now I'm not qualified in anything, never even went to Uni, but what should have taken 6weeks with the UK Dept BIS, took like more than that and then got denied so I shut the business down I'd set up for it. Dont have the source code anymore or anything and its not ever going to happen now. When I say it was uncrackable, it was based loosely on code books which were used in ww2, which is something I subsequently read about later on in the news.
      - 5y ago
- xvector 5y ago
  It's actually a result of the spineless geriatrics in the government not being willing or able to keep up with an evolving world. We see the same with climate change.
  - mym1990 5y ago
    I think the big advantage that companies have is a mission statement in which most everyone is progressing towards within the company. Much of government operates almost the complete opposite, and in a world that is changing faster and faster every day, the politicians are falling farther and farther behind.
- echelon 5y ago
  > "We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. It's also a great optimization criteria to use to position yourself for checkmate. Monopolies, countries...
  - mym1990 5y ago
    Every company or government will eventually see itself in checkmate. It is in the best interest of companies to push that as far down the road as possible.
- TearsInTheRain 5y ago
  We optimize for price so you cant align with something that price doesnt capture. Taxes and subsidies allows us to take those factors into consideration
- ghostly_s 5y ago
  Gee, one might almost reach the conclusion that unregulated free markets are bad...
  - mym1990 5y ago
    It really depends on the market...we have to weigh the risks or worst case scenarios. While economics can be pretty cut and dry, the real world is very messy.
- eru 5y ago
  Regulation begets regulation. Anti-price gouging regulation makes it harder for companies to benefit from disaster preparedness.
bingohbangoh 5y ago
And when the orange man came and said we should bring it back, I laughed at home and call him an idiot!
- oneoff786 5y ago
  Trump’s claims were largely about bringing manufacturing jobs to America. Not reducing defense dependencies on vulnerable nations.
  - genericone 5y ago
    That was the stated goal for bringing steel production back to the USA at least, not sure about the imputed goals of other manufacturing jobs, but it should follow a similar line of thought, redundancy of critical-supply-chain parts.
    - oneoff786 5y ago
      No, that was a jobs play. Steel is well diversified, and we get our steel from a variety of largely trusted producers. The largest import source of steel was Canada. We also produce and export a lot of steel. Steel is important but it’s not similar at all to something like Taiwan’s unique situation
- voidfunc 5y ago
  A broken clock is still right twice a day.
- roughly 5y ago
  Yeah, there was a definite "Trump said it so it's wrong" zeitgeist among the left that led to some uncomfortable moments. Tribal politics is a hell of a drug.
  - dkonofalski 5y ago
    That was not unique to the left.
daniel-cussen 5y ago
Yeah that's your answer right there. American management, at least those who go to business school, like how can I put it fairly to the people I know who've studied business...They just fucking hate paying wages. It's a huge business school teaching to treat wages and taxes as counterproductive. Are you really going to propose American management likes paying taxes? The fair thing to say is they fucking hate paying taxes. Those words carry the real emphasis of the negative emotion, I'm not trying to be pejorative, that's just how they actually feel about that matter. I've seen businesses decline quite profitable opportunities because they'd produce too much in taxes in the process, from some double taxation effect. So then, the MBA just has to hate the factory. After all, that was where everybody used to get their wage.
- xadhominemx 5y ago
  Intel’s two core issues are engineering failures — process technology and processor architecture. Nothing to do with the MBAs
  - nomel 5y ago
    Engineering failures can trivially be caused by management failures. Beuracracy kills innovation, and, from what I've been told, there aren't many engineering/tech companies that are more beuracratic than Intel.
    - xadhominemx 5y ago
      Nah, Intel messed up major top level core engineering decisions — delayed EUV and fewer memory channels. No MBAs to blame for those.
RC_ITR 5y ago
At least in terms of semi manufacturing, we tried our hardest (visit Gilbert and Chandler AZ), we just were worse than Taiwan. Believe it or not, that's often the real reason we shut down, people just blame it on cost savings for pride.
renewiltord 5y ago
Oh no. We didn't do that. They just beat us. We kept our fabs and we kept our fab engineers and we built and we built, but they just beat us. This technology isn't easy. Notice how far China is behind despite massive investments. Sometimes we just don't have the tech. But it's okay, TSMC and friends will bring it here.
dogecoinbase 5y ago
I'm constantly thinking about this old HN comment, and how it applies not only to Agile but most of the modern JIT wisdom: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18448602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18448602 > You saved some sprints but invalidated the purpose of the project. Very agile.
Aunche 5y ago
On the other hand without globalization, there is no way the relatively tiny island of Taiwan could have become the world leader in chip manufacturing, and the US would have less incentive to invest in their security.
mannerheim 5y ago
How do you identify all the vital components for not just what you need to manufacture, but the components of those components? How many people here knew Ukraine was a major producer of neon prior to this, and its importance to semiconductor manufacturing? You could try to become totally autarkic, but then you have to support a national semiconductor industry along with every industry it relies upon indefinitely, while foreign semiconductor companies won't be encumbered by restrictions to purchase every component for their process from within your country; they, at least, will have the option to go with the cheapest or the best options. And so, if you want your national semiconductor industry's chips to actually be used, you have to provide incentives for that, too, and/or require domestic electronics companies to use their chips. Then, since you're making domestic electronics companies uncompetitive, you have to incent consumers to purchase those electronics, ban or heavily tax foreign electronics... In a modern, globalised economy, it seems to me the only way to have a semiconductor industry that isn't vulnerable to these sorts of problems is full top-down control of a substantial chunk of the economy.
- fragmede 5y ago
  Does it need full top-down control of a substantial chunk of the economy to happen? A few regulations saying 10% has to be made in-country, along with investigators and fines to back it up seems like it would work without going full centralized-and-planned economy.
  - mannerheim 5y ago
    10% of what? Semiconductors? Sure, that's easy, and already done; US semiconductors are 13% of the global market, so presumably they're about that share of the domestic market and probably more. The components necessary to manufacture them? Much more difficult. And remember, any encumbrance you put on Intel provides a competitive advantage for TSMC. The other issue is if you require 10% of semiconductors to be made in the US, and 10% of their components likewise, that only leaves you with 1% of the semiconductor capacity you need if you really need to become autarkic. And that's only considering first order dependencies; what about the components needed for the components you need? Now, even ignoring that, consider if Intel has to make 10% of its chips using machines and components made in America. Say ASML makes the best photolithography machines in the world. Some other foreign company makes the best of another machine in the world. And so on. So Intel has to manufacture 10% of its chips using subpar equipment. Who's going to buy those chips? If electronics need better chips, can you replace them with these in a pinch? You either need to fully commit, or else it's pointless to begin with.

34ylkjj45y 5y ago

mym1990 5y ago

"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road.

roughly 5y ago
Autonomous agents responding to their environments can create some really wondrous outcomes and also some really, really stupid ones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mill https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ant_mill
baq 5y ago
economists have a certain tendency to disregard tail events, which happen much more often than they think, as they don't follow the normal distribution. there's been a plethora of six sigma market movements in the past few years, and six sigma by definition should happen once every 3 million observations or so...
- lazide 5y ago
  ML models do the same thing - it’s over fitting.
stingraycharles 5y ago
And most importantly, economics assumes that the market is perfect, which it most certainly is not in practice. What we didn’t do enough is take the geopolitical landscape into this equation (or a potential pandemic, for that matter), which I hope changes after recent developments. I blame the governments mostly for this, I completely understand the businesses needing to do what’s best for business.
- netizen-936824 5y ago
  Business are still run by people. Nobody was forced to see someone else doing something shitty and then say "well I just need to be a bigger asshole than that guy! Must be okay 'cause it's not illegal" People have far too simplistic models of how things work, this is the consequence of a lack of understanding and shortsightedness
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    Businesses also need to have customers. No clothes maker was forced to manufacture in poor countries, but the alternative was to simply stop existing since insufficient customers are willing to pay the price premium for purely American made clothes. Hence the only solution would have been legislation forcing domestic manufacturing.
    - netizen-936824 5y ago
      That's assuming that our current model is the only/best way of doing things, which is a bit shortsighted
      - lotsofpulp 5y ago
        You will have to elaborate on what life looks like without businesses selling to customers, and otherwise going out of business if they do not sell to customers. At least it does not seem to involve any conventional use of the word business.
        netizen-936824 5y ago
        Exactly, and that might be a good thing. I don't have the answer to that question but it sure seems to me like our current system ruins lives and the environment to enrich the few who are willing to step on everyone else. Doesn't seem ideal to put it lightly
        5y ago
car_analogy 5y ago
Until running into an agent that does exhibit collaboration on large-scale, long-term effects, that uses these economic principles against countries foolish enough to hold on to them.
- eru 5y ago
  Who are you talking about? So far the free world has trumped everything and keeps going from strength to strength. Russia has a tiny and impoverished economy. China is still rather poor. (And only started to grow richer when they reformed in the direction of economic freedom starting in 1978-ish.)
  - car_analogy 5y ago
    As to who, see my other comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30458506 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=30458506 And "direction" is doing a lot of heavy lifting in your statement about China. They were, and still are, very protectionist of their internal market, using official and unofficial means. Not to imply western countries are exempt - they also made (and make) use of protectionism in growing their industries. Only after industries matured, would the market be opened, and economic propaganda launched how unrestricted trade was the only way to prosperity (and, by pure chance, this would give the now globally-competitive industries new export markets). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism#In_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protectionism#In_the_United_St...: Alexander Hamilton, the first United States Secretary of the Treasury, was of the view, as articulated most famously in his "Report on Manufactures", that developing an industrialized economy was impossible without protectionism because import duties are necessary to shelter domestic "infant industries" until they could achieve economies of scale. The industrial takeoff of the United States occurred under protectionist policies 1816–1848 and under moderate protectionism 1846–1861, and continued under strict protectionist policies 1861–1945. In other words, protectionism has a proven track record of developing economies, while unrestricted free trade is only theoretically able to accomplish this. Of course economists are immune to empirical proof - from that same wikipedia article: There is a broad consensus among economists that protectionism has a negative effect on economic growth and economic welfare, while free trade and the reduction of trade barriers has a positive effect on economic growth.
rob74 5y ago
Yup... and another result of that is climate change.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- eru 5y ago
  The Soviet Union managed to contribute to economic disasters even without much capitalism. See eg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
hammock 5y ago
>"We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. This is a result of many players doing what keeps each one competitive, but without collaborating on what the large scale effects are down the road. An excellent and accurate elaboration of the modern economic theory that led us, nevertheless, to our current precarious position.
- munk-a 5y ago
  Modern economic theory doesn't disallow subsidies - it's very possible to exist in a primarily capitalist society with either tariffs or domestic business subsidies to ensure certain key industries remain on local shores - it might be politically infeasible for such laws to be passed in the US, but it is a very reasonable response.
  - hammock 5y ago
    It doesn't disallow them but it discourages them - the ruling class of the Western world has been on the side of globalization for many decades now (still is) and that is really what is in question.
  - pirate787 5y ago
    The United States has all kinds of tariff and other subsidies for key industries. Foreign airlines and shipping companies are literally blocked from providing domestic US services. (That's also why all major US cruise ships touch a foreign port in their journey). Steel and autos and much of agriculture are also heavily protected. These are all anti-consumer and bad public policy.
    - lastofthemojito 5y ago
      > That's also why all major US cruise ships touch a foreign port in their journey In a pedantic sense, major US cruise ships don't need to touch a foreign port in their journey. The catch being there is only one major US cruise ship - The Pride of America, which generally does Hawaiian cruises: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_of_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pride_of_America The other major cruise ships you see operating in the US are actually foreign-flagged so they can avoid US environmental, gambling and employment regulations, etc. These are the ships that must touch a foreign port during their journeys.
Terry_Roll 5y ago
Thats what we get told, but there is always strategic reasons with so much stuff which few people get to hear about. On the news a while ago, the news was going on about how the UK is banning dual use goods, so this tells us some Govt dept has audited potentially every business and its goods and compiled a list of devices which can be considered multi use. You see this alot with chemicals, Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a litre and then some internet forum started going on about how it can be used for bomb making. Its why we dont get taught everything, not even in the news. Anyway oil prices have gone up which will push more people towards electric vehicles, and yet Russia has the largest oil reserves in the world, so no doubt they will benefit, because if another internet forum is to be believed, the Saudia's have all but exhausted their oil reserves which is one of the reasons for them IPO'ing their national oil producer. Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it!
- Dracophoenix 5y ago
  >Glycerine, used as a cosmetic can also be used for bombmaking. I only found this out when I purchased a litre and then some internet forum started going on about how it can be used for bomb making. It's the chief component in dynamite. >Kind of explains why I also wasnt allowed an export licence for an app but also highlights who was behind it! When do you need an export license for an app?
  - Terry_Roll 5y ago
    This was like 5-10years ago, I developed a bug reporting app and developed a form of encryption which was uncrackable. Now I'm not qualified in anything, never even went to Uni, but what should have taken 6weeks with the UK Dept BIS, took like more than that and then got denied so I shut the business down I'd set up for it. Dont have the source code anymore or anything and its not ever going to happen now. When I say it was uncrackable, it was based loosely on code books which were used in ww2, which is something I subsequently read about later on in the news.
    - 5y ago
xvector 5y ago
It's actually a result of the spineless geriatrics in the government not being willing or able to keep up with an evolving world. We see the same with climate change.
- mym1990 5y ago
  I think the big advantage that companies have is a mission statement in which most everyone is progressing towards within the company. Much of government operates almost the complete opposite, and in a world that is changing faster and faster every day, the politicians are falling farther and farther behind.
echelon 5y ago
> "We saved some money" is how economics works in price competitive markets. It's also a great optimization criteria to use to position yourself for checkmate. Monopolies, countries...
- mym1990 5y ago
  Every company or government will eventually see itself in checkmate. It is in the best interest of companies to push that as far down the road as possible.
TearsInTheRain 5y ago
We optimize for price so you cant align with something that price doesnt capture. Taxes and subsidies allows us to take those factors into consideration
ghostly_s 5y ago
Gee, one might almost reach the conclusion that unregulated free markets are bad...
- mym1990 5y ago
  It really depends on the market...we have to weigh the risks or worst case scenarios. While economics can be pretty cut and dry, the real world is very messy.
eru 5y ago
Regulation begets regulation. Anti-price gouging regulation makes it harder for companies to benefit from disaster preparedness.

bingohbangoh 5y ago

And when the orange man came and said we should bring it back, I laughed at home and call him an idiot!

oneoff786 5y ago
Trump’s claims were largely about bringing manufacturing jobs to America. Not reducing defense dependencies on vulnerable nations.
- genericone 5y ago
  That was the stated goal for bringing steel production back to the USA at least, not sure about the imputed goals of other manufacturing jobs, but it should follow a similar line of thought, redundancy of critical-supply-chain parts.
  - oneoff786 5y ago
    No, that was a jobs play. Steel is well diversified, and we get our steel from a variety of largely trusted producers. The largest import source of steel was Canada. We also produce and export a lot of steel. Steel is important but it’s not similar at all to something like Taiwan’s unique situation
voidfunc 5y ago
A broken clock is still right twice a day.
roughly 5y ago
Yeah, there was a definite "Trump said it so it's wrong" zeitgeist among the left that led to some uncomfortable moments. Tribal politics is a hell of a drug.
- dkonofalski 5y ago
  That was not unique to the left.

daniel-cussen 5y ago

Yeah that's your answer right there. American management, at least those who go to business school, like how can I put it fairly to the people I know who've studied business...They just fucking hate paying wages. It's a huge business school teaching to treat wages and taxes as counterproductive. Are you really going to propose American management likes paying taxes? The fair thing to say is they fucking hate paying taxes. Those words carry the real emphasis of the negative emotion, I'm not trying to be pejorative, that's just how they actually feel about that matter. I've seen businesses decline quite profitable opportunities because they'd produce too much in taxes in the process, from some double taxation effect. So then, the MBA just has to hate the factory. After all, that was where everybody used to get their wage.

xadhominemx 5y ago
Intel’s two core issues are engineering failures — process technology and processor architecture. Nothing to do with the MBAs
- nomel 5y ago
  Engineering failures can trivially be caused by management failures. Beuracracy kills innovation, and, from what I've been told, there aren't many engineering/tech companies that are more beuracratic than Intel.
  - xadhominemx 5y ago
    Nah, Intel messed up major top level core engineering decisions — delayed EUV and fewer memory channels. No MBAs to blame for those.

RC_ITR 5y ago

At least in terms of semi manufacturing, we tried our hardest (visit Gilbert and Chandler AZ), we just were worse than Taiwan. Believe it or not, that's often the real reason we shut down, people just blame it on cost savings for pride.

renewiltord 5y ago

Oh no. We didn't do that. They just beat us. We kept our fabs and we kept our fab engineers and we built and we built, but they just beat us. This technology isn't easy. Notice how far China is behind despite massive investments. Sometimes we just don't have the tech. But it's okay, TSMC and friends will bring it here.

dogecoinbase 5y ago

I'm constantly thinking about this old HN comment, and how it applies not only to Agile but most of the modern JIT wisdom: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18448602 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18448602 > You saved some sprints but invalidated the purpose of the project. Very agile.

Aunche 5y ago

On the other hand without globalization, there is no way the relatively tiny island of Taiwan could have become the world leader in chip manufacturing, and the US would have less incentive to invest in their security.

mannerheim 5y ago

How do you identify all the vital components for not just what you need to manufacture, but the components of those components? How many people here knew Ukraine was a major producer of neon prior to this, and its importance to semiconductor manufacturing? You could try to become totally autarkic, but then you have to support a national semiconductor industry along with every industry it relies upon indefinitely, while foreign semiconductor companies won't be encumbered by restrictions to purchase every component for their process from within your country; they, at least, will have the option to go with the cheapest or the best options. And so, if you want your national semiconductor industry's chips to actually be used, you have to provide incentives for that, too, and/or require domestic electronics companies to use their chips. Then, since you're making domestic electronics companies uncompetitive, you have to incent consumers to purchase those electronics, ban or heavily tax foreign electronics... In a modern, globalised economy, it seems to me the only way to have a semiconductor industry that isn't vulnerable to these sorts of problems is full top-down control of a substantial chunk of the economy.

fragmede 5y ago
Does it need full top-down control of a substantial chunk of the economy to happen? A few regulations saying 10% has to be made in-country, along with investigators and fines to back it up seems like it would work without going full centralized-and-planned economy.
- mannerheim 5y ago
  10% of what? Semiconductors? Sure, that's easy, and already done; US semiconductors are 13% of the global market, so presumably they're about that share of the domestic market and probably more. The components necessary to manufacture them? Much more difficult. And remember, any encumbrance you put on Intel provides a competitive advantage for TSMC. The other issue is if you require 10% of semiconductors to be made in the US, and 10% of their components likewise, that only leaves you with 1% of the semiconductor capacity you need if you really need to become autarkic. And that's only considering first order dependencies; what about the components needed for the components you need? Now, even ignoring that, consider if Intel has to make 10% of its chips using machines and components made in America. Say ASML makes the best photolithography machines in the world. Some other foreign company makes the best of another machine in the world. And so on. So Intel has to manufacture 10% of its chips using subpar equipment. Who's going to buy those chips? If electronics need better chips, can you replace them with these in a pinch? You either need to fully commit, or else it's pointless to begin with.