I'm a Hardware Engineer who's lived through a few of these cycles now. I personally wouldn't give the CCP that much credit, at all. In my experience, the sign

I'm a Hardware Engineer who's lived through a few of these cycles now. I personally wouldn't give the CCP that much credit, at all. In my experience, the signs for this crunch in supply were there. The unusual part is maybe the speed at which it took hold and now the amount of time the shortages are lasting. I was arguing for building inventory when the situation was (in my eyes) clearly getting bad, the business chose not to. Now its much much worse. A 5-10USD lithium charge controller goes for about 100USD (one seller had it for 500USD). At least this way, the smaller businesses that get ignored by the big suppliers in times like these, can get supply if they can pay. It's also not all just brokers. The outfit we use in China for PCB fabrication and population saw the signs and stocked up on inventory on their one initiative. They are the only reason we can make anything at all. Fundamentally ICs are NOT a Just-in-time-able part. And if people actually read the book on JiT they'd understand that fact, and they would keep inventory. When you see this time and again like me, it's hard to have sympathy for businesses that get caught out. (I do have sympathy for those that came prepared and are now stuck though). Next crunch time (and there always is a next time in this business), I seriously think I'll just invest in IC inventory. Because honestly if I did this time, I probably could have retired early.