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I suspect that as you approach being entirely dependent on on supplier it goes from being a nice lever for each side to being a noose for one. China doesn't wa

I suspect that as you approach being entirely dependent on on supplier it goes from being a nice lever for each side to being a noose for one. China doesn't want to lose Apple's business. Apple can't lose China. Extrapolate across many industries. There's a difference between having a partner and being entirely dependent.

malfist 4y ago
There's a scifi book series where a stable government is maintained by exclusive monopolies that the other provenience are dependent upon. Any provenience trying to break away will quickly find they are in an economic collapse because they can't supply themselves. Fascinating idea, until the monopolies break everything. I'll see if I can't find it. It's The Interdependency Series by John Scalzi: https://www.goodreads.com/series/202297-the-interdependency https://www.goodreads.com/series/202297-the-interdependency
- Kye 4y ago
  This is essentially the US. For all the talk of secession from different factions depending on political winds, not much would really change aside from everything being a little more difficult. All the trade each state depends on that happens now through the nature of our federal system would happen through treaties, just like the UK post-Brexit.
  - caeril 4y ago
    The coastal US needs flyover country to survive. Flyover country likes the things that ports/harbors, hollywood, silicon valley, and banks provide. These two are not the same.
    - malfist 4y ago
      Do they? California produces half of the produce in the entire US.
      - caeril 4y ago
        Review some electoral maps. The OP was referring to secessionary scenarios, in which case most of Inland California, including the San Joaquin Valley, belongs to Team Red. Even so, produce does not comprise a material percentage of the US caloric intake. Grains, tubers, grain oils, and meat definitely do. Beyond food, there's mining and energy. Without the coasts, The US would be significantly inconvenienced. Without flyover country, the US would be dead.
        Kye 4y ago
        Both sides would either devolve into unlivable hellscapes or realize ideological moderation is the only way to run a sustainable government. You can't run a government if it's all "death to red! never mind all the minorities there who've been suppressed" or "death to blue! my kids will hate me and leave at the first opportunity, but I won't care until it's too late." This is why I said all the current informal federal-based stuff would come back through treaty. I think most people on both "sides" are reasonable, so the split would never actually happen. And if it did, people would quickly miss all the stuff from the other side of it. It's on a level with considering what happens if the sun disappears. It can't happen without something freakish happening, and none of us really knows how it would go.
        caeril 4y ago
        > Both sides would either devolve into unlivable hellscapes One side would devolve into an unlivable hellscape. The other side would devolve into the 1890s-1910s or so, without access to modern imported goods. Nobody would "win". It's obviously a horrible scenario. But one side would definitely lose. > It can't happen without something freakish happening Nations collapse from political schism all the time. We just have short memories.
        Kye 4y ago
        Modern farming is completely dependent on those ports you so eagerly gave away. How many millions of people would die of starvation and from the inevitable resource wars while the few people who know how to farm the old-fashioned way figured out how to make it work on land that's been made dependent on abundant imported fertilizer and pesticides? I do not believe the people yelling "secession!" are prepared to revert to a pre-WWI world.
    - horsawlarway 4y ago
      That's a seriously flawed evaluation.
      - collegeburner 4y ago
        is it? most of the agriculturally and industrially productive land is out in flyover country. and depending on who you ask areas that are mostly agriculture qualify as "flyover" even if they're e.g. east oregon/cali/washington. new england is probably the one exception but it's small in terms of area and ag output.
      - Maursault 4y ago
        This is a seriously unsupported assertion.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > All the trade each state depends on that happens now through the nature of our federal system would happen through treaties, just like the UK post-Brexit That’s an argument in favor of secession! They could still trade, but wouldn’t be forced into a single polity making decisions on domestic issues like education, healthcare, abortion, immigration, etc.
- mikestew 4y ago
  That sounds a lot like the EU v1.0: "Based on the Schuman plan, six countries sign a treaty to run their coal and steel industries under a common management. In this way, no single country can make the weapons of war to turn against others, as in the past." https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/history-eu/1945-59_en https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...
- jjk166 4y ago
  This was how Stalin structured the Soviet economy during his industrialization push. It was one of the major reasons the collapse of the soviet union was so economically disastrous for the newly independent states.
  - actually_a_dog 4y ago
    Great example of a planned economy working as designed.
    - kaushikc 4y ago
      Every large corporation is technically a form of central planning.
      - throwawaylinux 4y ago
        A kid spending her pocket money at the candy shop is a form of central planning. Neither are central planning as the term is used when talking about economic systems though. The objection to communism isn't that people plan things. It's that the planners face no competition and the results of their plans are inescapable.
        actually_a_dog 4y ago
        Well, guess what happened when Sears implemented an internal free market system: > Major innovation needs collaboration, not competition. For innovation, internal markets have the same problem as hierarchical bureaucracies. Managers vote their resources for innovations that bolster their current fiefdoms and careers. The safest strategy is to stick to the status quo. Ms. Kimes’ article gives multiple examples where competing managers at Sears looked after their own units at the expense of the interests of the firm as a whole. (Emphasis added.) https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/07/16/do-internal-markets-nourish-innovation-the-case-of-sears/?sh=34d5c36c5b62 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/07/16/do-inte... Now, what was that you were saying about central planning?
yongjik 4y ago
Isn't this comparing, umm, apples and oranges? China doesn't want to lose Apple's business. China can't lose all business relationship with America (or maybe it can, but it will be extremely painful), which is what will likely happen if China invades Taiwan.
- friedman23 4y ago
  > China can't lose all business relationship with America And America can't afford to lose business with China. So China will make the calculation that it can get away with an invasion of Taiwan.
  - varispeed 4y ago
    Probably Russia has made the same calculation about Germany. The biggest economy in Europe entirely dependent on Russian energy. If their "special operation" actually lasted a couple of weeks as they promised (it's hard to believe Germany didn't know about this way in advance), it is unlikely Europe, under German leadership, would have done anything apart from token sanctions. The contributing factor was of course the US and NATO projecting weakness after debacle in Afghanistan. Putin high on his own delusions, surrounded by yes-men, thought that was the once in a lifetime opportunity to pounce. If European economies weren't so dependent on Russian energy supplies, this war could probably have ended much quicker and thousands wouldn't have died needlessly.
    - herbst 4y ago
      > unlikely Europe, under German leadership Wait what?
      - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
        Germany's the richest EU country and doesn't hesitate to throw its weight around to get things done their way which is why many refer to the EU as having a German leadership and it's why many other EU countries are unhappy as some German policies are highly unpopular at EU level (supporting illegal mass migration, anti-nuclear "green" stance while burning gas and coal, long term pro-Russian stance, etc.), as are their politicians at EU level like Ursula who have a track record of incompetence and corruption yet are still in power.
jupp0r 4y ago
You have it backwards. Manufacturing iPhones is much easier than designing iPhones. Apple can manufacture somewhere else, but China can't Apple somewhere else.
- sbaiddn 4y ago
  Designing a new iPhone that does everything the old one does slightly better has very little value added. Being able to replace broken iPhone12s with new iPhone12s is real. An iPhone18XR on paper is just a piece of paper.
  - algoatecorn 4y ago
    Yea but Apple isn't just the iPhone. Apple has unmatched perceived goodwill, devout customer base, and whole patent portfolio
    - 9dev 4y ago
      That still doesn’t change the fact that a tiger without teeth may roar as loud as they can, but still won’t be able to bite you.
    - sbaiddn 4y ago
      Patents are worthwhile only as far as they are respected. A factory is a real asset employing many real people. Anyway, why does SV have a lock on design? If anything computer design has gotten very stale since the early 90s when all the competitors to American computer systems finally croaked
  - jupp0r 4y ago
    If what you said were true, there would have been lots of Chinese phone manufacturers eating Apple's market share for lunch. There aren't.
- kbenson 4y ago
  The context of this conversation is the root level comment noting a Bloomberg article where it's stated it would take them 8 years to move 10% of their manufacturing capacity to other countries from China. Now, it still may be true that it's easier to manufacture iPhones than design them, but easier does not mean easy. Personally, I think you're just vastly underestimating how hard it is to manufacture iPhones at scale, which means not just finding the right part, but a part that can be delivered in the quantity and quality required to meet their production needs, and repeated for all the parts they need.

malfist 4y ago

There's a scifi book series where a stable government is maintained by exclusive monopolies that the other provenience are dependent upon. Any provenience trying to break away will quickly find they are in an economic collapse because they can't supply themselves. Fascinating idea, until the monopolies break everything. I'll see if I can't find it. It's The Interdependency Series by John Scalzi: https://www.goodreads.com/series/202297-the-interdependency https://www.goodreads.com/series/202297-the-interdependency

Kye 4y ago
This is essentially the US. For all the talk of secession from different factions depending on political winds, not much would really change aside from everything being a little more difficult. All the trade each state depends on that happens now through the nature of our federal system would happen through treaties, just like the UK post-Brexit.
- caeril 4y ago
  The coastal US needs flyover country to survive. Flyover country likes the things that ports/harbors, hollywood, silicon valley, and banks provide. These two are not the same.
  - malfist 4y ago
    Do they? California produces half of the produce in the entire US.
    - caeril 4y ago
      Review some electoral maps. The OP was referring to secessionary scenarios, in which case most of Inland California, including the San Joaquin Valley, belongs to Team Red. Even so, produce does not comprise a material percentage of the US caloric intake. Grains, tubers, grain oils, and meat definitely do. Beyond food, there's mining and energy. Without the coasts, The US would be significantly inconvenienced. Without flyover country, the US would be dead.
      - Kye 4y ago
        Both sides would either devolve into unlivable hellscapes or realize ideological moderation is the only way to run a sustainable government. You can't run a government if it's all "death to red! never mind all the minorities there who've been suppressed" or "death to blue! my kids will hate me and leave at the first opportunity, but I won't care until it's too late." This is why I said all the current informal federal-based stuff would come back through treaty. I think most people on both "sides" are reasonable, so the split would never actually happen. And if it did, people would quickly miss all the stuff from the other side of it. It's on a level with considering what happens if the sun disappears. It can't happen without something freakish happening, and none of us really knows how it would go.
        caeril 4y ago
        > Both sides would either devolve into unlivable hellscapes One side would devolve into an unlivable hellscape. The other side would devolve into the 1890s-1910s or so, without access to modern imported goods. Nobody would "win". It's obviously a horrible scenario. But one side would definitely lose. > It can't happen without something freakish happening Nations collapse from political schism all the time. We just have short memories.
        Kye 4y ago
        Modern farming is completely dependent on those ports you so eagerly gave away. How many millions of people would die of starvation and from the inevitable resource wars while the few people who know how to farm the old-fashioned way figured out how to make it work on land that's been made dependent on abundant imported fertilizer and pesticides? I do not believe the people yelling "secession!" are prepared to revert to a pre-WWI world.
  - horsawlarway 4y ago
    That's a seriously flawed evaluation.
    - collegeburner 4y ago
      is it? most of the agriculturally and industrially productive land is out in flyover country. and depending on who you ask areas that are mostly agriculture qualify as "flyover" even if they're e.g. east oregon/cali/washington. new england is probably the one exception but it's small in terms of area and ag output.
    - Maursault 4y ago
      This is a seriously unsupported assertion.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > All the trade each state depends on that happens now through the nature of our federal system would happen through treaties, just like the UK post-Brexit That’s an argument in favor of secession! They could still trade, but wouldn’t be forced into a single polity making decisions on domestic issues like education, healthcare, abortion, immigration, etc.
mikestew 4y ago
That sounds a lot like the EU v1.0: "Based on the Schuman plan, six countries sign a treaty to run their coal and steel industries under a common management. In this way, no single country can make the weapons of war to turn against others, as in the past." https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-history/history-eu/1945-59_en https://european-union.europa.eu/principles-countries-histor...
jjk166 4y ago
This was how Stalin structured the Soviet economy during his industrialization push. It was one of the major reasons the collapse of the soviet union was so economically disastrous for the newly independent states.
- actually_a_dog 4y ago
  Great example of a planned economy working as designed.
  - kaushikc 4y ago
    Every large corporation is technically a form of central planning.
    - throwawaylinux 4y ago
      A kid spending her pocket money at the candy shop is a form of central planning. Neither are central planning as the term is used when talking about economic systems though. The objection to communism isn't that people plan things. It's that the planners face no competition and the results of their plans are inescapable.
      - actually_a_dog 4y ago
        Well, guess what happened when Sears implemented an internal free market system: > Major innovation needs collaboration, not competition. For innovation, internal markets have the same problem as hierarchical bureaucracies. Managers vote their resources for innovations that bolster their current fiefdoms and careers. The safest strategy is to stick to the status quo. Ms. Kimes’ article gives multiple examples where competing managers at Sears looked after their own units at the expense of the interests of the firm as a whole. (Emphasis added.) https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/07/16/do-internal-markets-nourish-innovation-the-case-of-sears/?sh=34d5c36c5b62 https://www.forbes.com/sites/stevedenning/2013/07/16/do-inte... Now, what was that you were saying about central planning?

yongjik 4y ago

Isn't this comparing, umm, apples and oranges? China doesn't want to lose Apple's business. China can't lose all business relationship with America (or maybe it can, but it will be extremely painful), which is what will likely happen if China invades Taiwan.

friedman23 4y ago
> China can't lose all business relationship with America And America can't afford to lose business with China. So China will make the calculation that it can get away with an invasion of Taiwan.
- varispeed 4y ago
  Probably Russia has made the same calculation about Germany. The biggest economy in Europe entirely dependent on Russian energy. If their "special operation" actually lasted a couple of weeks as they promised (it's hard to believe Germany didn't know about this way in advance), it is unlikely Europe, under German leadership, would have done anything apart from token sanctions. The contributing factor was of course the US and NATO projecting weakness after debacle in Afghanistan. Putin high on his own delusions, surrounded by yes-men, thought that was the once in a lifetime opportunity to pounce. If European economies weren't so dependent on Russian energy supplies, this war could probably have ended much quicker and thousands wouldn't have died needlessly.
  - herbst 4y ago
    > unlikely Europe, under German leadership Wait what?
    - ChuckNorris89 4y ago
      Germany's the richest EU country and doesn't hesitate to throw its weight around to get things done their way which is why many refer to the EU as having a German leadership and it's why many other EU countries are unhappy as some German policies are highly unpopular at EU level (supporting illegal mass migration, anti-nuclear "green" stance while burning gas and coal, long term pro-Russian stance, etc.), as are their politicians at EU level like Ursula who have a track record of incompetence and corruption yet are still in power.

jupp0r 4y ago

You have it backwards. Manufacturing iPhones is much easier than designing iPhones. Apple can manufacture somewhere else, but China can't Apple somewhere else.

sbaiddn 4y ago
Designing a new iPhone that does everything the old one does slightly better has very little value added. Being able to replace broken iPhone12s with new iPhone12s is real. An iPhone18XR on paper is just a piece of paper.
- algoatecorn 4y ago
  Yea but Apple isn't just the iPhone. Apple has unmatched perceived goodwill, devout customer base, and whole patent portfolio
  - 9dev 4y ago
    That still doesn’t change the fact that a tiger without teeth may roar as loud as they can, but still won’t be able to bite you.
  - sbaiddn 4y ago
    Patents are worthwhile only as far as they are respected. A factory is a real asset employing many real people. Anyway, why does SV have a lock on design? If anything computer design has gotten very stale since the early 90s when all the competitors to American computer systems finally croaked
- jupp0r 4y ago
  If what you said were true, there would have been lots of Chinese phone manufacturers eating Apple's market share for lunch. There aren't.
kbenson 4y ago
The context of this conversation is the root level comment noting a Bloomberg article where it's stated it would take them 8 years to move 10% of their manufacturing capacity to other countries from China. Now, it still may be true that it's easier to manufacture iPhones than design them, but easier does not mean easy. Personally, I think you're just vastly underestimating how hard it is to manufacture iPhones at scale, which means not just finding the right part, but a part that can be delivered in the quantity and quality required to meet their production needs, and repeated for all the parts they need.