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So you are saying the Apple, the company with the most money, is able to use that money to acquire a monopoly on the expertise needed for their chips. How does
by arrosenberg 4y ago
So you are saying the Apple, the company with the most money, is able to use that money to acquire a monopoly on the expertise needed for their chips. How does that refute my point? The USG can do the same thing if they want to spend the money.
- lotsofpulp 4y agoI am saying Apple and the USG will not be able to acquire the chips that TSMC/ASML/Zeiss/whoever else is crucial are making in the event TSMC/ASML/Zeiss/etc stop existing, in a timely manner. Not that Apple and USG are not more or less indispensable than TSMC/ASML/Zeiss, that is neither here nor there. The point is some things simply have no fungibility, and hence you cannot buy your way out of it. If 2 billionaires got trapped on an island with all their wealth in cash, and neither knew how to build a boat or sail, all that cash is not going to help them avoid having to figure out how to build a boat and navigate the seas in sufficient time to survive.
- arrosenberg 4y agoI guess I’m unclear on your argument then. The entire point of this thread is that the US is building that fungibility (and they can do so by spending whatever is required to acquire people and machines to do it), and TMSC doesn’t like it. Obviously if those companies stopped existing today it would cause disruptions.
- lotsofpulp 4y ago> Thats another problem we can throw money at until it is resolved. My argument is it is possible the US cannot throw money at it until it is resolved, perhaps due to the R&D not resulting in success, due something external that causes US to lose ability to throw money at it, due to something internal that causes US to not politically support it, enough people not sufficiently interested in the sciences, etc.