4 ms·

>> Companies do apparently insane things for money all the time! The costs of violating OFAC far exceed ANY gain TI would see from selling to Iran. You're wron

• ethanbond 4y ago
  I suppose this is why we never see examples of criminality where the possible penalties outweigh the possible gains? And in any case, I agree with you. I am extremely doubtful that this is what's happening, I just think "the penalties are substantial" and "they were likely manufactured in China" are not evidence it's not happening. TI components in Iran are evidence (weak, weak, completely non-actionable!) evidence that it is happening.
  • lazide 4y ago
    The more plausible story is that some distributor somewhere sold a couple shipping containers worth of these commodity parts from a place that doesn’t really give a damn what the US says (except for making sure to fake some paperwork or whatever), like China. Or some random county in Eastern Europe. Or Africa. They sell 100’s of millions of these parts to pretty much everyone, and they’re dirt cheap. That TI ‘made them’ (not really, outsourced usually) then ‘sold them’ (not really, almost certainly. TI doesn’t do direct deals like that for pretty much anyone!) is a narrative that is pretty implausible considering how the supply chains actually work for these components.