There's an underrated scenario where China provokes a crisis with Taiwan, things get spicy, and the world just doesn't have microchips for a few years. I don't get why this isn't more central to our Taiwan policy. https://twitter.com/niubi/status/1390315544155467780 …
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Making every device on the planet dependent on a component that is exceptionally hard to build new factories for was not a good decision, but we're locked into it now because people wanted a blue LED on their toaster.
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On the plus side, I hope that owning these crown jewels of the global supply chain helps keep Taiwan free and prosperous for many years to come.
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To make myself clear, I'm not even talking about an invasion of Taiwan. All it takes is a missile or jet falling on the wrong spot to precipitate a long-term production crisis.
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There's also reasons that are less Tom Clancy to worry about the concentration of chip fabrication in Taiwanpic.twitter.com/CyldcZ7jSp
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Replying to @Pinboard
I dimly recall back in the late 90s or early 2000s when a chip fab caught on fire and nobody could buy RAM for like 6 months.
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Replying to @tr0g
There were also the Thai floods that raised hard drive prices for two years
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Replying to @Pinboard
Comparative advantage and JIT manufacturing sound great on paper but take almost all of your slack and redundancy out of your supply chain. After the year we just had, why would anyone think that's good?
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The issue with chip fabs goes beyond stuff like that. They're just unbelievably expensive and hard to build, and require years to ramp up. They're very much on the ragged edge of what humanity is capable of building
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