[HN Gopher] Samsung boosts non-memory chip investment to $151B
___________________________________________________________________
Samsung boosts non-memory chip investment to $151B
Author : minwuekim
Score : 199 points
Date : 2021-05-16 06:51 UTC (16 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.reuters.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.reuters.com)
| cletus wrote:
| Alternative title: South Korea decides to offer tax breaks for
| something that was going to happen anyway given the crypto frenzy
| and auto industry own goal.
| ivalm wrote:
| Exciting about the progress but semi has always been boom and
| bust, I hope all the rush for investment will not create another
| down cycle.
| ddbb33 wrote:
| I didn't know that. Do you have some sources / examples?
| DoctorNick wrote:
| Yeah, because it's not like this exact thing has happened
| repeatedly since the emergence of capitalism.
| monsecchris wrote:
| We should let the government decide how many chips we need,
| they really outdid themselves on toilet paper last time.
| berkes wrote:
| Such comments annoy me. I'm quite radical capitalist
| (European, though).
|
| But any time someone points out flaws in capitalism, people
| respond with 'but socialism is worse' or 'planned markets
| are bad too'. A false dichotomy as clear as you get.
|
| Capitalism has known flaws. That we should name, know and
| solve. A famous flaw is the pork cycle, which we see at
| work here.
|
| Pointing out such flaws is good, because it allows us to
| improve, or at least prepare for. Countering such
| statements with 'but communism is worse' helps noone.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Yes, exactly! It's such a failure of imagination to think
| that the economic systems we've tried so far are the only
| ones available.
|
| For me the biggest flaw in capitalism is that it tends to
| concentrate wealth over the long term, which in turn
| undermines the "wisdom of the crowd" principle market
| systems are based on by concentrating buying power in
| relatively few people.
|
| We could fix this with much more aggressive progressive
| taxation and still have a system that is fundementally
| market based and looks nothing like a planned economy.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| > But any time someone points out flaws in capitalism,
|
| I've become unsatisfied with all of the word salad
| concerning 'capitalism'. Large organizations tend to work
| in the same way, government potentially being the largest
| corporation of all. Communist countries had organizations
| largely indistinguishable from corporations although the
| elite might find different ways to pay itself. It's
| really all a matter of degree.
|
| The eternal fight for resources and status (and hot
| chicks) gives you convergent evolution in social systems.
| vkou wrote:
| Have we all already forgotten how the free market has
| failed to provide us with sufficient toilet paper through
| the spring of 2020?
| monsecchris wrote:
| Luckily the socialist utopias didn't have any toilet
| paper to begin with.
| toiletfuneral wrote:
| We're literally in a thread discussing chip shortages
| resulting from capitalism's poor ability to manage the
| resource and now governments are the ones investing in
| solving it. I'm so confused by the point you're trying to
| make.
| elygre wrote:
| Where are you located, with a government that managed
| toilet paper output and availability?
| 0-_-0 wrote:
| To be fair, toilet paper shortages in planned economies
| were definitely a thing. My grandmother stockpiled toilet
| paper way after the fall of communism, I never understood
| why as a kid. (Her habit would have come handy at the
| start of the pandemic though...)
| baybal2 wrote:
| Month long toilet paper outages were a reality of life in
| USSR.
|
| Though, fresh pronts of "Pravda" never were. That
| "Pravda" was a very versatile material: from toilet
| paper, to packaging material, to building material as
| packing for cracks in walls, to an underlayer for
| wallpaper.
| creato wrote:
| The same thing happens in nature too (https://en.wikipedia.or
| g/wiki/Lotka%E2%80%93Volterra_equatio...). Capitalism isn't
| the cause of everything you don't like.
| mempko wrote:
| Let's replace that phrase with past economic systems. 'The
| same thing happens in nature too. Feudalism isn't the cause
| of everything you don't like'. or how about 'The same thing
| happens in nature too. Slavery isn't the cause of
| everything you don't like'. Yet we clearly made progress
| getting rid of feudalism and slavery.
| drivebycomment wrote:
| The down cycle (to be exact, boom-and-bust cycle) is
| structurally inevitable in the semiconductor market.
|
| For the supply-demand feedback loop to work smoothly, you want
| the supply to be incremental and quick-to-respond to demand
| changes. The semiconductor fab is anything but. There are many
| other reasons for this
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimhandy/2014/05/28/the-3-reaso...
| but I think the critical reason is that when there's a supply
| shortage, there's naturally a race among suppliers to build
| more capacity as soon as they can, so that they can sell more,
| but the inherent time delay (measured in years) in building up
| the extra supply combined with the fact that a single new fab
| gets bigger and more expensive lead to inevitable oversupply,
| which causes the price drop, which reduces the amount of money
| to invest for the next cycle, which leads to undersupply a few
| years later, and rinse/repeat.
|
| The pandemic created one of the biggest demand spikes for
| semiconductor ever, and combined with the nationalistic stance
| on building own supply in each country, I suspect this spike
| will have a ripple effect for the next few years.
| totalZero wrote:
| There is a chance that what we are observing is different from
| the past demand spikes.
|
| The way we work and learn has changed, and it doesn't look like
| a reversion to pre-telework habits will ever fully occur.
| Several companies (including Salesforce, Twitter, Square, and
| Spotify) have said that telework will be a significant part of
| their post-pandemic reality.
|
| Meanwhile, electric vehicles are slowly but surely taking
| market share from internal combustion engines that use less
| than a third as much silicon.
|
| It feels like demand creation to me, and that means we ought to
| treat the prior capex roadmap for the industry as insufficient.
|
| Even in the absence of demand creation, fab concentration in
| Taiwan is increasingly a liability in a world where Chinese
| economic hegemony is growing. One way to mitigate future
| perturbations that may result from military conflict, natural
| disasters, or other interruptions in Taiwan's fabs would be to
| build greater capacity outside of Taiwan.
| threeseed wrote:
| Also don't forget crypto which is still growing and demands
| custom hardware.
|
| And the continued move within the enterprise towards using
| cloud computing and SaaS products.
|
| No matter which way you look there is an increasing demand
| for silicon.
| Anarch157a wrote:
| With Ethereum adopting proof of stake, Bitcoin will be left
| as the only driver for mining hardware. Even they will have
| to move to proof of stake some day, since it's not
| sustainable.
|
| I believe that the bigest drivers for silicon demand will
| be IoT devices, including automobiles, especialy when they
| become more affordable in the 3rd world.
|
| The pressure from SaaS and cloud is more predictable than
| the consume market, sonthe semi industry can plan ahead,
| IoT not so much. Just see how the auto industry was caught
| by surprise by the increased demand.
| HappyTypist wrote:
| There is about zero chance of bitcoin moving to proof of
| stake. Something so fundamental about its
| SHA256(SHA256())) PoW structure just isn't going to get
| changed, unless there's a vulnerability in SHA256.
| [deleted]
| vmception wrote:
| And of course whatever the car manufacturers were doing
| nicoburns wrote:
| Cryto may end up being a huge downturn in demand if it ever
| gets legislated against (not that unlikely if it's share of
| energy usage continues to grow significantly)
| manquer wrote:
| Only very small portion of the workforce is tech, a smaller
| portion is employed by startups/silicon valley companies, a
| even smaller portion is directly on payroll of these
| companies, rest of the roles such as content moderators,
| support staff work for IT consultanting majors.
|
| there will be lasting change to to our lives and lives of
| people in our oribt. I don't think we appreciate that vast
| majority of the workforce (in transport, hospitality, retail,
| manufacturing) is not changing at all.
| jari_mustonen wrote:
| God damn that is one huge cookie consent pop up. I browse with
| cell phone and was unable to find what to click to make it
| dissapear. So I'm now here reading comments to figure out what
| the artcile said.
| ffhhj wrote:
| uBlock Origin for Firefox mobile removes those concents.
| raro11 wrote:
| It does not for me. I was under the impression it only hides
| ads. I'm using ublock origin on mobile but still see the
| cookie notice.
| zamadatix wrote:
| Make sure you have the "annoyances" filter lists enabled in
| the uBlock settings. Or really - make sure you have every
| filter list enabled except for the languages you don't use
| in the languages section.
| dang wrote:
| " _Please don 't complain about website formatting, back-button
| breakage, and similar annoyances. They're too common to be
| interesting. Exception: when the author is present. Then
| friendly feedback might be helpful._"
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
| rjsw wrote:
| Have had that kind of thing recently on desktop too, opening in
| a private window with Firefox helped.
| flakiness wrote:
| Samsung stopped their own CPU development a couple years ago. I
| wonder how it costs in this chip warfare context. Maybe not a lot
| because the layer is different, but the moral level in the field
| might not as high as they hoped.
|
| [1] https://www.anandtech.com/show/15061/samsung-to-cease-
| custom...
| [deleted]
| mastax wrote:
| Samsung stopped _custom CPU core development_ because their
| cores weren 't very good and because ARMs got better and their
| R&D cost is shared amongst the industry.
|
| Samsung still makes CPUs, they just use licensed ARM cores.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| This is not just some pork-barrel politics of bribing a company
| to stay in a given country. S Korea will view this similarly to
| Taiwan - their chip fabs are _existential_ to their country and
| state.
|
| The USA is becoming more isolationist - it is nearly oil-
| independent, so it's signalling pulling out of the middle east
| (deals with Iran etc).
|
| But it is not silicon-independent.
|
| So S Korea and Taiwan are totally dependent on massive US troop
| deployments (25,000 !! US troops by the DMZ, a whole fleet
| patrolling the straits by Taiwan).
|
| Ensuring chips flow in their country is a matter of national
| security - so the price is probably low.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > it is nearly oil-independent
|
| This has never been how it works.
|
| Oil is a global commodity. Even if the US produced as much as
| it consumes, if something happened in the middle east, the
| global price would go up. Because when the price went up in
| Europe or Asia, American oil producers would sell to the
| highest bidder, which would force American consumers to bid
| higher.
|
| The real path to "independence" is to stop consuming oil, i.e.
| the electrification of transportation and heating. Which is
| starting but nowhere near finished.
|
| Because electricity generated from solar/wind/nuclear/hydro is
| _not_ a global commodity. Nothing that happens in Iran is going
| to change the cost of power generated at Hoover Dam.
| madengr wrote:
| Ah, but the USA is dependent on cheap, Chinese solar cells.
| mushufasa wrote:
| absolutely true. Since some people are questioning this in
| the comments: for those that want to do their own research,
| this is called 'The Law of One Price,' and it applies to
| other commodities where transportation and storage costs are
| low.
|
| https://www.investopedia.com/terms/l/law-one-price.asp
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_one_price https://corpor
| atefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/ec...
|
| This has been well established in mainstream energy economics
| for ~50 years. Other disciplines seem to have trouble
| grokking the arguments. But ask any professional trader and
| they'll go with the economists on this one.
| lumost wrote:
| This rule works in any environment where traders trade
| freely. Historically this has lead to catastrophes such as
| the Irish potato famine where the price of locally produced
| food exceeded what locals could pay. Leading to a country
| that had millions starving _while_ exporting enough food to
| feed the country.
|
| For this and various other temporary phenomenon governments
| set limits on market economies to prevent outcomes
| pathologically opposed to the wellbeing of residents. These
| limits include export controls and subsidies on food and
| other basic necessities. It absolutely makes sense for a
| country not to suddenly shift its income to the benefit of
| external commodity holders due to a sudden price jump in
| the commodity due to supply chain issues. Not doing so
| could destroy "higher value" "finished product" industries
| by making them uncompetitive.
|
| If a large supply chain issue hits a critical necessity you
| would absolutely expect countries to start triggering their
| hoarding policies making the issue worse. An economic zone
| not planning for such a disruption to occur in the future
| is equivalent to a bet that such disruptions will never
| occur.
| mopsi wrote:
| > _If a large supply chain issue hits a critical
| necessity you would absolutely expect countries to start
| triggering their hoarding policies making the issue
| worse._
|
| The PPE shortage of 2020 demonstrated very clearly how
| quickly free-market economics gets thrown overboard in a
| serious crisis.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| The US can, and absolutely will, restrict oil exports if
| prices start to skyrocket. Gas prices are an enormous
| electoral cudgel.
|
| It wasn't even legal to export oil until 2015! https://www.ga
| o.gov/products/gao-21-118#:~:text=With%20U.S.%....
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > The US can, and absolutely will, restrict oil exports if
| prices start to skyrocket.
|
| That would cost US oil producers billions of dollars --
| more than the price increase would cost US consumers. Which
| would only happen if oil producers had dramatically less
| political influence than they do now, i.e. if we stopped
| producing so much oil. But then there would be no reason to
| do it.
|
| > It wasn't even legal to export oil until 2015!
|
| Crude oil. It was protectionism for US refineries, not the
| other thing. Which makes oil cost consumers _more_ ,
| because of the reduction in competition for refining.
| lumost wrote:
| On a temporary basis this is true as the market is
| restricted. On a long term time horizon you would simply
| expect consolidation of global refineries into a new,
| more powerful monopoly.
| phkahler wrote:
| >> if something happened in the middle east, the global price
| would go up.
|
| But if WW III starts with say China taking Taiwan and getting
| into stuff in the pacific, and Russia invading easter
| european countries, and maybe some other stuff... If the US
| were to fully engage in some kind of global conflict, they
| could ban oil exports and not have a supply problem.
|
| This is the kind of thinking the military engages in to
| ensure their own supply chains won't be distrupted in a war.
| The ability to operate independently is important even if
| it's never used.
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| I agree, and while not clear was part of my orignal thoughts
| about oil independence - it's about both supply and demand.
| The electrification of our societies in the next decades will
| reshape a lot of the world.
| jollybean wrote:
| It is how it works though. Supply and Demand are real, price
| spikes are real, Oil shock caused major problems for the US
| in the 1970's. Strategic reserves exist, and the amount of
| Oil is finite.
|
| So it translates into a strategic issue, and, there will be
| direct involvement by the US if things get bad.
|
| The US I think will stay in S. Korea until the situation
| changes, it's better to have chips, but that's not necessary.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| That is a very American perspective on things. Hundreds of
| thousands of US troops are stationed in Germany, Japan, Korea
| here 75 years after the end of the second world war. Do you
| think we would like them to stay for another decade? Our
| politicians may not be in a position to say so, but we would
| really like our land to be free of foreign troops. As would any
| other nation.
| bpodgursky wrote:
| These comments always confuse me, because the US troops in
| Germany, Japan and Korea are there entirely at the pleasure
| of the local government.
|
| If Germany ordered US troops out, they would leave. Even
| Iraq, barely a functioning country, did this, and the US
| left. But Germany, Japan and South Korea have not asked.
|
| And you might say, "well, the US is functionally bribing them
| with the economic boost of stationing troops there". And...
| OK? That's the tradeoff. Germany is a wealthy country, and
| the populace can vote and make choices themselves.
| solveit wrote:
| As a Korean, I would very much like US troops to stay for
| another decade and more. I'm not sure why everyone's talking
| about Russia, but my worries are firmly fixated around China.
| AYBABTME wrote:
| I'm in Korea and I've yet to meet someone who actually wants
| the US troops out. I've met people vaguely annoyed with
| drunken US soldiers and stuff like that, but as far as
| annecdata goes, I think Korea wants US troops.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> I 'm in Korea and I've yet to meet someone who actually
| wants the US troops out._
|
| That's because voicing such opinions, particularly to
| foreign strangers, is so far outside the established
| Overton window that South Koreans have been jailed for
| voicing them while working in the wrong occupation [0].
|
| Case in point: Just look at the history of the No Gun Ri
| massacre during the Korea war [1], to this day neither the
| US nor South Korean government have really fully
| acknowledged or taken responsibility for what happened
| there, and just like with similar massacres of that kind:
| For the longest time survivors were persecuted for speaking
| out about what happened [2]. Decades of that breeds a
| culture of silent compliance.
|
| There's also that whole politeness aspect: If you are a
| American, then no Japanese, Korean, or many Asian people in
| general will have small talk with you by opening a can of
| worms like "Your soldiers are/did occupying/bomb my
| country!", that would just be considered a very
| inappropriate thing to do.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Security_Act_(So
| uth_K...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No_Gun_Ri_massacre
|
| [2] https://thediplomat.com/2014/08/south-koreas-own-
| history-pro...
| dboat wrote:
| It is -just- because voicing those opinions is dangerous
| though? My understanding is that Chinese aggression is a
| major regional concern, even for average people.
| scaramanga wrote:
| So is the resurgence of fascism in Japan and Japan's re-
| armament. Those are big concerns in Korea, definitely
| bigger threat than North Korea, and probably a bigger
| threat than China.
| [deleted]
| scaramanga wrote:
| They have overwhelmingly voted for a president on a
| platform of signing a peace treaty with North Korea. The US
| veto over South Korean foreign policy options, the presence
| of US troops (and, more importantly, their refusal to
| transfer OPCON over the Korean military despite decades of
| promises) has been a major impediment to exercising the
| democratic will of the South Korean body politic.
|
| The problem is that Korea is a vassal state and there is no
| path to expelling occupying troops without conflict, which
| nobody wants.
|
| If you ask more specific and nuanced questions which don't
| jump to such drastic solutions, then you are quite likely
| to get different responses. eg. "Should the Korean
| government command the Korean army?" or "Should Korean
| voters be able to decide on the relationship between ROK
| and DRPK?" / "What role should occupying powers (eg. Japan,
| China, US) play in that?" or "What should be done about US
| officials guilty of atrocities (eg. Gwangju massacre) and
| other human rights offences (there's quite a lot of them)
| in South Korea?"
| quickthrowman wrote:
| > Hundreds of thousands of US troops are stationed in
| Germany, Japan, Korea here 75 years after the end of the
| second world war. Do you think we would like them to stay for
| another decade?
|
| Yes, I believe those countries would prefer if we stayed.
| Japan and S. Korea are particularly close to China and prefer
| we're around to tamp down Chinese aggression. Germany is
| hoping we don't withdraw our troops:
| https://m.dw.com/en/germany-welcomes-bid-to-halt-us-troop-
| wi...
|
| Edit: This may offend some Europeans, but I think the world
| is better off with the US having bases in Europe and as a
| NATO member. Internecine squabbles in Europe don't have a
| good track record over the past 100 or so years. One might
| even say the bases should be located where the trouble seems
| to start.
| oblio wrote:
| Europeans who get offended don't need US bases. Those that
| need them want more US bases. For example Romania.
| smhost wrote:
| > Japan and S. Korea are particularly close to China and
| prefer we're around to tamp down Chinese aggression.
|
| It's not that simple. American presence on the Korean
| peninsula makes reunification efforts overly complicated.
| By some estimates, reunification would grow the Korean
| economy to be the third largest in the world. It would also
| give Koreans access to Russian pipelines and a large border
| with China. When climate change opens up arctic trade
| routes and frozen arctic resources, Russia will be in the
| position to benefit the most (although Putin relies too
| heavily on his tsarist-Stalinist strain of conservatism to
| be able to exploit the economy as efficiently as liberals
| or perhaps Chinese communists might). As convenient as it
| is to have a powerful ally in the U.S., the U.S. is no
| longer in a position where it can dictate the behaviors of
| foreign nations as it once used to, especially regarding
| China. That's simply a reality that Koreans have had to
| come to terms with, despite Americans seeming to believe
| that things can just return to how they used to be half a
| century ago.
| pm90 wrote:
| Korean unification is not impeded by the presence of US
| troops, but by the demands of the DPRK over the nature of
| what the unified state would look like; it seems unlikely
| that the current Regime would give up its power just like
| that.
|
| Remember that US troops were stationed in Berlin/ West
| Germany prior to German unification (i'll admit its not
| the exact same situation since the East German economy
| was relatively much stronger pre-unification than the
| current DPRK economy).
|
| If you're suggesting that we should just let the DPRK
| take over ROK... well, I don't think any of the ROK
| inhabitants would like that.
| mempko wrote:
| I don't know, seems a lot of wars start from USA after WW2.
| The US is an empire and those bases are there to protect
| the empire, not the countries they sit in.
| flyinglizard wrote:
| How do US bases in South Korea protect the US rather
| than, well, South Korea?
| jollybean wrote:
| Pax Americana, or Pax Nato etc.
|
| For the same reason the US pushed Saddam out of Kuwait.
|
| The 'world order' we grew up with seems like it's strong
| but it's not, it's very fragile.
|
| US protection of S. Korea / Japan / Europe is like
| 'propping up key dominoes' in the chain.
|
| Wars break out sometimes fairly easily, having bullwarks
| ostensibly keeps them from falling down.
|
| Obviously there are many costs and risks.
| KptMarchewa wrote:
| US interests, not US land.
| phatfish wrote:
| Okinawa at least seems fed up with the occupation:
| https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20210515_13/
|
| Europe would do much better by defending itself on its own
| terms rather than perpetually hiding behind the Stars and
| Stripes. Hopefully Trump made it clear how dangerous that
| is.
| tw04 wrote:
| And you think if the US were completely isolationist that
| China wouldn't assist North Korea in "unifying" the
| peninsula?
|
| I wouldn't want to bet my freedom on that.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| And just why would they do that? The only reason China
| supported North Korea historically is because they don't
| want US troops at their doorstep.
| oblio wrote:
| Puppet states, influence, a thorn in the Japanese side.
| Why would China need or want Tibet or Xinjiang? Remote
| regions without Han populations.
| artificial wrote:
| I'd say Tibet is for water. The Chinese built many dams
| and several big rivers which flow through several
| countries originate there.
| oblio wrote:
| Well, not just water. Tibet is a high plateau overlooking
| the Chinese plains. It's an obvious entry point for a
| land invasion into the Chinese heartland. Xinjiang is a
| mountainous and desert region with a similar role.
|
| I know why they're doing it, it's just cynical for the
| locals.
|
| Similar story for Korea, if you're a great power,
| wouldn't you move the possible battle like a few hundreds
| of kilometers away from your capital? You would.
|
| It would still suck for the locals.
| mlindner wrote:
| I would not speak for Japan. Most Japanese I've met and
| talked to think that on balance having the US troops there is
| MUCH better than the alternative. The only Japanese I'm aware
| of where a significant minority are against the US presence
| is in Okinawa where US bases occupy double digit percentages
| of the available land.
| freeflight wrote:
| _> The only Japanese I 'm aware of where a significant
| minority are against the US presence is in Okinawa where US
| bases occupy double digit percentages of the available
| land._
|
| "Only" makes it sound weird considering it's in major parts
| these Okinawan's that have to pay the burden for the
| massive US presence [0].
|
| While for most mainland Japanese it's as simple as "It
| doesn't affect me personally, it's an advantage for the
| whole nation, why not?"
|
| [0] https://apjjf.org/2018/03/Mitchell.html
| mlindner wrote:
| Okinawa isn't the only US military presence in Japan.
| It's not even where the US Navy has it's fleet stationed
| out of.
|
| And not to diminish it, but the rate in your article is
| quite small considering the populations involved. I
| wouldn't be surprised if the assault rates by military
| personnel stationed in the US was much different.
| csomar wrote:
| I don't think so.
|
| > German Chancellor opposes US troop withdrawal plan
|
| https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/german-chancellor-opposes-
| us...
|
| Without having a powerful army, Europe is just an order from
| being invaded by Russia.
| orbifold wrote:
| Sure because Russia has a long history of attacking Western
| Europe unprovoked. Napoleon, WW1, UK US intervention in the
| Revolution, Polish Invasion and WW2 clearly had Russia as
| an Aggressor.
| Paradigma11 wrote:
| Or more recently:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_Revolution_of_195
| 6
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring
|
| or those russian soldiers on holiday in the ukraine.
| paganel wrote:
| In all fairness OP was mentioning Western Europe. One
| could argue about the validity of ideologically
| partitioning Europe into an Eastern and Western part (I
| know I'm also guilty of that) but that's another
| discussion.
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| I'd say that was done fairly organically given the split
| between ethnicities and Orthodox vs. Catholic churches.
| Ukraine seems to straddle one of those boundaries.
| frant-hartm wrote:
| In WW2 Russia actually was one of the aggressors.
| vasac wrote:
| Was Poland too?
| quickthrowman wrote:
| I think you may need to revisit WW2 history, Poland was
| invaded by the USSR and Germany as part of the Molotov-
| Ribbentrop pact.
| vasac wrote:
| Nope, it's you who needs to revisit WW2 history: https://
| en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Czechoslovak_bo...
| kingsuper20 wrote:
| Hey, it's complicated (as usual).
|
| Check out all of the minor wars Poland was involved in
| between 1919 and 1938.
| lumost wrote:
| Russia invaded Poland in coordination with Germany as
| part of the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact at the start of the
| war.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_
| Pac...
| vasac wrote:
| I wasn't asking who was invaded by Russia but whether
| Poland was aggressor too?
|
| And here's the answer:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish%E2%80%93Czechoslovak
| _bo...
| orbifold wrote:
| Well Poland had the brilliant idea of attacking
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polish-Soviet_War, right
| after the end of WW1, so I am sure there was no love
| between them.
| eloff wrote:
| I think you don't know your Russian history. That
| territory has usually been controlled by an aggressive,
| expansionist regime. How did you think it got to be the
| largest country on earth?
|
| It's very strongly related to the geography of the
| region.
| _delirium wrote:
| My read on Germany specifically is that it's less about
| Russian invasion worries and more about domestic economic
| politics. The bases are important economically to the
| towns/regions they're in, and closing them is unpopular in
| those areas, similar to how choosing when/if to close US
| bases in the US is controversial
| (https://www.everycrsreport.com/reports/R45705.html).
| throw0101a wrote:
| Going by military spending, any single EU country spends
| less than Russia, but 2+ spend more:
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_milita
| ry_...
|
| Of course raw numbers don't tell the whole story:
|
| * https://www.defensenews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/05/03
| /ru...
|
| * https://warontherocks.com/2019/12/why-russian-military-
| expen...
| kwere wrote:
| thats silly
| ad404b8a372f2b9 wrote:
| You can't seriously believe Europe is defenseless without
| America. Germany, the UK and France are among the most
| powerful militaries in the world, with economies that trump
| Russia, and enough nuclear weapons to flatten it a hundred
| times over.
| renw0rp wrote:
| The countries you mentioned are as prepared for war as
| was France in 1939/1940
| oblio wrote:
| France was prepared, they just messed up the strategy.
| But they had the equipment, the manpower, the army was
| mobilized entirely after 1939, they had battle plans,
| etc.
| rjsw wrote:
| Germany doesn't have a powerful military or its own
| nuclear weapons.
| konschubert wrote:
| The German military has issues ordering guns that shoot
| straight, I doubt they can project any kind of deterrence
| against, say, nuclear threats.
| rblatz wrote:
| And add up all their militaries and they are still
| dwarfed by the US military.
| NicoJuicy wrote:
| You are severely overestimating Russia's army and
| underestimating Europe's.
|
| Russia isn't even in the same league of spending power and
| the Soviet army of the past was way stronger.
|
| While Russia spends a lot of money on their army ( % wise),
| they don't have the resources to renew it. What's left is a
| lot of old gear and some renewed one.
|
| As a counter perspective, Ukraine would have made it's
| naval fleet completely unusable, as it needs to pass that
| country for getting anywhere.
|
| And Europe ( in the last 30 years) came within missile
| range of Moscow, since the fall of the USSR.
|
| The propaganda of Russia is mostly power related, but they
| are certainly not as powerful as they seem. And the cards
| don't look that great too.
|
| A lot of their resources depend on oil/gas purchases from
| Europe and Europe is investing in alternative sources,
| while Russia can't raise the prices for their
| citizens/neighboring countries.
|
| Eg. The pipeline Russia mostly invested in to Germany has
| been halted, because of Alexei Navalny:
| https://www.cleanenergywire.org/factsheets/gas-pipeline-
| nord...
|
| And last but not least, as a belgian citizen, i appreciate
| US presence and have no desire for foreign troops to
| withdraw. We all share ( mostly) the same/similar culture
| and perception.
| vasac wrote:
| Russia buys most of their arms from their own industry so
| while their military budget in $ is far smaller than the
| US they get more bang for the buck (or in their case
| ruble). So while they nominally spend ~$60B per year when
| accounted for PPP (purchasing power parity) that looks
| more like equivalent of $150B (or $200). Things are
| obviously more complex than this but it's obvious that
| while they spend similar $ amount as UK or France they
| maintain significantly larger military.
|
| > As a counter perspective, Ukraine would have made it's
| naval fleet completely unusable, as it needs to pass that
| country for getting anywhere.
|
| They had open access to the Black Sea even without
| Crimea, I'm not sure how Ukraine could block them then or
| now?
|
| btw pipeline isn't halted (so far):
| https://www.spglobal.com/platts/en/market-
| insights/latest-ne...
| threeseed wrote:
| Curious where you do live since you exclusively submit pro-
| CCP links.
| [deleted]
| konschubert wrote:
| Most Germans who understand geopolitics are very happy that
| American troops are stationed in the country.
| jollybean wrote:
| " but we would really like our land to be free of foreign
| troops. "
|
| You are probably not in the majority there.
|
| Do you want the Russians grabbing larger of E. Europe and
| seeing how far they can go with it?
|
| At the end of the cold war it seemed as though maybe NATO
| might be past it's usefulness, but after a resurgent Russia,
| it seems more like it's going to take another 70-100 years
| probably.
|
| Also, the 'rest of the world' is a more chaotic place, and it
| bodes well for Europeans to be playing well with American
| forces.
|
| North Africa is a hot-spot and Europe (except UK/France in
| very limited form) doesn't have the ability to project power,
| even in the Libya intervention, it was backed by US AWACS,
| drones, and organization. It was kind of a folly, but there's
| no doubt that those interventions could be much more
| necessary in the future.
|
| Politicians know this and there's no real popular urgency for
| the Americans to leave.
|
| Both Norway and Sweden, the later a non-NATO country, are
| going more coordination with the Americans, not less.
|
| Such will be the situation for a few decades.
| throwaway21_ wrote:
| Great work in the Libya guys - 10 years later country is
| still at war, 10s of thousands dead (and counting), people
| are worse in every possible way than during Gadaffi rule...
| Can't wait to see more similar interventions in the future.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| With that in mind I feel it is time for the US to take a much
| more aggressive stance in defending Taiwan. They should simply
| figure out a way for it to be an autonomous territory of the
| US. Hong Kong as well, since China is not following the
| requirements of the agreement forged some 20 years ago - we
| might as well consider those bill and void and forge an
| agreement with the HK government to bring them into the US fold
| formally. This would mean security for those territories and
| mutual economic prosperity.
| dzonga wrote:
| that literally means war. I'm in Taiwan currently though I'm
| not Taiwanase or of chinese descent. Taiwan is a mono-ethnic
| country, where a good % of the population believe it or not
| identify with the mainland.
|
| Culturally their are similar, speak the same language.
| Mainland is Taiwan's biggest trading partner. & before the
| Japs was Chinese territory. and China has an iron will to
| bring Taiwan into the fold. What would the US gain again from
| making Taiwan it's territory - war and more debt.
|
| Chip fabs can easily be built in the US on a 3 year timeline.
| Whereas that same 3 year timeline, maybe the PRC would've
| taken Taiwan.
| throwawaysea wrote:
| I think the free world owes Taiwan that degree of
| protection of their sovereignty. It wouldn't likely result
| in war - China wouldn't risk that, since it is as much a
| burden to them as it would be to the US. This is just a big
| game of chicken, and on one side is the US and all its
| allies (NATO) after all. The US would gain a foothold in
| the region politically and militarily, and can rest assured
| that the capacity for semiconductor manufacturing, a
| specialized capability, doesn't fall into the hands of
| mainland China.
| otoburb wrote:
| >> _I think the free world owes Taiwan that degree of
| protection of their sovereignty._
|
| The rest of the free world would likely need to take the
| first step of officially recognizing Taiwan as a
| sovereign country[1] before deciding to officially commit
| to protecting Taiwan.
|
| [1] https://worldpopulationreview.com/en/country-
| rankings/countr...
| baybal2 wrote:
| > it is nearly oil-independent,
|
| Like as if it wasn't for the entire century. USA has ennormous,
| and largely unexplored oil reserves.
| mschuster91 wrote:
| They're unexplored for a reason. Fracking is immensely
| damaging to the ecosystem.
|
| Additionally, the US won't ever need to touch these again if
| it manages to reduce its reliance on fossil fuels.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| It's not as damaging as coal, which is fortunate for the
| clean energy transition.
|
| Solar is now the cheapest assuming we get grid scale
| storage(or, more likely, store excess solar as hydrogen
| fuel).
| lazide wrote:
| Most solar is now produced in China, at 71%+ as of 2019
| (and only grown since then I imagine). If we're talking
| national security, that is a concern too.
| will4274 wrote:
| > Fracking is immensely damaging to the ecosystem.
|
| Not really. Energy is a dirty business, and also one filled
| with politics and propoganda. Fracking, much like nuclear,
| was targeted mostly for political, not technical reasons.
| It's damaging, but less so than coal and not all that much
| more than vanilla drilling and pipelines in general.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Worth to mention that US reserves are enormous even
| without fracking. Tons of oil, and gas everywhere.
| davidf18 wrote:
| We drill off the Gulf Coast, but not the East and West
| Coasts yet, for example.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Did anybody do the math of whether it's more cost effective to
| pay for all that military to ensure you get cheap silicon made
| in countries with cheaper labor that in the US rather than just
| subsidizing the production of semiconductors domestically?
| irjustin wrote:
| As the US gets more than "cheap labor" for its troop
| deployments.
|
| Very large parts of it is protecting democracy. Whether you
| believe that's worth protecting is a different question, but
| it's left over from cold war & proxy wars against Russia in
| both Vietnam and Korea.
|
| This is still once way the US exerts its presence against
| China. Maybe futile, but it is more than just "cheap labor".
| [deleted]
| lifeisstillgood wrote:
| The math is complicated
|
| - How much military spending is really what other Western
| countries would call welfare - not only do you pay the US
| recruits, they get pensions, they and their families get
| healthcare etc etc.
|
| - The payback of being the worlds only superpower has been
| enormous anyway. This is probably a marginal cost.
|
| - It's not entirely clear that building a fab is like
| dropping a supermarket into place. Whilst in operation they
| are lights out I sincerely doubt they can be easily
| replicated - at the very least you will need to just kidnap
| the whole middle management layer of TSMC and move them to
| Texas. Which is more or less the current negotiations:-)
|
| In short, yeah the US (and EU) _should_ spend a fortune to
| build out their own internal chip capacity. Just as we should
| have done it for oil or electric batteries or ... but we just
| don 't. China however has. Something democracy is good at.
| Somethings it ain't.
|
| We should fix that :-)
| inglor_cz wrote:
| The picture of silicon industry that you paint is very far
| from reality. Neither Taiwan nor South Korea are third world
| countries and baking top chips isn't the same as sewing
| cotton T-shirts or gathering strawberries under the scorching
| sun. Instead of "cheaper labor", you need top talent and very
| high quality equipment. That top talent collects very good
| salaries.
|
| If chip production was just a matter of money, both China and
| the U.S. would rule the roost. The real bottleneck is
| talented and loyal engineers.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > That top talent collects very good salaries.
|
| Semiconductor engineers salaries in Taiwan could've been as
| low as $26k-$28k USD back in 2007-2009. Multi-year long PhD
| "interships" can be unpaid, or completely minimally so.
|
| A chance for an average semi process engineer graduate to
| survive to doing real RnD was close to 80-100 to 1.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| I wonder what the situation looks like today. Probably
| better, because losing senior engineers in a situation
| when the field has shrunk to Samsung, TSMC and Intel,
| would be a huge pain.
| baybal2 wrote:
| TSMC's salaries have doubled, but that only means that an
| engineer with 5-7 years experience gets $43k-$58k.
|
| The rest of the industry is still around $34k-$45k
|
| That _lags behind_ the wage growth in the rest of Taiwan.
| headmelted wrote:
| Not challenging this but do you have a link?
|
| If that's the case that's really surprising given how
| significant TSMC is to Taiwan politically.
| baybal2 wrote:
| For 12-10 year old ones, my own contacts. For what's
| recent more from local chit chat.
| [deleted]
| logicchains wrote:
| The mainland is taking advantage of this to get skilled
| engineers, as mainland Chinese tech salaries are closer
| to those in the US. So much so that Taiwan has banned
| recruiting for mainland jobs: https://asia.nikkei.com/Bus
| iness/Tech/Semiconductors/Taiwan-...
| baybal2 wrote:
| Modern fabs are nearly completely lights out.
|
| There are more people sitting in offices there than on the
| floor.
|
| I fact there is a huge oversupply of semiconductor engineers
| globally because of fabs becoming less, and less labour
| intensive.
|
| Companies take a big effort to reduce the number of people on
| the floor futher, but now not so much for labour cost readon,
| but security. The chance of somebody who shouldn't really be
| on the floor acidentally pressing the wrong button, and
| sending $10M worth of wafers down the drain is the risk they
| don't want to take.
| ithkuil wrote:
| Two related questions:
|
| 1. Would it thus cost the same to operate such a fab in the
| US?
|
| 2. Why did the US outsourced the semiconductor fabrication
| in the first place? Was it more labour intensive in the
| past?
| throwaway_45 wrote:
| In general its a dirty process. There are a lot of toxic
| chemicals involved. People might get sick. Margins aren't
| as good as software and its very capital intensive so
| investors would rather invest in software. Lots of booms
| and bust in the semiconductor industry.
| baybal2 wrote:
| 1. Labour-wise probably 3-4 times the Taiwan, but labour
| cost of fabs is microscopic in comparison to everything
| else.
|
| Taiwan does not have dramatically lower taxes than US,
| but there is something particular to how working capital
| is accounted which will make for a double digit
| difference in the in TW vs. US.
|
| Third is supplies. Even before the semi moving to Asia,
| US fabs had to import a big portion of their supplies.
|
| 2. > Why did the US outsourced the semiconductor
| fabrication in the first place
|
| Why did US outsource almost everything, even when it
| makes no sense?
|
| It simply tough, tedious, problematic doing business in
| the US.
|
| I wrote about it many times before here.
|
| You mind your own business, very much literally. Few
| month down the line some trouble comes: lawsuit, taxmen,
| utilities, creditors, SEC, city hall, suppliers, random
| activists, labour union... pick any.
| imtringued wrote:
| >1. Labour-wise probably 3-4 times the Taiwan, but labour
| cost of fabs is microscopic in comparison to everything
| else.
|
| Building a fab requires labor, a lot of it.
| baybal2 wrote:
| There are only 2-3 construction companies globally who
| build factories as complex as modern semi fabs.
|
| Imagine, where they get their workers? They import them
| all from their home countries.
| ithkuil wrote:
| What are their home countries? Sorry I could do my own
| research, but since you made a comment that implied you
| had a piece of information at hand, I feel I may just get
| it easier this way.
| baybal2 wrote:
| Exyte (Germany) was a big one. I myself haven't been up
| to date with news in the industry for around 10 years
| since I abandoned all attempts to enter the industry.
| inglor_cz wrote:
| As for 2), it is less about outsourcing and more about
| gradual loss of competitiveness. The scientific and
| technological development between 2000 and 2020 led to a
| lot of corporations, not just in the U.S., falling out of
| the race because they could not keep up the pace.
| Nowadays, only Samsung and TSMC are left, with Intel
| lagging behind, but still not completely out.
|
| Similar consolidations have happened in the past and in
| other industrial fields. This time, two of the three
| surviving champions are simply not American.
| lumost wrote:
| This is an interesting take, I'd be curious how it
| applies to other industries. Is outsourcing an artifact
| of loss of technical/execution competence required to be
| competitive?
| ithkuil wrote:
| Honestly curious about why so many downvotes. It's a honest
| question. Perhaps you all know the answer and think it's a
| stupid question not worth answering it. If so please ignore
| it (other people have answered).
| throwaway4good wrote:
| It would make a lot of sense if the Koreans could fab for
| boycotted Chinese customers (HiSilicon etc.). Instead of trying
| to steal TSMC's business at Qualcomm, Apple, AMD etc.
| tooltalk wrote:
| @dirtyid: makes no sense for China to use the Korean fabs. They
| could simply hire more Taiwanese engineers, aka ex-TSMC'ers,
| who had been the main drivers behind the development of China's
| chip industry so far.
| varispeed wrote:
| And that's problematic. I think Taiwan should be given
| ultimatum - either drop any business with China or they
| should get sanctions.
| manquer wrote:
| It is not like they are being kidnapped/brainwashed to work
| there aka Soviet Union style, or their genocidal war crimes
| are ignored like the US did with Nazi scientists.
|
| Chinese companies are simply offering a good financial
| package to these people with valuable skill sets. TSMC can
| pay it's employees to retain they can certainly afford to.
|
| Taiwan is not officially exporting talent to China.
|
| No country wants their best people to leave, US and
| countries have used their wealth to attract the best from
| developing countries and benefited immensely, china is also
| using a similar strategy
| Infinitesimus wrote:
| Given an ultimatum by whom? And is the ultimatum issuer OK
| with the other side of the coin? (That China will likely
| invade Taiwan the moment there's no global economic
| incentive not to?)
|
| Global politics are always very messy and ultimatums don't
| help.
| threeseed wrote:
| It doesn't make any business sense at all.
|
| Huawei doesn't have much of a future outside of China and the
| increasing distrust towards CPP doesn't look like changing this
| anytime soon.
|
| So why would you want to help them out instead of trying to win
| business from US/EU companies who are desperately looking to
| diversify.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| That is a very western-centric view. Outside of the west and
| India, Huawei is still going strong. Support for China is
| quite high in the middle east and in Africa, where many
| people are skeptical of western narratives about China.
|
| Furthermore, Huawei isn't the only Chinese party that needs
| advanced chips. Other Chinese phone makers such as Oppo and
| Xiaomi aren't banned. But they have become wary of US
| dependence and are seeking to decouple their semiconductor
| supply chain from the US. To them, while Korean suppliers are
| more risky than Chinese suppliers (which still need time to
| catch up), it's still less risky than TSMC.
| throwaway4good wrote:
| Exactly. If Korean semi can position itself correctly it
| has a massive opportunity.
| threeseed wrote:
| This comment would have been more accurate a year or two
| ago.
|
| But with the Belt and Road Initiative struggling to deliver
| on many of its infrastructure projects countries are
| increasingly reluctant to get back into bed with China.
| More so now that the world has seen what happens if you
| don't bow down to China's every demand i.e. Australian
| style economic blackout.
|
| My point still stands that if I was a fab right now I would
| be far more attracted to the growth prospects of US/EU
| companies than Chinese ones.
| FooBarWidget wrote:
| What do you make of RCEP then?
| eunos wrote:
| >Belt and Road Initiative struggling
|
| I've seen this narrative along with CPEC failure, but is
| it? Considering that US wants to join the infrastructure
| development game indicates it unlikely.
| threeseed wrote:
| It's struggling because of poor management, mismatch in
| goals and debt-trap style financing.
|
| Countries are looking at what happened in places like Sri
| Lanka [1] and pulling out.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/25/world/asia/china-sri-
| lank...
| mlindner wrote:
| > Support for China is quite high in the middle east and in
| Africa, where many people are skeptical of western
| narratives about China.
|
| Which is unfortunate for them I suppose as they'll have to
| learn the hard way just like the west has learned.
| adventured wrote:
| Strategically it wouldn't make sense. South Korea shouldn't do
| that because the US is their defense umbrella and helping China
| in such a manner would go against the spirit of that pact, de
| facto helping to undermine the containment system being placed
| on China by the West.
| baybal2 wrote:
| > de facto helping to undermine the containment system being
| placed on China by the West.
|
| Tell it to every US ally trying its hardeest to play the
| situation
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