General > General Technical Chat

What's actually "chip shortage"?

<< < (8/13) > >>

David Hess:

--- Quote from: Marco on June 10, 2021, 06:22:23 pm ---One major advantage of a national supply chain ... you can centrally plan stuff. Rationing versus hoarding and creating lottery winners.
--- End quote ---

Central planning invariably leads to rent seeking and ignoring economics, making the situation worse.  For example anti-gouging laws prevent reallocation of scares resources through arbitrage, and that happens during every emergency, where politicians make it worse.


--- Quote from: TimFox on June 10, 2021, 08:50:51 pm ---Back in grad school (physics), when conversing with economics students, I discovered that most economics situations are equivalent to either relaxation oscillators or forced damped harmonic oscillators.  The latter are usually underdamped.
--- End quote ---

And they include significant nonlinearities including behaviors like clipping and latchup.


--- Quote from: RoGeorge on June 10, 2021, 10:19:26 pm ---- The car industry explanation doesn't make any sense.  Less chips for cars would mean more chips for other industries.
--- End quote ---

But with such long leadtimes, it initially means initial loss of capacity from delay.


--- Quote ---- The "people stay home buying electronic gizmos" is also hard to believe.  What I see is exactly the opposite, people being more careful when spending for non essential goods.  Not many will impulse buy today a $2k gaming rig like it's 2019.
--- End quote ---

Many people were forced to work from home and they made purchases to support this.  There was a significant jump in purchases for personal computer hardware.


--- Quote from: johnboxall on June 11, 2021, 12:08:04 am ---
--- Quote from: RoGeorge on June 10, 2021, 10:19:26 pm ---- The "people stay home buying electronic gizmos" is also hard to believe.  What I see is exactly the opposite, people being more careful when spending for non essential goods.  Not many will impulse buy today a $2k gaming rig like it's 2019.
--- End quote ---

Depends on the country, this is true in Australia. WFH cleaned out places like Officeworks and other home/office gear retailers. We waited three months to get the new TV we wanted.
--- End quote ---

That was sure true where I am near St. Louis.  The stock of computer hardware in retail stores including office supply stores was bought up early in the pandemic.  It only marginally affected the two systems I got around November because I always build my own systems, but I still had problems finding parts like cases and GPUs.

Marco:

--- Quote from: coppice on June 10, 2021, 07:19:50 pm ---Central planning always does wonders for smooth predictable supply. :)

--- End quote ---

Sometimes it works. Partial central planning during WW2 in UK/US/Germany can't really be compared to say Mao's melting plowhshares.

coppice:

--- Quote from: Marco on June 11, 2021, 12:22:54 pm ---
--- Quote from: coppice on June 10, 2021, 07:19:50 pm ---Central planning always does wonders for smooth predictable supply. :)

--- End quote ---
Sometimes it works. Partial central planning during WW2 in UK/US/Germany can't really be compared to say Mao's melting plowhshares.

--- End quote ---
Central planning by the military isn't really central panning at all. Its just the customer saying what they need.

Marco:
They want infinity of everything, they need to balance the importance of the existing economy too, impact on the population and balance the conflicting impacts on the supply chain of all their demands.

They didn't just print money and try to let the market figure it out, it wouldn't have worked either, the market can't adapt on such short time frames. Rationing and central planning was widespread.

David Hess:

--- Quote from: Marco on June 11, 2021, 12:22:54 pm ---Sometimes it works. Partial central planning during WW2 in UK/US/Germany can't really be compared to say Mao's melting plowhshares.
--- End quote ---

I would say they are directly comparable.  Central planning by Germany during WW2 destroyed their logistics and production, but even more so than the UK and US:

https://youtu.be/1Oc_lFmp6vQ
https://youtu.be/CvHd1b20wdc

I would go further and say that discounting the logistical problem by Germany is what made an invasion of the Soviet Union seem feasible, when it should have been plain that it was not.  The logistical officers told them that before operation Barbarossa, but what did they know?

The same thing happens in response to natural disasters in the US.  Price controls to prevent price gouging discourage corrective actions that the free market might take, like shipping in additional supplies.  The free market correctly recognizes that situation as a loss, and avoids it resulting in greater shortages.  Of course then the free market takes the blame for not operating in a market controlled by politicians.

Navigation

[0] Message Index

[#] Next page

[*] Previous page

There was an error while thanking
Thanking...
Go to full version
Powered by SMFPacks Advanced Attachments Uploader Mod