Raw Materials -> America: +Tariffs
Incomplete chips -> Taiwan: ++Tariffs
Complete chips -> America: +++Tariffs
Seems rather wasteful.
this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2025
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Dumbass shipping route, just tunnel through.
imagine how much easier it would be if the world weren't flat
That only helps if you forget Africa exists
It would be so much easier if there world was inside out. Then we could just drop the pears to each country.
Oh fuck, Drop Pears now too?
I needed this laugh today, thank you.
This is of course drawing lines on a projected globe, rather than straight lines on a round globe. But the reality is not much better—Argentina is almost exactly on the other side of the planet from Thailand. 🫣 Thailand's antipode is just off the coast of Peru, so very close to Argentina.
Really, really irresponsible use of resources. Especially if these pears are shipped by sea. Then it's even worse.
Especially if these pears are shipped by sea. Then it’s even worse.
Shipping via sea is the cheapest and least greenhouse gas producing way to ship things. With the only exception being pipes, which are significantly better than ships on both fronts. However, we shouldn't be shipping peaches via pipe. ;p
Transoceanic pipe cargo lines could be nice. Vacuuming cargo out, pushing in. Like trains, except with no life support concerns.
Someone is dropping pennies in the vacuum tubes again! Now the whole thing is jammed and we've got cargo backed up all the way to Guam!!
And yes Bob, we all know it was you!
We absolutely should so I can put the end of that pipe in my mouth
You have died of dysentery.
Fucking rad
Also reminds me of this lmao
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(13 replies)
The fact that the result can apparently still manage to show up in a store cheaper than peaches grown and packed locally just goes to show how fucked up the economics in Argentina and Thailand are.
The economy of the entire globe is designed to siphon money into the West. Third world nations largely aren’t responsible for the failures of their economies, it’s mostly because the West is doing imperialism.
Good luck trying to convince people in the West to downgrade their lifestyle. Talk about not flying to some remote island off the coast of Africa or Asia for vacation and you're looked at like a fucking heathen. Revolution cannot come soon enough.
For whatever reason, this method was deemed cheaper. Resources cost money, and you can count on business not blowing money for giggles. You never know what weird shit goes on behind the scenes in a trade you're not familiar with.
Hard to imagine a case for this one though! I fear there may be government fuckery like tariffs involved.
So, now they get shipped back and forth across the Pacific...twice? Wow. So much "winning".
I think it could pressure the us to produce more things fully domestically
If that were possible, they wouldn't be shipping the back to Taiwan for final processing.
I meant like it puts pressure on the us to make things so they can make things on their own
But if they can't make those things on their own, then that added pressure just breaks things, making them less efficient and more expensive.
I mean, if you compare a ton of tropical wood or fruit to a ton of microchips, the value of the latter is so much better, that this is not such a problem. There will still be some logistical overhead even if much of the processes will happen in the USA. These are supply chains more complex than anything in our daily lives.
FYI, about half of Nvidia cards are assembled in China. The PCB, cooling, capacitors and voltage regulators are made in China, regardless of assembly location.
Most of these components could easily be made elsewhere, albeit at a higher cost.
Meaning China is doing what Lenin wanted to do at some point - to use some basic laws of globalization (then imperialism) to kill its source. Formulated as "they will sell us the rope to hang them", and didn't transpire. But, well, Lenin planned for NEP to last till 80s, and then start all the socialist reforms in the society. Then he died. Together with most of those famous Bolsheviks from Soviet movies about the revolution. All from different reasons in a few years.
In this case rejecting the logistical and power benefits from using Chinese labor and facilities seems impossible as of now for Western economies.
back when i was doing research for the DoD, we would order the PCBs we designed from an authorized US supplier, and we would assemble them with our reflow oven, cuz China was a no-no. Also, PCB assembly is so automated that probably labor cost isn't important anymore, but the supply chain benefits of Shenzhen still win from the logistics perspective
Assembly is relatively straightforward, but sourcing all the components locally is likely getting harder and harder. Granted, for DoD contract reasons there's likely a cottage industry that relies on government rules to keep things onshore. That's part of the reason why we still have some made in the USA clothing.
This is worth a listen or a watch if you're interested.
There’s a huge difference between making a PCB and a modern processor.
FYI, this is an AI specific chip. US manufacturing still has supply issues with low tech, cheap chips .
Driving up the cost
I don’t know much about manufacturing chips, but if this is just an incremental step towards Taiwan not being a single point of failure and there will be sustained progress in this direction, then this seems like a worthwhile achievement. Obviously getting the supply chains in place and fully duplicating the manufacturing capabilities that exist in Taiwan would be quite a complex endeavor that won’t happen overnight (if ever), so incremental progress like this is about what I’d expect.
So just the easy part lmao
reason #89489734874 why amd is superior
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