Thread

1. cmiles8 · 1790356168 · focus · HN ↗

   With all the regulations nobody in their right mind would build a fab in Europe.

   Europe is increasingly relying on the rest of the world to supply it with critical things. It’s FAFOed with regulations that have driven these things elsewhere and now is heading into a “FO” world of hurt as the tables are turned and they desperately need things and have to pay the price. This will likely define the next 20 years in Europe.

   1. simonask · 1790492954 · focus · HN ↗

      Europe, like the US, is rich because it outsources lower-value production and focuses on higher value targets.

      Chip production is not nearly as high in value as all the things you can build with those chips.

      Local production is about supply chain security, not profit. Europe doesn’t mind one bit paying for chips produced somewhere else, but it does mind a world order where global trade is unreliable.

      1. EdiX · 1790508473 · focus · HN ↗

         If we did mind a world were global trade was unreliable we have a military to match that concern, but we don't. The Houthi close the red sea for years and we can't do anything about it. Iran, attacked by the US, retaliates against us by closing the strait of Hormutz and we sit in the monitoring chair.

         It is what it is.

         1. simonask · 1790514537 · focus · HN ↗

            Don’t buy too much into the propaganda. Back when the US was a reliable partner that still understood how much it was gaining from global trade, it would have been idiotic to focus on building European military capability.

            The thing that seems to have changed is that both the US and Russia are determined to destroy their own future.

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