semi_guy

hexclock said:

foregoneconclusion said:

The 2017 tax cuts that CEOs used for stock buybacks are due to expire. These are the same tax cuts that the Fed predicted would increase inflation. Go figure…

Reducing the corporate tax rate to compete with other countries allowed  US companies to repatriate billions of dollars back to the United States. 

According to the CBO those tax cuts increased federal tax revenue because the economy grew. Inflation came from all the crazy spending congress has done over the last few years, starting during the pandemic. 

I was part of a big semiconductor company. For the past decade, we told upper management they needed to increase semiconductor factories since semiconductor content was increasing at exponential rates. They denied saying it was risky, even though data showed semiconductor content was not decreasing even in a recession. Then big tax breaks, we repeated the need that semiconductors are increasing and we were at capacity. Upper management invested the tax saving in buying back stock to prop up stock prices. Not in increasing salaries, nor expanding factories. Many of those VPs retired recently with large stock sells.  Then COVID hit when semiconductor plants were at capacity. Upper management saw a great opportunity to increase prices since all companies were desperate to acquire devices. In fact, we were told that the most profitable devices would be allocated production, so it became a race to increase prices to maintain customers and product lines. Researching other semiconductor competitors, we found the whole industry was doing the same.

How about suing the state of Texas for not placing laws against distracted driving, the car company for not placing anti-collision technology in the car to prevent stupid people from slamming into the back of another car, the family of the driver for not teaching the dangers of distracted driving to their kids, and all cell phone companies for not turning off all calling and texting features when the phones are traveling at high speeds. All this has been known, explained, and developed for over 20 years, but let's try a ridiculous lawsuit and blame stupidity on someone else.

i heard that same NPR interview yesterday with Munchkin CEO. His points are comments were identical as those expressed with other small and medium size businesses. They have spent significant capital setting molds and equipment in China. That equipment, tools, and molds cannot be exported, and the current administration is not even addressing the simple problem of visa/license/export issues. In addition to those simple issues, there greater problem is that there are no equivalent factories, trained workforce, or supply chain. Those take years to create, debug, and train. In the meantime, those businesses stopped ordering and there will be a shortage of items in 60 days. The lead time once orders start is 45 days, with the waffling of red light/green light on tariff, no company is going to start orders. The lack of material will even drive prices much higher than the tariff, and worse than in COVID. Those companies without revenue will laid off people, close, or go bankrupt.

He doesn't know what he is talking about! He complains that MacBook Pro has a poor performing DAC that converts all those digital bits into an analog signal. No audio producer is going to directly plug in a recording system, mixing board, or mic input to the analog audio output of any computer. These under $2 DACs are 100-110 dB SNR. They are not bad, but they are not great, just good enough. First, computers have a lot of inherent noise with those chargers banging away, then processors running at hight speed with a lot of ground noise, added with LCD displays, etc. In summary, Laptops are inherently noisy. Second, an audio expert, would keep its music digital and connect to a pro-audio interface for final analog recording. But who converts their digital audio into an analog recording these days? This digital audio is transcoded into different sample rates and bit widths at the end product to maintain the most resolution of the audio signal. Third, at his age and exposure to loud noises from his many concerts, his hearing has the high probability of being damaged. Some people claim he wears a hearing aid. By the way, today's best hearing aids only operate for speech, (bandwidth of 4KHz), not the full audio spectrum. It is hard to amplify frequencies that are so damaged you can't hear them at any volume.

dominikhoffmann said:

Tariffs are only one factor in the multi-variate input to producer pricing. Importers may adjust prices and their suppliers, too. Disbursements of ERS income to citizens via tax cuts will allow consumers to more easily absorb higher pricing. In other words a x% import tariff may not necessarily lead to a consumer price multiplier of (1 + x / 100). We will just have to wait and see how it plays out.

At this point the priority is strengthening the domestic manufacturing base. This is important to the U.S. workforce, as well as strategically. In the case of a conflict with China, what use will cheap aspirin be, if it has led to there not being any functional chemical plants in the U.S., anymore, that make other important medications?

Let’s not bitch about a 10% tariff, when the last four years brought us > 25% inflation on groceries, which make for a much larger proportion of a family’s budget than an iPhone or two a year. For the one there are very well-reasoned economic policy drivers, for the other there were several very boneheaded and potentially intentionally destructive ones.

Last month, egg prices had the greatest increase ever. Yet, no clear directive on how to address HPAI. Inflation continues to increase. but current administration wastes time on renaming the gulf, pardoning criminals that beat up police, alienating our closest allies with stupid trade wars (to get what previous administration got by nicely asking), and firing thousands of workers. Just like everyone expected! Hope you like continued inflation because nothing is being done to address it and it is going to get worse with these policies.

r002092 said:

Also… the virus was suppressed outside our doors because we were huddled inside our homes… granted effective test and trace from the outset MAY have prevented that but we actually have no way of knowing that for sure, since the only thing that has really been shown to suppress the spread in any country has included an element of mass isolation

If we actually had done that we would not be dealing with this virus a year later. But that was impossible, people need to get food and groceries, many had to work, many had to care for those that got sick and family members that could care for themselves, many still disobeyed the rules and went out to rallies, parties, and spring breaks, and so on. If all the people that went out actually wore masks and kept social distance, then this virus would have been wiped out in a few weeks. Sadly, many did not believe the virus, much less wearing masks and compromised the rest.

Moreover, if the virus did not spread by asymptomatic carriers, it would be easy to spot who was contagious and keep distant while in public. Contact tracing is to identify those that really need to isolate and follow the rules because someone next to them was asymptomatic, did not wear a mask properly, or kept socially distant and could have potentially transmitted it to the user.

Many factors:

• Raw material and their scarcity have driven semiconductor prices up. 
• Covid-19 related expenses (more masks, hand sanitizer, more cleaning, divisors, better filters, greater health insurance costs, etc). 
• Higher gas prices have led to higher shipping costs. Many semiconductors are manufactured in one place (Taiwan, US, Korea, Japan, China, Germany, France, Italy, etc.), but assembled (placed into a package) and tested in another country (Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, etc.)
• Labor costs have gone up as well since low unemployment leads to increases in pay to keep current workers or might need to pay more in high risk Covid-19 areas where the workers are exposed to greater risk.