Why would Apple repatriate their cash and pay any taxes?
I don’t understand why they would care to move the money out of the countries where they earned that money and are likely to be expanding more than they are in the U.S. anyways.
Cause the us is no save haven for money and ownership anymore? Look at other autocracies where the dictators give and take the riches ala russia.In a oligarchy with king, you are one bad emperor day at court away from loosing it.
Will not be great when China invades Taiwan and global supply of TSMC output evaporates as TSMC destroys the fabs to prevent takeover.
> Earlier this year, he said: "Disabling or destroying TSMC is table stakes if China is taking over Taiwan. Would we be so insane as to allow the world's key semiconductor company [to] fall untouched into the hands of an aggressive PRC? Taiwanese should realize that would be the least of their problems."
> Earlier this year, the US Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo told the House Appropriations Committee that a hypothetical Chinese invasion of Taiwan and seizure of TSMC would be “absolutely devastating” for the United States.
> She said that “the United States buys 92 percent of its leading edge chips from TSMC in Taiwan,” meaning any disruption to that supply chain would have a significant impact on the US economy
Trump doesn't give two shits about Taiwan. My guess is he'll break out his great negotiation skills to get China to … agree that Taiwan is part of China and that we should pay them more for chips (except he'll sell it to us as paying less by just flat out lying about it).
Any official US government foreign policy statements and stances became irrelevant in past month. Even russians struggle to change their internal narratives when trump within week switches from 'ukraine caused the war itself' to 'russia caused the war', then back, then to XYZ, and they specifically are very... flexible with official truths.
Its really the mood of the given day of one man, known for his wild emotional swings which rule most if not all of his decisions. Everybody understood the game quickly, leading people on all sides are not stupid in these matters. The rest are just official PR statements 'to keep face'.
The United States’ approach to Taiwan has remained consistent across decades and administrations. The United States has a longstanding one China policy, which is guided by the Taiwan Relations Act, the three Joint Communiques, and the Six Assurances. We continue to have an abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait. We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side. We expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means, free from coercion, in a manner acceptable to the people on both sides of the Strait. Consistent with the Taiwan Relations Act, the United States makes available defense articles and services as necessary to enable Taiwan to maintain a sufficient self-defense capability – and maintains the capacity to resist any resort to force or other forms of coercion that would jeopardize the security, or the social or economic system, of the people on Taiwan.
Keep in mind, that if we go to war with China, they'll probably have to reinstate the draft.
> Half the workers in the factory are brought in from Taiwan.
Thus depriving Taiwan of its much-needed intellectual and human capital to sustain its Silicon Shield defence strategy.
I frequently browse social media sites that are popular among the Taiwanese, and my impression is that they are generally unhappy about this state of affairs, seeing it as an act of economic coercion from the US.
Don't worry, at the rate the US is squandering it's political, cultural and economic capitol, the rest of the world won't need to care what the US thinks in a few months.
because if you look at Big Law, investment banking, or private equity, there are a lot of highly-educated Americans who are willing to work as hard as anyone on earth.
so it's got to be something about TSMC's recruiting pipeline, or perhaps what motivations the Americans who get educated for the skills they need have, rather than specifically American laziness.
It's very simple: the pay at TSMC is shit by American tech standards and Americans capable of doing the job generally have much better-paying options. Paying US-competitive salaries would basically double TSMC's labor cost.
Yeah, this is just simple principles: Garbage in, garbage out. If you're only offering little more pay than an entry level fast food worker, your quality and productivity will match that.
The real theme of the post-08 crash is "no one wants to pay americans anymore". And it's only been spreading from industry to industry as the billionaires figure out how to cut american labor but benefit from american consumerism.
That can only work, of course, until the American consumer is tapped out. The you get another crash.
America does have cost disease, but it’s from more than just politicians spending too much. It’s also things like NIMBYs restricting housing supply or the insane bureaucratic explosion in health care.
It's simpler principles: cost of living is different in different countries, and politicians generally get votes for promising to spend money (raising the cost of living) or doing other COL-raising activities, rather than to save it (thus potentially lowering it).
There are no solutions; only trade-offs. And the US, like many first world countries, has picked trade-offs that raise the average COL.
Why is that? If I replace a team of 20 admin staff with 3 admin staff and Microsoft Office licences to replace a paper filing system with a digital one, haven't I raised productivity and lowered prices?
Productivity increases -> wages go up -> "30% of salary on rent" goes up -> rent goes up -> cost of everything goes up
We could arrest pretty much all cost of living growth if all renters (both businesses and individuals) just decided not to continuously agree to pay higher prices for the same land/apartments/buildings.
> Productivity increases -> wages go up -> "30% of salary on rent" goes up -> rent goes up -> cost of everything goes up
Yes wages might go up (someone who can use Sharepoint[0] is probably more efficient than someone who can use a physical filing system) but you need far fewer people to do it. So costs can still go down.
> We could arrest pretty much all cost of living growth if all renters (both businesses and individuals) just decided not to continuously agree to pay higher prices for the same land/apartments/buildings.
I agree that most of cost of living is housing-related, but rent price increases are a function of population increasing faster than housing. That's the thing to address.
I didn't say the costs of individual items or services never go down, I said the "cost of living," i.e. broad-based growth in costs over long periods of time, goes up with productivity.
> I agree that most of cost of living is housing-related, but rent price increases are a function of population increasing faster than housing. That's the thing to address.
Yes we should build a whole lot more and it will slow residential price growth, but no, in general this will not actually reduce the cost of living. For example, this doesn't address the increased competition (i.e. increased prices) for commercial spaces, which gets baked into every coffee, garment, or meal you purchase.
Okay, but coffee and meals are luxuries to purchase, not necessities. And it's extremely clear that the thing that's rocketed up in price, and delivered less and less over time, has been housing. We (e.g. here in the UK) now pay far more than our grandparents did for smaller dwellings. This is the main cost of living increase. And it's baked into all goods you buy far more than commercial rent, because every employee in the supply chain has to be able to afford to live.
In finance you can strut around wall street and cause a bidding war. In chip design you can move your life to a specific shitsville to work for the other employer and get sued before they decide to close down again.
TSM has found few American workers willing to work inhumane 9/9/6 hours and still not pay rent. They also cannot threaten the CCP on them.
>So likely no great loss for hem.
This I agree with. This whole tariff deal was supposed to encourage this exact behavior. Have more foreign companies setup on american soil so they can provide american jobs. So we arguably lose out a lot more on this action.
That’s my exact point. The population isn’t all Chinese or considers themselves China. Taipei itself is divided into Japanese, Korean, and Chinese areas all with a distinct culture. There is also an evolving Taiwanese culture. The government is the Republic of China and is a completely different government. It broke away because it does not consider itself China or invest in those values. The island and nation are Taiwan. It is a complex situation for sure, but Taiwan is not China. Once you leave Customs/Immigration at a port you will not see China mentioned anywhere.
I highly disagree with a lot of this as you are intentionally downplaying my responses. I would suggest you go visit Taiwan and see how the people there feel about.
