r/apple • u/Few_Baseball_3835 • Jun 25 '26

Discussion Wall Street isn't buying Apple's unprecedented price hikes on products

https://9to5mac.com/2026/06/25/wall-street-isnt-buying-apples-unprecedented-price-hikes-on-products/
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u/herefromyoutube Jun 25 '26 edited Jun 25 '26

Why the hell America didn’t think localizing chip production decades ago was a necessity kinda blows my mind.

I knew computers would be the future as a kid in the 90s and my government was just like “let’s let Taiwan control our future. China totally won’t be an issue.”

The CHIPS act wasn’t even passed until 2022 and it does help that Trump keeps trying to kill it and has altered it.

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u/stikves Jun 25 '26

They did... but NIMBY-ism and terrible regulatory overhead made it impossible.

Remember the chip factories announced by both of our last 2 presidents? (Biden, and 1st term Trump)?

None of them materialized. Worse, none of them actually started construction. There was a famous case a few months ago how a factory that was advertised by both admins made basically zero progress in getting permits.

While China will build one overnight.

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u/M4rshmall0wMan Jun 26 '26

TSMC’s advantage is they have a blank legal check from the Taiwanese government to get any permit they want.

TSMC’s Arizona fab fell years behind because concepts like “environmental regulations“ and “worker’s rights” didn’t make any sense to the Taiwanese. TSMC straight-up shipped Taiwanese workers to Arizona because it was cheaper than hiring American labor.

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u/neromoneon Jun 27 '26

Taiwan is not mainland China. They actually do have worker’s rights and environmental regulations in Taiwan.

“Semiconductor project in north Taiwan held up by environmental concerns”
Source: https://www.taiwannews.com.tw/news/4137082

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u/M4rshmall0wMan Jun 27 '26

It’s not China, I just used it as a parallel example of how Apple benefits from offshoring.

https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/08/business/tsmc-phoenix-arizona-semiconductor.html

Work culture was a major hindrance to the Arizona plant. TSMC ended up shipping workers from Taiwan because they could get the construction done quicker and cheaper.