We were talking here about whether it is necessary for the government to intervene because of rising prices for consumer electronics, particularly high-end Apple products.

In that context, it is not only technically true that you do not need to buy those products. This simply does not strike me as an issue where the government would need to step in and regulate the market.

> because of rising prices for consumer electronics, particularly high-end Apple products

Here's your problem. This is not a consumer or Apple-specific issue whatsoever. Computing hardware is critical infrastructure in the digital age. The AI boom is inflating the cost of almost all compute for every business, including the cost of all cloud computing.

It's alot like housing, in that the average cost of housing directly inflates the average cost of living, impacting the poorer many orders of magnitude more than the richer. When all governments, companies, and individuals depend on computers to amplify productivity or deliver services, a significant increase in price will impact every government, company, and indiviudal.

An extremely small number of individuals or orgs being able to dramatically impact critical infra, and the cost of living – regardless of why – is a major national security and supply chain failure. This is the entire reason why monopolies and too-big-to-fail entities are bad for everyone, and anti-trust laws were created to being with; to prevent an extreme minority from influencing markets in such a way that it is detrimental to consumers and other market players or sectors.

The Chinese won’t be sitting around? They will consider it a vital area. And they will keep the engines going sitting back and daydreaming will only leave you further behind…

I don’t think government needs to get involved in the West, but some of those companies affected that have the resources are gonna have to reconfigure themselves and design around the three memory companies. The Chinese certainly will.