>When China invades Taiwan and the US military destroys the TSMC fabs

I'm shocked the sentiment has gone so quickly from "things that are not gonna happen" to "just in case" to "when". Every armchair politician on HN for the last 5 years has been regurgitating -- island is too far from China for a sea invasion, straight of malaka consequences etc

The state of the world five years ago was drastically different to what it is today. Being a warmongerer and dictating diplomatic affairs with real mobilization of brute force has become a lot more realistic and practical now.

China is serious about their One China policy and it's only a question of when they think it's their moment to strike. Russia has already demonstrated for them, sacrificial lamb style, that warmongering does not actually carry significant penalties on the world stage if you're already estranged from the west to begin with.

And before anyone says I'm a Russian and/or Chinese apologist: No. I fucking hate this state of affairs. I would much prefer a world in which we can live in relative peace. Sadly, we aren't and can't back(ing) up our desires and demands for peace with tangible repercussions against those that violate it.

"Massive chip crisis" doesn't even begin to describe it. This would be a catastrophe worse than the great depression, on a globl scale. Every single electronic item would be rationed. Consumer appliance purchases would barely exist. You would be using the same phone/laptop/etc. for 10 years.

10 years seems a bit pessimistic. Building a new fab takes about five years I believe.

Yeah but think of how long it will take for the ripples to settle, if it ever could in our lifetime. We're still dealing with supply shocks from the initial panic around COVID and no fab capacity was actually lost then.