Construction costs are currently skyrocketing

Should I mention that explicitly?

Are you building new? I would plan it in right away. For us, it’s being installed in a 101-year-old house. In our case, in a load-bearing wall because we have vaults underneath. In a new building, it probably shouldn’t be a problem, but I’m not a structural engineer.

A friend who works at Stiebel Eltron reports similar, the production capacities are absolutely maxed out.

On "Face Buch" I have been observing for a few weeks that there are companies that have ordered heat pumps in stock and now have to get rid of them since there are fewer new buildings. You just must not focus too much on one manufacturer. especially when the house gets cold.

So at least with industrial automation components the situation is slowly improving a little. One no longer generally waits for all components for 1 year or more. Taiwan and China have been rattling their sabers for decades. Taiwan is much, much more important than Ukraine and will be defended by the USA. China knows that. And China is still far from being technologically advanced enough to take on the USA in an open battle in the South China Sea and clearly win the battle.

At least in the case of industrial automation components, the situation is slowly improving a bit. One no longer has to generally wait for all components for 1 year or more.

That would be desirable because without control and regulation systems, even the prettiest machine doesn't run. My sister works in project management at a machine manufacturer and already told me some time ago that certain manufacturers can hardly deliver and that switching suppliers is extremely difficult.

Taiwan and China have been rattling their sabers for decades. Taiwan is much, much more important than Ukraine and will be defended by the USA. China knows this. And China is still technologically far from being able to engage the USA in an open battle in the South China Sea and clearly win the battle.

I almost share your belief, but I still fear a bit that by the year 2049 China will annex Taiwan. THEN not only Europe’s lights will go out. You can’t build up chip capacities elsewhere in 10 years. But then I’ll be over 80, I’ll snuggle under a blanket and listen to WDR4.

People also once thought that you couldn’t build a car manufacturer from scratch in 20 years. Or that rockets could land again after launch. When I was in my basic studies, in 2007, it was said that structure widths <10nm were physically impossible... today we are heading towards 900pm.

Everyone said it wouldn’t work. Impossible. Then someone came along who didn’t know that and just did it...

PS: TSMC alone doesn’t help China much at first. On the one hand, the factories would be destroyed in a war, by one of the two sides. On the other hand: TSMC is a contract manufacturer, they build the chips but don’t develop any. Design, programming, that experience sits in Santa Clara (Intel, AMD, Nvidia), Cupertino (Apple), Munich (Siemens), etc.

The other question is whether the USA would really risk an open war to defend Taiwan. That would then be the first open war between nuclear powers and that is a whole different league. So far, such conflicts have always been degraded to proxy wars with weapons aid, but an island is much easier to isolate than, for example, Ukraine with land borders to NATO. On the other hand, China is economically nothing without exports and it is not to be expected that they would still have a larger market. In this respect, in my opinion, the question of if and what will happen is completely open.