The now-rich countries got where they are today by speculating in prices in commodities and maintaining a wide variety of protective tariffs, not lasseiz-faire capitalism. They only adopted the current policies after they already had a comfortable position and wanted to defend it.
Contrary to what most people think.
See "Kicking out the Ladders" by Ha-Joon Chang Its a very informative book. He has done lots of YouTube videos too.
The weird market is not only exploding, it's doing better than the authorized distributors, since the bastards bought all of the supplies for various chips and are now selling them at insane prices. A chip that normally costs ~5 USD is now being offered for ~120 USD by certain vendors, who seem to have incredible amounts of it and it was certainly not bought out by them in order to screw everyone over, further amplifying the ongoing shitstorm. I do hope that they get eaten by rabid gerbils or some such.
It's a shame anti-hoarding laws were only used for toilet paper and masks.
In a supply crisis the efficient market hypothesis is bull. Rationing is the economically optimal way to assign supply, not driving everyone without the size to deal directly with manufacturers (who are rationing among their customers) or very deep pockets out of business.
Food and water security is a sort of similar issue since corporations are legally now people and hoarding (or speculating on food commodity prices) is controversial, depending on who you speak to such speculation is a sacred right that must be preserved, or "hoarding" and a predatory activity that causes people to starve and die if they cannot pay whatever is demanded of them for the scarce commodity. One doesnt have to look far back into the future to see truly horrible moments when millions of people died because of food speculation. I don't think there are any international laws restricting electronics parts hoarding, even though juridical person's (companies) lives depend on the supply of parts. Maybe there should be?
I was able to find this..
Safeguarding food security in volatile global markets
https://www.fao.org/3/i2107e/i2107e10.pdfIts somewhat similar to the water mining issue, but its not as dire.