- The car industry explanation doesn't make any sense. Less chips for cars would mean more chips for other industries.
- The "people stay home buying electronic gizmos" is also hard to believe. What I see is exactly the opposite, people being more careful when spending for non essential goods. Not many will impulse buy today a $2k gaming rig like it's 2019.
- Just in time delivery can only explain delays at the end of chain, but won't explain a general shortage.
- Oscillations in the system doesn't make sense. With constant production and oscillations of demand we should see stock of some other parts piling up, but I don't see that.
Other explanations would make more sense, the most probable causes IMO could be:
1. Enforced scarcity (for political reasons, Taiwan is a hot area for some time)
2. Monopoly industries want to raise prices (it was about time to happen after so many industry consolidations)
3. Some new big centralized buyer(s) appeared overnight, for example military spending
Could also be because of a dystopian level story we are not yet fully aware. For example some nation(s) might be heavily manufacturing surveillance equipment right now, to be deployed soon and enforced by law, then connected later with big data and autonomous AI weapons.
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