PC Makers Run Short of Popular Drives

Lucas123 writes "The impact from the monsoonal flooding in Thailand over the past three months is now being felt by users as computer system manufacturers are unable to meet supply needs. Lenovo told its corporate customers this week that is has run out of a number of drives including several types of 7200rpm and 5400rpm HDDs. 'Akin to the hysteria when banks defaulted in the 1930[s], PC orders across the industry are being placed for which HD supply does not exist,' a Lenovo rep wrote to his clients. IDC this week said the HDD shortages that have resulted from the flooding of four major Thailand industrial parks will likely be felt into 2013. Western Digital and Toshiba have been hit the hardest. PC shipments are also expected to fall short by 3.8 million units in the first quarter of 2012 due to component supply shortages. Meanwhile, there has been some indication of retail HDD price stabilization, but for some of the most popular hard drives prices continue to soar."

Comments

Re:Consumption tax on whose backs?

[MimeticLie]

I'd take anything said by the proponents of any proposal with a grain of salt. Let's see what FactCheck.org has to say (emphasis mine):

With the prebate program in effect, those earning less than $15,000 per year would see their share of the federal tax burden drop from -0.7 percent to -6.3 percent. Of course, if the poorest Americans are paying less under the FairTax plan, then someone else pays more. As it turns out, according to the Treasury Department, “someone else” is everybody earning between $15,000 and $200,000 per year.

Which seems to contradict your statement about saving money until you look at this graph, which includes payroll taxes. So, yes, someone like you making more than $74,000 would save money. As would someone making less than $24,000. However, the $24,000 - $74,000 group (let's call them the lower-middle class) are the ones paying for it. That doesn't sit well with me.

Moreover, I'm not convinced that abolishing corporate taxes would bring all those American manufacturing jobs streaming back. For something like software development, where you'd be paying a high wage to your employees no matter where you were located, sure. But manufacturing? Even with 0% corporate taxes, American labor still costs a hell of a lot more than Chinese or Thai labor.