From the site: "The Librem 5 USA has Made in USA Electronics with all fabrication and manufacturing done at the Purism facility. Individual components used in fabrication are sourced direct from chip makers and parts distributors. We use US companies with US fabrication whenever possible. Most distributors are based in the US with the exception of large integrated circuits that are made in a variety of countries where those companies do fabrication (US, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan); an example is the NXP CPU we use from their fabrication in South Korea.
While we source chips that are made in the US whenever possible, chip country of origin is not nearly as meaningful as country of board fabrication, especially when all chips are verified hardware circuits that are driven by free software in the kernel."
That's actually worse than it seems on the surface. $1,600 might seem only twice as expensive as a "normal" phone (eg. iPhone 16, $799), but if you look at the specs it's much closer to a low-end phone that sells for >$100. For instance the redmi a3[1] sells for ~$75 and is better in every aspect CPU, GPU, display, memory, storage, battery.
Well is a phone this is trying to be as open as possible. That redmi phone has a completely closed CPU. The Purism deliberately chose their CPU for these reasons. My point was that the US is making phones. Its not zero. Its a start...
>or that they can't subsidize the cost with spying?
There's no evidence CCP is "subsidizing the cost with spying" when it comes to consumer electronics. Even when it came to telecom gear (during 5G rollout in developed countries), concerns were mostly theoretical.
I didn't mean the CCP and by spying I meant harvesting user data for ads. We were talking about why a US built phone is so expensive (Librem) compared to say Samsung, LG, etc. Are companies that aren't Purism offsetting their cost by harvesting juicy user data?
Usually a lot of "I would pay for a phone if it were made in the USA" people disappear once "here's a phone made in the USA" actually shows up. It's usually just bullshit.
Hopefully not since you can validate it at a deeper level down to the kernel modules I believe. Thats why they chose this anemic CPU I think: no binary blobs. Wasn't Anom encrypted with "trust me bro" style security by obscurity?
The US can make cellphones, its just not efficient for the US to make cellphones because the US’s comparative advantage is elsewhere.
What it would take for the US to make cellphones is direct subsidy to the (inefficient, and for that reason likely therefore doomed by the market without artificial support, since there is robust competition) US firms doing so.
Of course, not only would this cost the amount of the subsidy, but the amount of the lost opportunities in places where the US has comparative advantages foregone to provide the subsidy.
The question then is why would you want to do this?
Producing real things is not just a matter of money. You need know-how and supply chains. These things left the US at least 10 years ago. It can get them back, but the costs will be staggering, and it would need to compete against China and other Asian countries.
Many of those Asian countries are our allies. If you want to argue for weapon or dual use stuff like drones that's one thing but I don't see how making cellphones help. Also we do make real things both physical and non physical
As the last 15 years has shown, being ally only works until US decides to choose themselves first. Even weird comments about Canada’s independence can sway population’s perception. There are genuine conversations about “maybe we shouldn’t have severed our ties with China” on the ground nowadays.
>> What would it take to get that capability back?
> The question then is why would you want to do this?
National security, obviously. Cell phones are a critical modern communication device, and whoever though it was a good idea to outsource that kind of thing political and economic rival was an idiot.
There's all kinds of accounts of past CIA/NSA daring-do where they used US-manufactured products to subvert rivals, and now we're going to get to be on the other end of that kind of thing.
Then there's the adding factor of it being kind of a good idea to have significant manufacturing capacity for the full-range of modern products located domestically or with allies in case the geopolitical SHTF.
You know, all that important stuff the market doesn't give a shit about, because it's a limited and imperfect system.
It's not economically optimal for one country to manufacture all the jewelry and its neighbour all the tanks, because this situation quickly becomes one country
> because this situation quickly becomes one country
i would argue this to be a good thing - a global "country". And yet, it is the human condition to separate tribally. It's why civilization can't advance more, until this becomes solved.
good thing we have more than two countries. in history, the jewelers generally tend to win because they just pay off some other tank building country - see Kuwait, for instance
The problem is we don't need efficiency, we need effectivity.
>The question then is why would you want to do this?
Because He Who Makes Leads The World. You can't and won't lead if you don't actually get your hands dirty and make shit. China is the world leading superpower now because they make everyone's shit, we are all beholden to them.
Mexico is ideal since you can ship partially assembled goods via truck or rail to and from Texas. It's easy to manage logistics and partnerships due to the close proximity.
A friend of mine has done logistics for years, getting raw materials (sheet metal) into Mexico, manufacturing the products there (mostly kitchen appliances), and shipping to the US. According to her, it's nearly impossible to make any significant progress in Mexico because there's so much corruption at all levels. She has to ship metal from Asia to Long Beach, then have it trucked down to Baja where it gets made into a product, then the product gets shipped back to the US for sale. Every couple of years there's talk of scaling up the ports at Ensenada so the shipments of metals can go directly to Mexico, but it never happens - locals get paid off, and nothing ever happens. I once asked how the Mexican officials can be so corrupt, that they would sabotage their own port improvements. She told me, "I wasn't talking about corrupt Mexicans. Do you think Long Beach is just gonna sit back and let the Ensenda take shipments from them?"
Mexico is now a hub for Chinese manufacturers. Just look at how they're developing the relationship: the materials are all from China and the market is the US. Vietnam is even more like that.
It’s easy, just make Americans poor enough that it makes sense to manufacture them here. Given that no one wants to pay more taxes or (realistically) cut spending, we’re well on our way.
+1, it’s truly like there are no adults at the helm any more.. nobody even talking about our fiscal path and that we need to raise taxes and scale back medicare/ss
What would it take to get that capability back?