[throwaway94275]

"Monopoly" means one seller, so you can't say multiple X makes a monopoly and make sense. You probably mean collusion.

If demand exceeds supply, either prices rise or supply falls, causing shortages. Directly controlling sellers (prices) or buyers (rationing) results in black markets unless enforcement has enough strength and integrity. The required strength and integrity seems to scale exponentially with the value of the good, so it's typically effectively impossible to prevent out-of-spec behavior for anything not cheap.

If everyone wants chips, semiconductor manufacturing supply should be increased. Governments should subsidize domestic semiconductor industries and the conditions for them to thrive (education, etc.) to meet both goals of domestic and economic security, and do it in a way that works.

The alternative is decreasing demand. Governments could hold bounty and incentive programs for building electronics that last a long time or are repairable or recyclable, but it's entirely possible the market will eventually do that.

[rileymat2]

> If everyone wants chips, semiconductor manufacturing supply should be increased. Governments should subsidize domestic semiconductor industries and the conditions for them to thrive (education, etc.) to meet both goals of domestic and economic security, and do it in a way that works.

If there is already demand at this inflated price, shouldn’t we ask why more capacity is not coming online naturally first?

[kaoD]

> If there is already demand at this inflated price, shouldn’t we ask why more capacity is not coming online naturally first?

...and why it has been consistently the case for a long while.