Hard-drive prices going up due to Thailand floods

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5 points·a_bonobo··4 comments

Manufacturing of Japanese-branded hard drives is big business in Thailand.

I have a friend in Bangkok who works for Seagate. He is Thai, and a brilliant engineer – hard working, smart, young and the kind of person any company would be lucky to have.

I think we are seeing now how important Thai industry is to the worldwide hard drive market.

On a somewhat related note, his family is fairly wealthy (by Thai standards) because they run factories that manufacture lots of random stuff. They once told me that they have 6 months to get products to market before the Chinese copy it. Compared to a Thai manufacturer, Chinese factory labor "is effectively free" – their words.

My folks and older sister have been affected by the floods. They've had to evacuate as the water levels in their area have risen. It's really bad right now. Here are some photos from someone there: http://www.flickr.com/photos/69324373@N07/with/6303088355/

I was in Thailand recently and it struck me that Japan is one of the biggest victims in terms of economy. Japan has a lot of factories in Thailand and it seems that after the earthquake and nuclear meltdown disasters they now also can add floods to that list, as odd as that sound.

Things are very, very bad in Japan. Big Japanese companies outsource tons of stuff to small Japanese companies and companies outside the country. Those small businesses are folding fast. I know someone in Japan who went from a long, wildly-successful run in his business (he employed around 40 people) to bankrupt within 6 months this year because of cancelled orders from big manufacturers.

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