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Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

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Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which will lead to an explosion of available labour, ready for hiring when things pick back up. The issue is whether governments will step in to provide sufficient unemployment / welfare benefits to bridge the gap.

Ahh yes, the benefits of mass unemployment and businesses shuttering! Always look on the bright side of life! https://youtu.be/SJUhlRoBL8M

There's the other extreme as well - being a cynic in all circumstances will leave you consistently feeling burnt out.

Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#52

We really need to get our factories out of China. This is a country that hid the coronavirus case for 2-3 weeks, let 5 million Wuhan residents leave the city, doctored numbers, then most recently had government press try to spin the disease as if it didn’t come out of Wuhan, but rather somewhere other countries!! And they are actively Forcing uigher population into crippled factories in eastern China to replace migra…

The US is literally doing the exact same thing right now.

I'm a bit surprised this is being downvoted. It's quite clear the federal government has been suppressing testing. (I assume that's what the comment refers to, not that the USA is forcing anyone to work in factories).

Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is literally doing the exact same thing right now.

I'd really like to start seeing less of this sort of comment on Hacker News. It's not even close to literally true.

The Republican talking points right now are that coronavirus doesn't really matter, and it's being blown up as a democratic attempt to have an election year topic.

When all my Republican family is spouting the same BS, that means it's being pushed hard in the soft right wing information channels.

EDIT: Even NBC news is hinting that government policies are getting in the way of determining real corona virus infection rates. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/n-y-gov-cuomo-questions...

The number of tested individuals are only about 2x the number of confirmed cases. Not a great margin of error.

Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#54
This is the cruel and predictable result of a society that has meticulously and senselessly offshored/outsourced most its industrial capacity. If your country can't manufacture, from raw materials, all the electrical/electronic/mechanical components, the tooling, the equipment, and the chemicals (industrial and pharmaceutical alike) it needs to keep everything running, you're dependent on these hyper-fragile and convoluted supply chains that are optimized for cost above everything.

This isn't a "China vs US" thing; i bear zero ill will towards China and their massive gain of industrial capacity, my ire is solely focused towards those in power (government and industry alike) who presided over the suicidal deindustrialization of the United States and Europe.

The net result is that it's China who's able to send medical aid (ventilators, masks, respirators, test kits, etc) to Italy, and not the US, if only because the US is incapable of meeting its own needs: https://twitter.com/VKJudit/status/1237448125800988675

Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#55
post #2

On the bright side, a disruption in supply may teach us what we really need, and what we don't need. Maybe after this breakout we'll realize the importance of slowing down, consuming less, and resting more.

I'm not sure why are you down-voted. I think slowing down, consuming less, is generally good for the whole Earth and its inhabitants.

[deleted]

Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#56
post #2

On the bright side, a disruption in supply may teach us what we really need, and what we don't need. Maybe after this breakout we'll realize the importance of slowing down, consuming less, and resting more.

I'm not sure why are you down-voted. I think slowing down, consuming less, is generally good for the whole Earth and its inhabitants.

Pretty sure the downvotes are for ignoring the elephant in the room, if we have a prolonged recession a lot of people in the US are completely fucked from losing healthcare and from losing the paycheck that they depend on. Most Americans do not have an emergency fund.

Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#57
post #3
post #2

On the bright side, a disruption in supply may teach us what we really need, and what we don't need. Maybe after this breakout we'll realize the importance of slowing down, consuming less, and resting more.

Which will lead to massive layoffs, starting with the most vulnerable (small businesses, hourly workers, etc)

It will also lead to less CO2 emissions.

Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#58

We really need to get our factories out of China. This is a country that hid the coronavirus case for 2-3 weeks, let 5 million Wuhan residents leave the city, doctored numbers, then most recently had government press try to spin the disease as if it didn’t come out of Wuhan, but rather somewhere other countries!! And they are actively Forcing uigher population into crippled factories in eastern China to replace migra…

It isn’t China’s fault that this disease happened to emerge in the country. And judging by what we see from other countries, their handling of it seems to be at least as good as mosts’, not even taking into account that countries like US had two months extra to prepare.

So maybe chill on the nationalism (and the exclamation marks)

Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It helps people not get severe cases of the flu, which means fewer healthcare resources, like hospital beds and medical personnel, being devoted to severe flu cases and more can be devoted to severe coronavirus cases.

In this regard, you are right, sorry. I'm just tired of hearing people around me going "I had my shots, I'm going to that party / going to that event" or "It's just a flu, nothing to worry about".

I for one wouldn't visit a hospital unless i really needed to, considering it is the most high risk place of catching it from. People going to the hospital "presumably" sick only to come out of it with the virus is a popular tale out of wuhan.

Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies

#60
post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US is literally doing the exact same thing right now.

I'm a bit surprised this is being downvoted. It's quite clear the federal government has been suppressing testing. (I assume that's what the comment refers to, not that the USA is forcing anyone to work in factories).

I thought the comment was trying to get factories out of China and more manufacturing happening domestically (especially now that we're seeing the downsides to globalism with medical supply issues, etc). That's more or less been the whole point of the trade war. This is also good for the environment, people cut down trees in Canada, ship them to china, that get made into things, to get sold in the US, the carbon footprint on all that transport must be enormous, especially when you factor in the environmentally lax conditions in overseas manufacturing that effects the whole world.
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