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Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
131–140 of 275 posts
Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
#132This 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 con…
If we were manufacturing everything in the United States, supply chains would still be disrupted because companies would be sending workers home, which is what they are doing already. No supply chain is safe in the event of a global pandemic.
One day there might be a pandemic which affects the West but not China, which would make outsourcing supply chains look pretty smart. You are drawing a general conclusion based on the circumstances of a single, rare event.
Besides, where is the suicide of the west here? The west has benefitted from this arrangement for decades. The west is better off with this arrangement than it would have been without it, and this pandemic would have happened anyway, and it would have disrupted supply chains anyway.
I have not yet seen any evidence that lack of western manufacturing capability has made this pandemic worse. However, there is a massive body of economic knowledge that tells us that exploiting comparative advantage increases wealth.
Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
#133Apparently cheap has a price...
Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
#134This 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 con…
The supply chains that you rail against have successfully delivered the greatest levels of prosperity to the largest number of humans in all of history. They were created not by some mysterious force, but by individuals making rational choices about how they want to allocate their time, their energy and their resources. The "suicidal deindustrialization" you refer to is the result of people making informed choices th…
> They didn't want a $400 locally knitted sweater, made from neighborhood sheep. They wanted a $40 sweater that was made as efficiently as possible, and $360 of change.
Except that the difference was never that large and never had to be that local. What happened was that they didn't want a $42 sweater made on the same continent over a $40 sweater made on the other side of the world, because it gave back $2 in change. But monoculture and lack of supply chain diversification was never not worth $2 -- the bill just doesn't come due until it does.
And this didn't happen on its own either. This was conscious policy across the board. The first world was content to impose e.g. pollution and labor regulations locally but not impose the same requirements on the manufacture of imported goods, with foreseeable consequences to where things are manufactured.
Meanwhile China wanted to grow through exports, so they adopted policies like currency devaluation that not only made American and European manufacturing uncompetitive but even manufacturing in other countries with lower labor costs, so that many goods are now produced only in China.
It's one thing when something is produced in China but not the United States when it's also produced in Mexico, Brazil, India, Turkey, etc. It's something else entirely to make the whole world dependent on one country. And customers didn't choose this, government policies did.
Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
#135Earlier quoted context omitted.
What part? “This is a country that hid the coronavirus case for 2-3 weeks” That’s the same as the USA refusing to test everyone in sufficient quantities right? South Korea is testing 10k per day, has the US completed even 10k tests yet? “let 5 million Wuhan residents leave the city” That’s every state apart from perhaps 1 section on NY city and small parts of Seattle. “doctored numbers” Thats the refusing to test thi…
The difference is that in the US all of this is due to incompetence, but given the nature of our laws and society people are free to point out the shortcomings of the response. In China you are publicly admonished and/or disappeared for going against the official government narrative. That is a stark difference between not just Western/Chinese government, but culture, and cannot be underestimated. It leads to a total…
The virus can still kill you no matter how 'free' you feel you are. I'm pretty sure dead people are much more freer than us as they don't have to think about any of these non-sense.
Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
#136This 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 con…
If we were manufacturing everything in the United States, supply chains would still be disrupted because companies would be sending workers home, which is what they are doing already. No supply chain is safe in the event of a global pandemic. One day there might be a pandemic which affects the West but not China, which would make outsourcing supply chains look pretty smart. You are drawing a general conclusion based…
If your supply chain encompasses two countries then a disruption in either country will take you offline. If you keep everything in-house you only have to worry about one country.
You can also harden your supply chain by having multiple suppliers in different countries, so a loss of any one isn't an issue. For something like Covid-19 it's near impossible to avoid disruption, but for less-global outbreaks it can be a winning strategy.
Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
#137Earlier quoted context omitted.
Honestly you're coming off far more extremist than OP is. OP's just arguing that in times of strife, we could potentially suffer because of a lack of self-reliance. He has a valid point, and should another even worse and longer lasting zoonotic(or any kind) disease spur up again, do you honestly think it's a good idea to make no steps towards developing emergency self-reliance systems in case of catastrophe? What abo…
As someone who thinks both parent comments have a point, I don’t really think they’re putting words in OP’s mouth at all. I think the interpretation that OP really seemed to suggest that we should bring it all home is a valid one. And I get it. I agree with you. There’s probably some things we should make here that we don’t. It’s becoming very clear that wholly interdependent Globalism isn’t a cure all, utopian desti…
> I think the interpretation that OP really seemed to suggest that we should bring it all home is a valid one.
"Bring" is the wrong word here, because building up industrial capacity in US for critical sectors (including but not limited to pharmaceuticals and electronic components / semiconductors) doesnt mean destroying the capacity that exists abroad.
But yes, I do believe there should be sufficient manufacturing capacity in CONUS so that if on 1 January 2020 all the borders of the US had been closed to all goods/people indefinitely; life could continue as usual in the US: no medication shortages, no ventilator shortages, no mask/respirator shortages, and no iPhone shortages.
Right now we have China openly stating (https://twitter.com/YanzhongHuang/status/1235300037875335170) stuff like this:
> China's Xinhua News just posted a piece titled "Be bold: the world owes China a thank you", which says if China imposes restrictions on pharmaceutical exports, US will be "plunged into the mighty sea of coronavirus".
How does this make you feel?
In the end there's no substitute for having manufacturing capacity in your own country -- whether it means resiliency in the face of these sorts of events, or whether it means that second-hand/surplus/inactive tooling/consumables/equipment/experience can find its way to smaller-volume sectors and enable what'd otherwise be unprofitable. You can go to a machine shop in the US today and there's a nontrivial probability of seeing equipment that was made in the 1940s because it still works! This is the enduring power of a robust industrial base.
Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
#138Earlier quoted context omitted.
What part? “This is a country that hid the coronavirus case for 2-3 weeks” That’s the same as the USA refusing to test everyone in sufficient quantities right? South Korea is testing 10k per day, has the US completed even 10k tests yet? “let 5 million Wuhan residents leave the city” That’s every state apart from perhaps 1 section on NY city and small parts of Seattle. “doctored numbers” Thats the refusing to test thi…
The difference is that in the US all of this is due to incompetence, but given the nature of our laws and society people are free to point out the shortcomings of the response. In China you are publicly admonished and/or disappeared for going against the official government narrative. That is a stark difference between not just Western/Chinese government, but culture, and cannot be underestimated. It leads to a total…
"freedom of speech people will be more likely to take protective measures sooner as they realize that the government is responding poorly."
This honestly is just a wishful thinking. Autocracy are more efficient than democracy in terms of that. It's just how it's designed. Democracy means debate, and it means time wasted, a lot more than in autocracy. The only problem with autocracy is that if they made a poor decision, all those people will die with it. And democracy is built in the way that a fair share of people will never do what the government says, this would be useful if the government made a bad decision, but not if they made a good one.
Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
#139This 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 con…
Supply Chains have been global ever since the bronze age. So the principal isn't new. Supply Chain resilience is a crucial topic so. One that is, to a certain degree, under rated. Because it is more than buffers you have for general inefficiency.
Re: Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies
#140This 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 con…
The supply chains that you rail against have successfully delivered the greatest levels of prosperity to the largest number of humans in all of history. They were created not by some mysterious force, but by individuals making rational choices about how they want to allocate their time, their energy and their resources. The "suicidal deindustrialization" you refer to is the result of people making informed choices th…
> They wanted a $40 sweater that was made as efficiently as possible, and $360 of change.
Bare essential goods have never cost that multiple of minimum wage.
Capital wanted margins, that which they don't pass on to the consumer. How much does Apple make on earbuds, again?