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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

#221

Post by AnthonyMouse »

parliament32 wrote: post #209
AnthonyMouse wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The trick you're using is that Alibaba is essentially a wholesaler and most non-boutique US wholesalers don't list prices on their websites because bulk customers negotiate. I can't even find one that lists wholesale prices for that kind of sweaters.

A minimum order of 2 is hardly wholesale. But fine, here's the ebay version instead, for $2.90: https://www.ebay.com/itm/Women-Wool-Knitted-Jumper-Cashmare-... Again, the factor of 10 thing.

$13.95:

https://www.amazon.com/Free-Live-Womens-Cardigan-Sweater/dp/...

You're also both times looking at sources direct from China, which are taking advantage of that Universal Postal Union treaty situation that makes it cheaper to ship from China to the US than to ship within the US. If they were paying market rates for shipping the shipping from China would itself be more than $2.90. Notice how similar sweaters on Amazon end up being closer to the price of the made in USA one (or more) even when they're made in China, because then they're being shipped from within the US. (This is also why comparing wholesale prices is more relevant; the "free shipping" that gets incorporated into the price is less of the total.)

And it's difficult to even find non-boutique apparel made in the US at this point, because most of the ones that try to compete on price rather than status then lose to China on price by a small percentage and go out of business. But the boutique prices don't represent what it actually costs to manufacture in the US, they're just the ones who can stay in business in the US.

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

#222

Post by jrs95 »

twblalock wrote: post #113
hintymad wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And I honestly do want a $400 sweater if we have a prospering manufacturing business. How many people stuff their house with clothes that they wear only once? How many people buy toys that their kids play only a few times? How many people hav a whole closet of shoes? Why do we have twice as large of closet room compared with people living in the 50s? Why do people just have to buy clothes every quarter, every month,…

A lot of people can't afford a $400 sweater. What are they supposed to do? Local manufacturing is for rich people who can afford it.

I get that it's just an example but there would be much lower priced locally manufactured goods if they didn't have to compete directly with imports in that market segment.

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

#223

Post by jrs95 »

kevin_thibedeau wrote: post #170
tootsandboots wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In 1949, a nylon sweater cost about $7.95 ( https://mclib.info/reference/local-history-genealogy/histori... ), which in 2020 dollars would be about $86.41. So not $400 and about in line with what an average sweater today would cost. However, the median American did not have more disposable income back then compared to now. In 2020, the median American has about $16763 in disposable income, whereas in 1959 (the furthe…

That $7.95 stayed in the domestic economy. The 99% are slowly exporting their wealth.

And why is that? Because it made sense based on the options provided to them. And who decides what those are? The people with money and power, not the consumer.

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

#224

Post by AnthonyMouse »

tanilama wrote: post #211
howmayiannoyyou wrote: post #102

"It's better to be in a bad deal with good people, then a good deal with bad people" China MFG was/is not a deal with the Chinese people. It's a deal with the CCP. Those of us who always understood this aren't surprised by any of this. We never expected China to be able to manage domestic risk well and we watched helplessly as they exported that risk abroad in the form of pollution, SARS, contaminated products and mo…

> We never expected China to be able to manage domestic risk well Well, they have seemingly largely recovered and move their way back to normalcy, as other countries started catching fire. I think a lot of people's takeways will be different than yours: China's ability to control crisis like this scale is going to be valuable assets to global investors.

> China's ability to control crisis like this scale is going to be valuable assets to global investors.

Their ability to control the crisis is useful from a public health perspective, but they're doing it by shutting down production. Look at how the markets have responded. Are you claiming investors wouldn't have been better off if these companies had invested in a more diversified supply chain?

For that matter, having a more diversified supply chain makes it easier to implement these kinds of public health measures in general. Shutting down production is much less costly when there is another region capable of quickly picking up the slack. And making it less expensive to implement measures to contain a contagion makes it more likely they'll be properly implemented, which helps everybody, investors included.

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

#225

Post by wdb »

bdcravens wrote: post #7

I had a phone stolen a couple of weeks ago, and initially I was trying to buy a new phone outright (ended up filing a claim and having my new one overnighted, but lack of SMS access would have prevented me from doing my job, hence the urgency). None of the local Verizon stores had any phones (11 Pro Max) in stock (they explicitly said it was due to China supply chain), but Best Buy did.

Yes, Apple has some serious supply issues. I am already waiting three weeks to have my Mac repaired :( Temporary bought a new one to get work done.

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

#226

Post by PeterisP »

philtable wrote: post #185
_bxg1 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, they seem to be handling this crisis better than we are so far.

They created this crisis by silencing whistleblowers and hiding case numbers. Don't forget they banned wildlife markets during SARS, but allowed them again a year after. This is going to happen again.

They did a horrible job in the beginning and a good job in the end. They wasted december and january (both for themselves and the world) but the february response was quite effective. https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-peop... is an informative illustration.

Right now, the USA response is somewhere between those two China approaches but it seems that it has been closer to the "early China" response than to the "late China" response.

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

#227

Post by PeterisP »

tome wrote: post #50
dumbfoundded wrote: post #18

This has happened to my company and a few others I know. We have about $15K of packaging stuck in China. If this is doing anything (to me personally), it's making me reconsider shifting more of the supply-chain to the US. In many cases, the prices aren't really that different.

> it's making me reconsider shifting more of the supply-chain to the US. In many cases, the prices aren't really that different. If the prices weren't really that different then why did those parts of the supply chain go to China in the first place?

The price differences were much, much larger 5-10 years ago, but they have been rapidly shrinking as the wages for China workers have grown.

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

#228

Post by allovernow »

beaunative wrote: post #135
allovernow wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

You're missing the point. The freedom may make the virus less likely to spread as information about it is easier to come by. The more people know and the sooner, the better off we all are.

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

#229

Post by spott »

throwaway_Bees wrote: post #15
bdcravens wrote: post #7

I had a phone stolen a couple of weeks ago, and initially I was trying to buy a new phone outright (ended up filing a claim and having my new one overnighted, but lack of SMS access would have prevented me from doing my job, hence the urgency). None of the local Verizon stores had any phones (11 Pro Max) in stock (they explicitly said it was due to China supply chain), but Best Buy did.

>None of the local Verizon stores had any phones (11 Pro Max) in stock (they explicitly said it was due to China supply chain) That may be true...but it may be just as likely they are minimizing their own inventory to keep their own costs down/cash on hand, which is not something they would freely tell their own employees or customers.

or a combination of the two: Verizon keeps less stock on hand in general, and they ran out of theirs, while Best Buy had a larger backstock and so could still sell theirs.

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

#230

Post by Scarblac »

pil4rin wrote: post #193
_bxg1 wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, they seem to be handling this crisis better than we are so far.

By imposing a draconian lock down on all citizens (even those who havent tested positive)? I guess...

Just like Italy started doing now, and everybody else will in the coming weeks.
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