Sorry, I don't trust this guy. It was just explained how he uses social media to manipulate the story he tells. https://thezvi.wordpress.com/2021/10/28/an-unexpected-victor...
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What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
111–120 of 690 posts
Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't know if a slight price increase in graphics cards is the key issue to worry about at this point. The price increase in graphics cards isn't related to this. GMs trouble selling cars because they don't have enough chips to finish off the cars is a problem related to the pandemic and planning like the posts on Twitter note. The lack of new cars available has driven up prices on used cars. This is all supply c…
> The US has now outsourced most of the production of goods to places in other countries. I think that is the point (or one of the points): it's not just logistics and spare capacity - it's a much more complex set of issues. This isn't something accounting practices or "less greed" would solve, as seems to be implied in the Twitter thread. Would you have voted for a party that spent $1b annually on mask manufacturing…
Plenty of people foresaw it. California spent ~$200m on building up a stockpile of PPE and other medical supplies back in 2006, before Brown cut funding for the program in 2011.
Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
#113The interconnected supply chain is a headache right now, but on balance it’s still a good thing for the world if it prevents some country from starting a global war.
Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
#114Hm, seems like a monocausal 'explanation' of a complex problem - or let's say a mere opinion with little background information. Given the 'hundred year crisis', I think we have fared relatively well from a purely economic point of view... So, yes, some problems may exist but I think we have witnessed a surprisingly resilient system, given how optimized everything is and how unprecedented the issue is. I don't know i…
> I don't know if a slight price increase in graphics cards is the key issue to worry about at this point. The price increase in graphics cards isn't related to this. GMs trouble selling cars because they don't have enough chips to finish off the cars is a problem related to the pandemic and planning like the posts on Twitter note. The lack of new cars available has driven up prices on used cars. This is all supply c…
The 'lack of chips' has nothing to do with US preparedness, it's entirely an overseas issue.
China & Co. did a big over-correction during the start of the pandemic, and that put a lot of things into chaos.
You now have chip speculators entering the foray, jacking up prices, not very helpful in letting the market clear.
10% padding in US operations I don't think would have made up for anything, the problems exist in shipping and on key/acute issues from the suppliers in Asia really.
I don't think it's reasonable to imply 'We should build all the stuff here to avoid delays during 1 in 50 years pandemics'.
I'm not blaming so much as pointing out that's where the underlying issues are.
Of course exacerbated by other things.
I think working out solutions to transportation, buyers paying for things like guarantees, plant and supply chain risk analysis etc. will become a thing now.
CEOs will hire consultants and firms to measure the likelihood in supply chain failure and make ammends.
I actually think we'll get adapt past most of this.
Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
#115Hm, seems like a monocausal 'explanation' of a complex problem - or let's say a mere opinion with little background information. Given the 'hundred year crisis', I think we have fared relatively well from a purely economic point of view... So, yes, some problems may exist but I think we have witnessed a surprisingly resilient system, given how optimized everything is and how unprecedented the issue is. I don't know i…
I think we have fared relatively well from a purely economic point of view. There's no reason to think this is over yet. We might just be getting started.
Just you wait until China pulls a Crimea on Taiwan.
There go our semiconductors, this time for real.
Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
#116I think this misses a lot. I suppose it's because it has to support the pro-billionaire-founder conclusion.
First: monetary policy. This was half the shock, not just the pandemic - it was on a scale similar to World War II. In hindsight, you can say that the pandemic was a signal to increase production, but that's a bit ridiculous. If vaccines took longer, if governments didn't spend more than WW2, we would be in a much different situation. Not to mention all the retail bankruptcies that happened anyway.
Second: structural changes in the labor market. Huge numbers of Baby Boomer retirements [1], for example, which disproportionately affect the sorts of manufacturing and transport jobs that are relevant here.
Third: operational effects. Lots of spare capacity can mean operating at normal rates after accounting for things like social distancing, quarantines, and government forced shutdowns. Examples include mass factory closures in Vietnam the last few months, huge outbreaks at meatpacking plants, forced quarantine of air crew, and Amazon employees waiting taking 20-60 minutes to pass screening before work.
1. https://research.stlouisfed.org/publications/economic-synops...
Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
#117Hm, seems like a monocausal 'explanation' of a complex problem - or let's say a mere opinion with little background information. Given the 'hundred year crisis', I think we have fared relatively well from a purely economic point of view... So, yes, some problems may exist but I think we have witnessed a surprisingly resilient system, given how optimized everything is and how unprecedented the issue is. I don't know i…
I think we have fared relatively well from a purely economic point of view. There's no reason to think this is over yet. We might just be getting started.
There's no reason to think that we are 'just getting started'.
We know what the system looked like before, and post-pandemic, there's no reason to believe it wouldn't return to that state. Aside from some ongoing pandemic measures, by and large, we should see things mostly settle into the system that already works.
It's just going to take some time to clear. In the meantime, most things are working well enough.
Much of the inflation we are seeing is a function of 12 years of mass money printing and pandemic response, if it were not for that, the pricing issue wouldn't be so acute.
If there is a 'new normal' it will due to monetary issues - the adjustments in supply chains I think will be incremental, with a few strategic changes i.e. TSMC in Austin etc..
Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
#118He's right to point out that the obsession with RoE is a big part of the problem. He's wrong to suggest that the billionaire class and founders will solve the problem if we only trust them and let them keep their money. Founders have just as much incentive to optimize the excess out of the system, they just call it "disruptive innovation" by which they mean tweaking how the system works so that they can squeeze out p…
I think his statement is that founder (and family) led businesses are the only businesses capable of building the shock absorbers necessary to weather hundred-year storms; not that they always will. By comparison, committee-appointed CEOs rarely, if ever, will, because they cannot.
Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
#119Hm, seems like a monocausal 'explanation' of a complex problem - or let's say a mere opinion with little background information. Given the 'hundred year crisis', I think we have fared relatively well from a purely economic point of view... So, yes, some problems may exist but I think we have witnessed a surprisingly resilient system, given how optimized everything is and how unprecedented the issue is. I don't know i…
Given the 'hundred year crisis', I think we have fared relatively well from a purely economic point of view...
Covid was essentially "Sars II". If Sars1 had had the qualities needed to be a world wide epidemic, we'd be looking 10-100x the casualties. Sars1 happened a decade ago. Calling this a "hundred year crisis" seems wholly disingenuous. This event was forecast by quite a few people, the world was terribly unprepared and there's every reason to think the same factors that created this virus will create others much sooner than a hundred years from now.
Re: What caused all the supply chain bottlenecks?
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't know if a slight price increase in graphics cards is the key issue to worry about at this point. The price increase in graphics cards isn't related to this. GMs trouble selling cars because they don't have enough chips to finish off the cars is a problem related to the pandemic and planning like the posts on Twitter note. The lack of new cars available has driven up prices on used cars. This is all supply c…
> The US has now outsourced most of the production of goods to places in other countries. I think that is the point (or one of the points): it's not just logistics and spare capacity - it's a much more complex set of issues. This isn't something accounting practices or "less greed" would solve, as seems to be implied in the Twitter thread. Would you have voted for a party that spent $1b annually on mask manufacturing…
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