311–320 of 690 posts
For an alternate take, see https://www.nationalreview.com/2021/10/the-real-culprit-in-o... ... These posts raise some interesting points I hadn't thought about (I don't see any problem with Next-in accounting). But it seems that lack of inventory isn't the only problem, throughput at ports is also an issue, and the ports themselves are limited at what changes they can make to fix these issues, partly due to profits (…
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Genuine question: 2020 feels like the biggest shock to the economy in a while yet it was one of the best years for most big businesses. If Jeff Bezos didn't feel the shock from 2020 then when will he feel the shock?
>2020 feels like the biggest shock to the economy in a while yet it was one of the best years for most big businesses. by what metric?
Long story short: Big spike in demand in a very short period of time.
If the spending doesn't re-balance again as restrictions are lifted this is not a temporary supply chain issue caused by just-in-time methodology, it's just the new normal.
[0] https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?ReqID=19&step=2#reqid...
EDIT: That link is broken, should have been this https://apps.bea.gov/iTable/iTable.cfm?reqid=19&step=3&isuri...
He'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…
Yep, the capital owning class just doesn't care if their businesses go into shock because they already have their cash in hand. They'll never go back to pre-ROE days because they'd have to live with less money and worse less control. While they still have personal reserves in the billions they can decide the fate of their ventures but if say 20% of their current cash was on the balance sheets of corporations with boa…
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> People are saying "why didn't we buffer up more" ? Well, there we go. Play Factorio. You'll see just how bad buffers are in a simulated factory. A shortage in real life causes critical issues for real people. A shortage in Factorio does not.
Do you have an actual refutation though? Why does buffering perform better in real-world factories than the simulated ones in Factorio?
A buffer gives us time. That time can be used to save lives.
A buffer absorbs a short term disruption in a supplier which prevents the shortage. A buffer gives time to look for another supplier in a long term disruption. A buffer delays a shortage when no other supplier is feasible.
He'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…
Plenty of people warned about the hazards of allowing these companies to outsource everything, government did nothing. Mostly because they are bought off by lobbyists. This could have pretty easily been prevented by putting tariffs on key industries to keep manufacturing here or at least in North America
This is like a Rorschach test. There is truly something for everyone. What caused all the supply chains bottlenecks? Hard Left: "It's the fault of *capitalism*!" Hard Right: "It's the fault of *unions*!" Soft Left: "Truckers don't have a living wage!" Soft Right: "We stopped producing because of lockdowns!" Greens: "It's *climate change* disrupting the economy!" Libertarians: "*Government mismanagement of ports!*" YI…
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None of this is the point, though. The point is that Amazon wouldn't have achieved what it has if Bezos was forced to slowly divest control of his company over the last two decades. Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash. To the extent that he has not paid taxes on his wealth, he is fully incentivized by the share p…
> Bezos does not have his cash in hand, for the most part. To the extent that he does have cash in hand, he has already paid taxes on that cash. What a lot of high wealthy individuals are doing is using their portfolios as collateral against lines of credit. The LOCs give them cash to fund their lifestyle, and they don't have to liquidate their portfolios and take the capital gains charges (at least in the short-term…
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> 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…
> This isn't something accounting practices or "less greed" would solve Are you seriously trying to say that production being moved to China, et al. is not because of greed generally, and ROE specifically?
There is only so much discrepancy in prices that global markets will allow before buyers start rewarding the lower priced sellers for taking advantage of the arbitrage.