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How we broke the supply chain

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Re: How we broke the supply chain

#101

Post by Dylan16807 »

yetihehe wrote: post #91
lostinquebec wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's the weird part. The argument seems to be that any temporal failure of a system means we need to change the system wholesale. There is no argument for why a different system would be better, merely the belief that the current system has flaws, therefore... This part confused me: > bad public policy coupled with decades of corporate greed. The article mentions a cascading set of changes that move from minor inco…

> but has instead produced slightly less than huge choice variety at some moments in time. I'm not sold that's a disaster. Yeah, the ship has a hole which visibly widens, but we are not underwater yet, so that's not a disaster.

What widening? Throughput at ports is within a few percent of where it has been.

Re: How we broke the supply chain

#102

Post by acadapter »

mschuster91 wrote: post #93
r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #84

I'm just going to point out that this is the world's second period of globalisation and we are maybe seeing the second collapse. The first period was roughly from 1870 to 1914 and was brought to its end by the shock of the first world war and the following flu pandemic which, as well as directly killing lots of people, also led to mass restrictions on travel and the breakdown of the supply chain in large portions of…

> The question becomes, how can we avoid a 21st century equivalent to the inter war years and their culminating horrors if we are seeing a collapse of the second age of globalisation? I'm afraid we are past that stage and at the edge of World War 3: - China is literally following Hitler's footsteps in eradicating Uyghur and Tibetan civilization and people, while saber-rattling to invade Taiwan, the world's most impor…

>Remember, World War 1 was caused by a terrorist attack of a bunch of pretty much irrelevant Serbian nationalists.

There are people who don't remember it in that way. World War I was caused by a complex web of alliances and power struggles between major powers in Europe.

I guess that a simplified narrative is preferable to some people for various reasons? Perhaps because of some Cold War mentality, where perspectives of the "east" side are commonly brushed aside in contemporary Western history-writing?

It is often ignored that Austria was historically a much larger country, and that many of the smaller cultures found it a very negative experience to be subjected to Austrian domination. For example, before Czechoslovakia emerged, there were other parallel society-building movements within Austria such as Sokol, etc. Many of those that wanted to be free from Habsburg didn't think of themselves as "irrelevant", and they didn't have the ambition to create a global war.

(and yes, I know it was technically Austria-Hungary, but Austria was the de facto dominant part)

Re: How we broke the supply chain

#103

Post by Dylan16807 »

syshum wrote: post #42
standardUser wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

During the Great Recession, a vast increase in the money supply had no apparent impact in inflation. The idea that printing money is a primary driver of inflation may be outdated. I also think you're ignoring the dramatic and unexpected changes in demand (and some constraint in supply) caused by the pandemic.

>>The idea that printing money is a primary driver of inflation may be outdated. No it is not >>During the Great Recession, a vast increase in the money supply had no apparent impact in inflation Ohh but it did, you just are not looking in the correct market, the money printed in that time was going into institutions, not individuals so the inflation was not in consumer goods but in stocks, real estate and other hard…

If printing money makes stocks go up that sounds like a positive.

Re: How we broke the supply chain

#104

Post by syshum »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #103
syshum wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>>The idea that printing money is a primary driver of inflation may be outdated. No it is not >>During the Great Recession, a vast increase in the money supply had no apparent impact in inflation Ohh but it did, you just are not looking in the correct market, the money printed in that time was going into institutions, not individuals so the inflation was not in consumer goods but in stocks, real estate and other hard…

If printing money makes stocks go up that sounds like a positive.

Why? It removes the the stocks from business and finance fundamentals, into more speculative (aka gambling) transactions that create huge BOOMS, and even largest BUSTS in the market, taking out peoples retirements, and financial security

One truism that I have always believed in, it is better overall for an investment to increase predictably @ 5%, then for it to Spike 20% then retract by 10%. Overall for the economy the person may end up with a higher gain with more volatility, but perception and human emotions would focus on the 10% loss, shaking confidence and causing other problems.

I am a "steady as she goes" person, I like clam waters... I do not like chaos which is what money printing causes

Re: How we broke the supply chain

#105

Post by yetihehe »

vba616 wrote: post #97
yetihehe wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but has instead produced slightly less than huge choice variety at some moments in time. I'm not sold that's a disaster. Yeah, the ship has a hole which visibly widens, but we are not underwater yet, so that's not a disaster.

That's a metaphor that could be applied to literally anything. What point about reality is it making? Are people standing in line for toilet paper or bread?

Of course those problems can be fixed and are not too bad YET, but saying that you don't need to worry about this is wrong.

Re: How we broke the supply chain

#106

Post by SyzygistSix »

maroonblazer wrote: post #61
Retric wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

JIT doesn’t really apply to grocery stores as food rots, it’s a very different supply chain vs microwaves. JIT only saves meaningful amounts of money when you had significant amounts of inventory sitting around. The difference between 2 days and 3 days of parts at a factory simply doesn’t matter. The difference between 3 days and 3 months worth of parts is a big deal. That said, the entire reason companies used to ha…

What percentage of a grocery store's inventory is perishable? There's plenty that has a pretty long shelf life. E.g. canned goods, paper towels, bathroom tissue, bottled goods, vacuum-sealed items, etc.

Most of the real, whole food that is healthy to eat and makes up an ideal diet. Although grains and legumes are an exception.

Re: How we broke the supply chain

#107

Post by mschuster91 »

acadapter wrote: post #102
mschuster91 wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The question becomes, how can we avoid a 21st century equivalent to the inter war years and their culminating horrors if we are seeing a collapse of the second age of globalisation? I'm afraid we are past that stage and at the edge of World War 3: - China is literally following Hitler's footsteps in eradicating Uyghur and Tibetan civilization and people, while saber-rattling to invade Taiwan, the world's most impor…

>Remember, World War 1 was caused by a terrorist attack of a bunch of pretty much irrelevant Serbian nationalists. There are people who don't remember it in that way. World War I was caused by a complex web of alliances and power struggles between major powers in Europe. I guess that a simplified narrative is preferable to some people for various reasons? Perhaps because of some Cold War mentality, where perspectives…

> There are people who don't remember it in that way. World War I was caused by a complex web of alliances and power struggles between major powers in Europe.

Sure it was, but the actual trigger that caused the house of cards to collapse was said assassination. My point is: we have a lot of high-tension conflicts and issues that can explode openly (all the things I listed up, plus more like unresolved post-colonial ethnic conflicts in Africa).

And the amount of potential triggers is just as shockingly large as they are all trivial. Let's say some North Korean hackers manage to deal a devastating cyber attack on Ukraine while successfully masquerading as Russian hackers, some remnant-IS terrorists blowing up a Saudi oil facility while appearing to be Iranian operatives, Taliban acquiring a Pakistani nuclear device and blowing it up on the Indian border, a tired Taiwanese air defense operator mistaking a Chinese provocation flight for an actual invasion, or Trump becoming the next US President and deciding to help out Netanyahu's reelection campaign by droning some Iranian general to pieces again.

All of this can very easily and unpredictably happen, and the international attitude for cooperation is at a pretty low point.

Re: How we broke the supply chain

#108

Post by jerf »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #101
yetihehe wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> but has instead produced slightly less than huge choice variety at some moments in time. I'm not sold that's a disaster. Yeah, the ship has a hole which visibly widens, but we are not underwater yet, so that's not a disaster.

What widening? Throughput at ports is within a few percent of where it has been.

The first derivative of food supply disruption is clearly positive. The exact value of the second is debatable, but I feel confident saying it is at least not clearly substantially negative. Slightly negative at best and I can't give a lot of evidence for that.

The sum total of that disruption has not yet burned through our buffer, though it has caused a noticeable rise in prices. However, it is not wise to wait for our buffer to be entirely gone before being willing to identify the problem.

Re: How we broke the supply chain

#109

Post by nradov »

r_hoods_ghost wrote: post #84

I'm just going to point out that this is the world's second period of globalisation and we are maybe seeing the second collapse. The first period was roughly from 1870 to 1914 and was brought to its end by the shock of the first world war and the following flu pandemic which, as well as directly killing lots of people, also led to mass restrictions on travel and the breakdown of the supply chain in large portions of…

European countries had essentially eliminated passports prior to WW1. Then during the war they were reintroduced as a "temporary" national security measure. Does that justification sound familiar?

Re: How we broke the supply chain

#110

Post by sayhar »

jml7c5 wrote: post #83
sayhar wrote: post #4

This is a great article. Rabbitholed a tiny bit on this part: > Big companies got the law changed to enable ocean carriers to offer secret discounts in exchange for volume guarantees. To an article linked in the first article: https://www.hklaw.com/en/insights/publications/2018/12/congr... > The last amendment to the Shipping Act occurred in 1998 as the Ocean Shipping Reform Act of 1998, following a five-year study o…

Is the cause-and-effect correct here? There are huge advantages to consolidation, so one would expect it to happen regardless. Also note that Holland & Knight aren't unbiased observers. They are paid to lobby on behalf of clients, and do a decent trade in the politics of shipping: https://projects.propublica.org/represent/lobbying/search?se...

Well, consolidation didn't happen for decades, then it happened rapidly after the law was changed, so that's pretty clear evidence to me.

I don't think you could accuse Matt Stoller of being in the pocket of any industry, and here's a similar take from him: https://mattstoller.substack.com/p/too-big-to-sail-how-a-leg...

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