Coronavirus has disrupted supply chains for nearly 75% of U.S. companies • Hacker News Board

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

#111

Post by whatshisface » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:13 PM UTC

baq wrote: post #61

hardtokill wrote: post #25

We really need to get our factories out of China. This is a country that hid the coronavirus case for 2-3 weeks, let 5 million Wuhan residents leave the city, doctored numbers, then most recently had government press try to spin the disease as if it didn’t come out of Wuhan, but rather somewhere other countries!! And they are actively Forcing uigher population into crippled factories in eastern China to replace migra…

The US on a federal level 'has done nothing and is all out of ideas' as the memes go, except perhaps suppressing states to do their own testing. This is in a way inverse of what happened in China and arguably worse because in China when the federal-level authority caught wind of the scale of the problem they dropped the hammer so hard the whole world is still ringing. The US on the other hand knows there's an epidemi…

One of the biggest advantages of the US system is that power is spread out between the federal, state, and local governments, and corporations, and private individuals. Rampant incompetence at one level of the system can be fixed by other levels.

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

#112

Post by whatshisface » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

hackinthebochs wrote: post #110

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 difference is that in the US all of this is due to incompetence I wouldn't be so sure. Trump's stock market is his best argument for re-election. It's very reasonable to think he would want to downplay anything that could disrupt the economy in the run up to the election.

That theory still alleges incompetence, because covering it up for an extra month or even two won't impact the elections which are a long time from now.

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

#113

Post by twblalock » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:14 PM UTC

hintymad wrote: post #108

powowowow wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

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.

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

#114

Post by itronitron » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:16 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #46

core-questions wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a net good effect in terms of resiliency, in the long term, and may also result in moving some manufacturing jobs back to the US. As the standard of living rises in China, labour costs will increase until eventually the only way it will really be cheaper to do things over there is because of either better logistics, or lax environmental/labour laws that enable shortcuts we can't/won't take here. The latter is…

This is a net good effect in terms of resiliency, in the long term... Well, this is the problem, right. Resiliency only pays off when there's a crisis, otherwise it's a net cost. So if you're outcompeted by the other non-resilient companies before that crisis happens, it doesn't help. I feel like societal resiliency needs to be rewarded (in many contexts, utilities are obvious but also food supply, etc) but I don't k…

Ensuring that all companies account for and pay their true costs would take some of the 'efficiency' gains away from larger players. In the current system larger players are better able to bend laws to their favor.

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

#115

Post by AnthonyMouse » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

cycrutchfield wrote: post #98

kentosi wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was thinking of this the other day. Perhaps this pandemic will help reshape our global economy away from its current monolithic structure into self-sustainable micro-service economies where all regions can self-sustain to a large level. (Apologies for the nerdy analogy but this is Hacker News...)

Sounds incredibly inefficient

Diversification always sounds more inefficient than monoculture, until the monoculture encounters a systemic vulnerability and all fails at once.

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

#116

Post by wasdfff » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:17 PM UTC

powowowow wrote: post #84

zkms wrote: post #54

This 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…

In the 1940s sweaters were american made, did not cost $400, and the median american had more disposable income than now. The people who benefitted from outsourcing were those buying shares, not sweaters.

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

#117

Post by hinkley » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:18 PM UTC

lutorm wrote: post #46

core-questions wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a net good effect in terms of resiliency, in the long term, and may also result in moving some manufacturing jobs back to the US. As the standard of living rises in China, labour costs will increase until eventually the only way it will really be cheaper to do things over there is because of either better logistics, or lax environmental/labour laws that enable shortcuts we can't/won't take here. The latter is…

This is a net good effect in terms of resiliency, in the long term... Well, this is the problem, right. Resiliency only pays off when there's a crisis, otherwise it's a net cost. So if you're outcompeted by the other non-resilient companies before that crisis happens, it doesn't help. I feel like societal resiliency needs to be rewarded (in many contexts, utilities are obvious but also food supply, etc) but I don't k…

> Resiliency only pays off when there's a crisis

resiliency mostly pays off when there's a crisis. You can reduce latency in systems by sourcing things closer to use, but having a fallback farther away.

It's a tradeoff though. If I have two suppliers, the odds that I have 'a supplier issue' are doubled. But the odds that I have no supply at all is lower.

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

#118

Post by Aunche » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

zkms wrote: post #54

This 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…

> you're dependent on these hyper-fragile and convoluted supply chains that are optimized for cost above everything.

I'd argue that this is a feature. Economic codependence is a much safer and effective deterrent to war than mutually assured destruction.

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

#119

Post by jedberg » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:23 PM UTC

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.

I've heard that new Apple employees aren't getting any equipment because they don't have any to give.

I ordered an Apple watch on March 3rd and it won't arrive until March 24th.

I'm pretty sure they are having serious supply chain issues.

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

#120

Post by beaunative » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 7:24 PM UTC

powowowow wrote: post #84

zkms wrote: post #54

This 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…

The way capitalism works is that it ignores borders with some friction. And it is indeed more efficient. To a point where you suspect those borders don't exist, but they do. And that's the problem. Neither you or the OP are wrong. There is just no perfect way of doing it, but what we can decide is that if those damage that those extreme cases could do were worth the cost of upkeeping those industries when there were no such cases. Would people be willing to pay 300% taxes for everything everyday, I'm pretty sure then they would be damning the government for doing that.