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

#21

Post by jerf » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

partiallypro wrote: post #14

b34r wrote: post #8

I hope it doesn’t screw up our food supply too much. We get a surprising amount of crops from China and the rest of the world.

I'm not concerned about the food supply, I am a bit concerned about logistical problems of getting food to grocers if we have massive infection rates. This would hopefully be short lived though, as workers out could be back at work within 2-3 weeks. We'd just have to hope they don't all get it at once. I hope grocers are taking measures to prevent vendors from interacting with each other, and making sure their loadin…

Given that for the most part, our food supply chain is not composed entirely of 70+ year old people who will all simultaneously get the virus, while it's certainly not just "another day at the office" to keep food supplies running, it's not necessarily going to be as hard as your intuition may say, either. Especially if social distancing works and slows the infection rate, even the worst case scenario here is far from the metaphorical bodies in the streets and everyone lying at home in their beds, sick. On a day-to-day basis, it's more like a really bad flu season than "one day, the entire town just died".

The non-essential economy is looking at a kick in the face, but I'm not too worried about the essential economy. In the long run, I think we're going to individually remember this as an annoyance, not a catastrophe. There are some other social changes that may occur, but they're mostly going to be accounted as "social changes that were pretty much on track to happen anyhow, the Coronavirus just precipitated them a bit earlier and more suddenly".

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

#22

Post by core-questions » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 5:56 PM UTC

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.

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 something we could reasonably tariff or tax (considering how popular the idea of a carbon tax is amongst progressive folks, this shouldn't be too hard of a sell).

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

#23

Post by bdcravens » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 5:56 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.

Perhaps. They did tell me they could get me one as fast as Fedex could get it to me (probably a couple of days). If there is constrained stock, centralizing inventory probably makes the most sense.

Alternate theory: I spoke to someone who works at a Cricket. They never keep higher end phones in stock, as they are frequent robbery targets (though I often see armed security at larger carrier stores).

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

#24

Post by pogbatea » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 5:57 PM UTC

hardtokill wrote: post #16

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 funneling uigher population into crippled factories in eastern China to replace mig…

Oh yes, make american great again.

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

#25

Post by hardtokill » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 5:58 PM UTC

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 migrants who aren’t coming back. And China hasn’t even apologized yet!

If anything, South Korea and Italy should be furious that their country is sabotaged by China. And the rest of the world should be wary of this bad actor in the world. Many people I know will not buy from China again unless they absolutely have to

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

#26

Post by core-questions » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

jerf wrote: post #21

partiallypro wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not concerned about the food supply, I am a bit concerned about logistical problems of getting food to grocers if we have massive infection rates. This would hopefully be short lived though, as workers out could be back at work within 2-3 weeks. We'd just have to hope they don't all get it at once. I hope grocers are taking measures to prevent vendors from interacting with each other, and making sure their loadin…

Given that for the most part, our food supply chain is not composed entirely of 70+ year old people who will all simultaneously get the virus, while it's certainly not just "another day at the office" to keep food supplies running, it's not necessarily going to be as hard as your intuition may say, either. Especially if social distancing works and slows the infection rate, even the worst case scenario here is far fro…

Honestly, in a worst-case scenario, I would hope for the government to be rounding up able-bodied people who aren't sick and draft them into the Grocery Corps or similar to keep things moving. I really don't think it's going to come to that, but I pray that if it does, the people in charge are ready for that kind of task.

Damn knows I'll happily stop coding and go work wherever I am told to help with this.

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

#27

Post by balola » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

ztratar wrote: post #11

b34r wrote: post #8

I hope it doesn’t screw up our food supply too much. We get a surprising amount of crops from China and the rest of the world.

The US exports a massive amount of crops to China, not vice versa. US Agriculture Exports to China = $25B US Agriculture Imports from China = $5B Source: https://www.mda.state.mn.us/sites/default/files/inline-files...

China exports honey (real or fake), snacks, garlic and farmed shrimps etc.

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

#28

Post by wcoenen » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

listsfrin wrote: post #13

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.

I waited a whole month for a Macbook Pro with 256 RAM. Before the "crisis". The apocalypse is near.

But the maximum is 64GB RAM? https://www.apple.com/macbook-pro/

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

#29

Post by core-questions » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 5:59 PM UTC

azinman2 wrote: post #3

brink wrote: post #2

On the bright side, a disruption in supply may teach us what we really need, and what we don't need. Maybe after this breakout we'll realize the importance of slowing down, consuming less, and resting more.

Which will lead to massive layoffs, starting with the most vulnerable (small businesses, hourly workers, etc)

Which will lead to an explosion of available labour, ready for hiring when things pick back up.

The issue is whether governments will step in to provide sufficient unemployment / welfare benefits to bridge the gap.

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

#30

Post by bart_spoon » Wed, Mar 11, 2020, 6:00 PM UTC

BacioiuC wrote: post #19

airstrike wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm mostly hoping people start taking their flu shots...

You know the flu shot is not going to help right? Different virus.

It helps people not get severe cases of the flu, which means fewer healthcare resources, like hospital beds and medical personnel, being devoted to severe flu cases and more can be devoted to severe coronavirus cases.