Posted on 12/19/2021 4:45:03 PM PST by RomanSoldier19
What’s at the root of the supply chain breakdown? That’s a critical question but the answer is almost irrelevant. The supply chain is a complex dynamic system of immense scale. It is of a complexity comparable to the climate as a system.
This means that exact cause and effect cannot be computed because the processing power needed exceeds the combined processing power of every computer in the world.
Most people have some notion of how supply chains work, but few understand how extensive, complex and vulnerable they are. If you go to the store to buy a loaf of bread, you know that the bread did not mystically appear on the shelf.
It was delivered by a local bakery, put on the shelf by a clerk, you carried it home and served it with dinner. That’s a succinct description of a supply chain – from baker to store to home.
Yet that description barely scratches the surface. What about the truck driver who delivered the bread from the bakery to the store? Where did the bakery get the flour, yeast and water needed to make the bread? What about the ovens used to bake the bread? When the bread was baked, it was put in clear or paper wrappers of some sort. Where did those come from?
Even that expanded description of a supply chain is just getting started in terms of a complete chain. The flour used for baking came from wheat. That wheat was grown on a farm and harvested with heavy equipment. The farmer hires labor, uses water and fertilizer and sends his wheat out for processing and packaging before it gets to the bakery.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailyreckoning.com ...
I support tariffs against foreign goods.
But to the greatest extent possible, we should produce more goods here.
I Support Autarky. Any supply chain problems we have will be more likely to be based on interior supply lines and a heck of a lot easier to work around.
The current breakdown is because of EO 13848, foreign interference in a United States election. The assets within US territory of those responsible are blocked.
It is hard to know what the heck is causing it, but some have said California trucking regulations and the fact that China owns controlling shares in the large West Coast ports might have something to do with it.
For most producers that have a monopoly cutting supply does drive up prices and makes customers pay more, and China holds a virtual monopoly in many manufactured goods.
Biden mocks Americans’ intelligence: “If we were all going out & having lunch together & I said let’s ask whoever’s in the next table, no matter what restaurant we’re in, have them explain the supply chain to us. Do you think they’d understand what we’re talking about?”https://www.foxnews.com/politics/biden-mock-americans-intelligence-questions-understand-supply-chain-issues
Just another reason why he’s hated. Theodore White quotes JFK ( in criticizing Nixon). “He’s talking down to the American people. You should never talk down to the American people. “ Biden does nothing but-”c’mon man”
The bottom line is if supply chains are breaking down, the economy is breaking down. If the economy breaks down, the breakdown of social order is not far behind.
And the costs of social disorder are far higher than any possible savings from supposedly efficient supply chains.
remember our govt was designed to be inefficient by our Founders.
We’re on 2 waiting lists for an RV A/C unit since February. We’ve been told the hold up is compressors (which, you guessed it, come from China). I’ve got my fingers crossed we get it by next summer.
China also owns the production of Ocean containers and truck chassis - without these, Ocean shipping is impossible.
One of my 4 closest friends is an industrial designer. The last 20 years he has been highly involved in plastics molding in China. When they started having “issues” with China around 5 years ago they looked into Viet Nam. The Vietnamese would have been glad to have them. The catch was 20% of production had to stay local. It had to be a product that locals also wanted.
The Trump tariffs accomplished a similar goal. I think for critical infrastructure components (electrical grid components, rare earth metals, chipsets, lithium) That there should be a mandatory minimum domestic production required for national security reasons. If you don’t produce a certain percentage here, you can’t sell anything.
I know a guy who runs a fleet of trash trucks (hard duty of course) and they’re struggling to keep them on the road due to parts shortages.
Sure the supply chain is complicated.
I’m seeing auto parts that used to be China sourced coming out of Indonesia, Vietnam, and India.
Of course that stuff used to be from the US, then went to Mexico, then China.
China has moved up the cost scale enough that they are getting competition from other Asian sources.
I reject your reality and substitute my own.
Think about it. You have looked at only a few small parts of an immense system.
Even a great philosopher in a much simple world saw the role of the “Invisible Hand”,
https://fee.org/resources/i-pencil/
Leonard Reeds I, Pencil. First thing all my seniors read in high school econ.
re: “Biden does nothing but-”c’mon man” “
Don’t forget “dog-faced pony soldiers” or “hey fat” ...
I’m puzzled. If a question is ‘critical’ how is it that the answer is ‘almost irrelevant’?
re: “What’s at the root of the supply chain breakdown? That’s a critical question but the answer is almost irrelevant. The supply chain is a complex dynamic system of immense scale. It is of a complexity comparable to the climate as a system. “
REMEMBER that time in the last years when you/certain sectors of business and industry were told “you’re not essential” (and could/should stay home)?
Well, you WERE essential, down the line, with the parts/components you and your company stamped out for shipping on down the line to someone else for use a little later ...
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.