An Armor Conspired: the Global Shipping Freeze
Excerpt: There is an unavoidable price for the ceaseless avalanche of goods and services falling around us: it is exposure to an arrant, inherent level of complexity. Only the coordination of a superabundant array of prices, timing, capacity, and information keeps the globally-integrated supply chain functioning. A single, small misstep or error increases the likelihood of subsequent problems at every juncture in the process. The “two weeks to flatten the curve” decision along with other shortsighted, unnecessary (and, as it turns out, ineffective) policy options has generated countless knock-on effects. Those now include shortages of shipping containers, long and increasing port delays, a growing scarcity of essential supply chain components, insufficient labor, higher prices, and a mounting undersupply of final goods. [There’s a lot of fascinating information in this article explaining how the problem has come about and its costs. There isn’t much on offer here to fix it, though. Some of the costs have gone up more than 700%; not only is that a whole bunch, it will impact the retail pricing nearly everything, some items quickly, others after a while. This is definitely worth reading. Ron P.]
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"There isn’t much on offer here to fix it, though."
ReplyDeleteThat's because it can't be fixed, only explained. Nothing other than time can fix it. Either years or decades, depending on the level of interference in the painful market corrections that will be needed, if a fix of the current system is even possible.
The long term solution is accepting some combination of less abundance, less complexity, higher costs, and more local manufacturing.