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If we were manufacturing everything in the United States, supply chains would still be disrupted because companies would be sending workers home, which is what

If we were manufacturing everything in the United States, supply chains would still be disrupted because companies would be sending workers home, which is what they are doing already. No supply chain is safe in the event of a global pandemic. One day there might be a pandemic which affects the West but not China, which would make outsourcing supply chains look pretty smart. You are drawing a general conclusion based on the circumstances of a single, rare event. Besides, where is the suicide of the west here? The west has benefitted from this arrangement for decades. The west is better off with this arrangement than it would have been without it, and this pandemic would have happened anyway, and it would have disrupted supply chains anyway. I have not yet seen any evidence that lack of western manufacturing capability has made this pandemic worse. However, there is a massive body of economic knowledge that tells us that exploiting comparative advantage increases wealth.

jandrese 7y ago
If your supply chain encompasses two countries then a disruption in either country will take you offline. If you keep everything in-house you only have to worry about one country. You can also harden your supply chain by having multiple suppliers in different countries, so a loss of any one isn't an issue. For something like Covid-19 it's near impossible to avoid disruption, but for less-global outbreaks it can be a winning strategy.
- hef19898 7y ago
  Only in the case epidemics or natural disasters. And even then I would argue that's nit the case. E.g. there was a major accident in a Chinese chemical park last year, it closed down for the majority of the year. This park manufactured the raw materials for stuff like car lights, the glasses of them. It also was the only source. Did anybody outside the industry suffer any results? No, because supply chains actually adopt pretty well to stuff like that. What would happen so, if everything is in one place is higher costs off-crisis, you wouldn't survive economically to see a crisis that way. Recovery is key, so. And that is where we will see which companies did their jobs supply chain wise and which didn't.
- twblalock 7y ago
  > If your supply chain encompasses two countries then a disruption in either country will take you offline. If you keep everything in-house you only have to worry about one country. Yeah but you'd also have all your eggs in one basket.
  - jrs95 7y ago
    Why not do that if you are the basket?

jandrese 7y ago

If your supply chain encompasses two countries then a disruption in either country will take you offline. If you keep everything in-house you only have to worry about one country. You can also harden your supply chain by having multiple suppliers in different countries, so a loss of any one isn't an issue. For something like Covid-19 it's near impossible to avoid disruption, but for less-global outbreaks it can be a winning strategy.

hef19898 7y ago
Only in the case epidemics or natural disasters. And even then I would argue that's nit the case. E.g. there was a major accident in a Chinese chemical park last year, it closed down for the majority of the year. This park manufactured the raw materials for stuff like car lights, the glasses of them. It also was the only source. Did anybody outside the industry suffer any results? No, because supply chains actually adopt pretty well to stuff like that. What would happen so, if everything is in one place is higher costs off-crisis, you wouldn't survive economically to see a crisis that way. Recovery is key, so. And that is where we will see which companies did their jobs supply chain wise and which didn't.
twblalock 7y ago
> If your supply chain encompasses two countries then a disruption in either country will take you offline. If you keep everything in-house you only have to worry about one country. Yeah but you'd also have all your eggs in one basket.
- jrs95 7y ago
  Why not do that if you are the basket?