11 ms·

Things have not really fallen apart, though. You can even still get coffee. I find it silly to claim this or that should have been stockpiled with hindsight. T

Things have not really fallen apart, though. You can even still get coffee. I find it silly to claim this or that should have been stockpiled with hindsight. There are just too many different things to stockpile. And the same people demanding that are probably the ones taking to the street protesting against wasteful living.

bob33212 6y ago
Yes, these people complaining should at a minimum point us to a post where they suggested that we stockpile coffee or shipping containers years ago.
- nitrogen 6y ago
  They don't post about it, they just do it. They are the people whose pantries were never empty.
  - carbotaniuman 6y ago
    And yet we as a society look down on preppers. It's quite sad to see people complain about shortages and do nothing themselves. These aren't even shortages due to economic reasons or poverty, but rather due to simply to disruptions.
    - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
      I think part of it is that people in US have historically faced only several major disruptions ( 1939 depression being one of them ). Most people here have very limited idea how things work, when things are not conveniently available and don't seem all that comfortable with all the new ways they are being fleeced ( bots buying popular items, algorithms tricking them into paying more ).
    - vel0city 6y ago
      I am an Eagle Scout, and the Scout motto is "Be Prepared". I try and make sure I've got supplies to last me at least a couple of weeks if things get crazy, and plans for what to do when my home becomes unlivable. When the winter storm hit and knocked out power in my area, we were ready while many people I knew were scrambling to find food and shelter. I guess growing up in hurricane territory also instills the idea that things can go bad for a while and you need to do what you can to be ready. It always surprises friends of mine to see that the bottom shelf of my pantry contains a lot of shelf stable meals that only slowly get cycled through. They never understood why I'd bother keeping at least several days worth of food around, "just in case". Things today really aren't that crazy compared to what they could be like. Things will probably trend more towards normalcy in the next few months. But I know if things go bad, my immediate friends and family will be a bit more comfortable for a while longer than many of those around me.
    - lazyasciiart 6y ago
      My definition of "preppers" is a lot more specific than "people who stockpile some essential goods to see themselves through basic disasters or disruptions".
      - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
        And mine used to be as well, but in retrospect I think it's clear that I wasn't being fair. Judging any movement by their extreme fringe is gonna make them look silly.
        wccrawford 6y ago
        On the other hand, expanding a term to fit anything that somewhat resembles it really dilutes the meaning.
    - ElonMuskrat 6y ago
      That's quiet an extremist statement. There's quiet a few ticks on the continium from nuclear fallout bunker to a few months of food and water.
      - rlt 6y ago
        I would wager that the majority people, at least in liberal / urban centers, would look down even on “a few months of food and water” preppers, though that may have changed a bit in the past year.
        menage 6y ago
        But "a few months of toilet paper" is basically one pack from Costco.
        wccrawford 6y ago
        Only if you bought it recently. Most people don't buy more until they've basically run out.
  - robomartin 6y ago
    Part of it is being informed, paying attention and thinking critically. I recognized things were headed in the wrong direction back in early February of last year. That's when I went on an online shopping mission for a full week, buying provisions for at least a 90 day lockdown. I told friends, family and neighbors. I also told everyone to buy masks immediately, even if they were a bit more expensive than normal (you could buy real 3M N95 masks for $1 each, which was 5x normal price). A few people laughed at me for suggesting things could get really ugly. Others took the advise and acted on some of it. The first group had to endure long lines and very unpleasant conditions at local markets to get even the basics. The second group did OK. One of the things that was also not helping is that idiot politicians were going on TV to tell everyone everything was fine and were, quite literally, laughing at the Trump administration and calling them racist (and more) for travel bans, etc. The most horrific example of this was New York. Politicians in NY, from the Governor to the Mayor as well as health officials were telling everyone that this was nothing and that they should continue using the subway, going to restaurants, gathering, etc. They, quite literally, were responsible for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of deaths (people from NY panicked when things got bad and exploded out of the state, taking the virus with them everywhere). You don't have to believe me, here they are in their own words (yes, I kept links because I though this would be important to remember): Some of these videos disappeared from YouTube, I had to find them again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdKLx5MhTpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdKLx5MhTpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcprNxC1fU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcprNxC1fU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbPPGrZH3VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbPPGrZH3VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmllqkU6j2k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmllqkU6j2k Some of the highlights on this next one (note all the lies and misinformation): • Just like the normal flu • We should relax • We don't think it's going to be as bad as it is in other places • We have been ahead of this from day one • Go about your lives • Go about your business • There has to be prolonged exposure • Just wash your hands • No need to do anything special • We want New Yorkers to go about their daily lives • Ride the subway, ride the bus, go see your neighbors • We have the equipment • It's not like we are dealing with something we haven't dealt with before • We have the ability to address this • We have the capacity to keep this contained • Like the normal flu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhLOp7UGNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhLOp7UGNM Here's another gem from Dr. Oxiris Barbot, NY Health Commissioner (once again, deadly lies): • The local risk is low • Our preparedness is high • Go about your lives • No indication to be using masks • We have measures • We have screening • No indication that going through the subway is a risk factor • No indications to be using masks • False sense of security • The risk is low https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkBW9ewPz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkBW9ewPz8 Of course, the mainstream media went with these stories, smugly laughing at the Trump administration and gladly characterizing their actions as racially motivated. For context, the travel ban from China was put into place on January 31, 2020. Had these politicians and the media taken this event seriously it is likely hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved. When I heard that I ignored what media and politicians were saying (all is well, not to worry, just like the flu) did my research and got ready early February. My hypothesis was very simple: Such action (the travel ban) would not be taken unless they learned of something very serious potentially coming to our shores. It was, pick a number, five standard deviations away from the mean in international politics. That caught my attention. We need to be honest about this. These politicians and officials were likely responsible for seeding the country with the virus and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Yet most people are uncomfortable with an honest evaluation of history, being biased is easier.
  - habibur 6y ago
    And when scarcity hits, they don't spend from their stockpile, rather increase their stock fearing more scarcity ahead.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      If you can increase your stock and not have to spend from your stockpile, is there really scarcity?
- refurb 6y ago
  Indeed. And who is doing the work to manage the stockpile and pay for it? I did some work for a strategic US stockpile and it’s not trivial in the least.
  - JamisonM 6y ago
    In the modern world it is much less costly to stockpile a moderate amount of excess cash flow. There have been no real serious shortfalls of goods in a once in a century pandemic and the cash would have served anyone well!
ClumsyPilot 6y ago
Your comment in the best example i for how people are so busy drinking the cool aid they dont even know how things were done 50 years ago. We had grain elevators and other stockpiles of essentials. A country would save grain from summer to feed it through winter, and have months spare. This does not result in some imaginary 'wastefull living'. Obviously you don't stockpile coffee and selfie sticks
- dividedbyzero 6y ago
  Given how many people would go through withdrawal if caffeine were to be unavailable all of a sudden, maybe nowadays coffee would be something worth having a bit of a stockpile of.
  - robocat 6y ago
    Just keep a box of caffeine pills in your emergency rations. If coffee is unavailable, then use the pills to give up the habit, by reducing dosage every day. No headaches or other side effects (apart from missing the habit of making a coffee).
    - psychiatrist24 6y ago
      I bought caffeine pills when I went on a multi day hiking trip, because I was really worried about withdrawal :-) In the end I didn't need them, one cup of coffee I was able to get in the hut in the morning was enough.
      - kipchak 6y ago
        The Mount Hagen single instant coffee packets are pretty decent and light if you're boiling water on the trail.
  - occamrazor 6y ago
    Switzerland has a strategic coffee stockpile. Of course every country has stockpiles of fuel and grains.
pope_meat 6y ago
Going to wait and see on this coffee situation: http://www.msn.com/en-xl/northamerica/top-stories/the-world-is-facing-a-coffee-deficit-in-supply-chain-nightmare/ar-BB1eV09I?MSCC=1613133500 http://www.msn.com/en-xl/northamerica/top-stories/the-world-...
- nl 6y ago
  If you read the article, it looks like shipments are currently delayed around 15 days. It seems unlikely to cause anything other than short term inconvenience.
A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
I ran into an interesting issue the other day and I am starting to wonder if the harbinger of things to come. My dog food was 100% more expensive online. Local store only had one 30 pound bag. We are already stockpiling ramen and water and now I guess we will start adding dog food into the mix as well. Things have not fallen apart, but they have clearly changed.
- cableshaft 6y ago
  Where are you at that dog food has gotten 100% more expensive (or where are you checking?) It doesn't seem like it's gotten that much higher for me just checking Chewy.com.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    Amazon. There were only 2 non-local sellers so it may have been a fluke. I didn't check Chewy since I tend to wait for them to send me coupons to try them again. edit: Chicago-land
    - cableshaft 6y ago
      Also Chicagoland, but yeah we get ours through Chewy. Probably just the standard 'it's out of stock, so some random seller will throw it up there for 2-3x the price and hope someone buys it' that just about every product has on Amazon. I see it happen all the time with board games. Like this card pack for the Arkham Horror Card game, that someone's trying to sell for $40, when it retails for $15: https://www.amazon.com/Arkham-Horror-TCG-Dagon-Mythos/dp/B08JH2NYDY/ https://www.amazon.com/Arkham-Horror-TCG-Dagon-Mythos/dp/B08...
      - zo1 6y ago
        I definitely think that's a case of throwing crappy over-priced offers onto the wall and seeing what sticks. Just like crappy blog-spam, you never know when some fluke of the search algorithm will redirect some poor unknowing fool to your page or product and they are desperate or uninformed enough to buy whatever it is you are selling. 100% the fault of Amazon or whatever marketplace this is. Right now we should be having a rich taxonomy and unique product database that links all versions of the same product together so that I can click: "Chewy Dog Food 5kg" and get all the sellers offering it. Then proceed to sort by price, filter out the suppliers that look dodgy, add said suppliers to a "fake chinese product spam list" personal black list, and proceed to buy the cheapest original version of the product.
zamfi 6y ago
Funny you should mention coffee... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26571129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26571129
- psychiatrist24 6y ago
  Yes, I mentioned it precisely because I had read that story.
apatters 6y ago
There are too many things for a central planning committee to stockpile them all, sure. But if incentives are correct then private actors will spring up and stockpile them for you. What we have today is a supply chain that's been fine-tuned in large part by (de-)regulation for efficient, brittle, globalized JIT inventory but it wasn't always that way. One line of thinking goes, if the lion's share of the gains from the current framework will just go to a couple of globomegacorps anyway, why don't we shake things up.
- asdfaoeu 6y ago
  But there are private actors stockpiling them? The article notes they had 1m TEU in storage.
JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago
Coffee may not be the best example since it's not a complex supply chain: just a dry whole coffee bean (a raw commodity). A pencil, on the other hand, may have dozens of suppliers involved in the chain before a complete product is ready. It would serve as a stronger test for the health of the trade and manufacturing that sustains everyday life.
stkdump 6y ago
Whats even better than planning for costly buffers that are unused most of the time is having a system that can adapt to unplanned changes in circumstances. So far I don't see that this isn't the case, but time will tell.
- radicalbyte 6y ago
  In theory the system would prioritise - so in this case containers would become more expensive so non-essentials would no longer be transported.
  - satellite2 6y ago
    If containers become more expensive only high profit margin products will be able to afford it. I have the impression that the highest profit margins typically fall on non essentials
    - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
      I don't know, right now the item that has been most affected in the UK is garden furniture. That hardly falls in the essential category.
    - ButtSpark69 6y ago
      ...and then what would happen to the price of essentials vs non-essentials...take this one step further and you've found the answer to your question.
      - hyper_dynamics 6y ago
        Is it that easy? It seems, that only works if people can pay for the essentials. For example, look at the grain prices that sparked the protests of the arabian spring. People could everywhere not afford their bread anymore while Saudi Arabia bought the grain at ultra high prices.
        6y ago
prox 6y ago
This is why more people (everyone!) should definitely read “Black Swan” by Nicholas Taleb. His book is an amazing read about how we get fooled by chance and how we deal with risk. Anti fragile systems are certainly possible.
hef19898 6y ago
Supply Chains are optimizing for these things every day. Inventory and long lead times mean a lot of bound capital and costs. Both things are to be reduced, everyday. Some do it better than others. The last container shortage, which lasted quite a while, was in 2019. Because of paint used on containers. The old obe wasn't allowed anymore in the EU and, if memory serves well, the US. So whole fleets had to be repainted. In China, because it is cheaper. So once containers returned to Asia, they were removed from circulation for a while. We also had the Hanjin bankruptcy. This time is interesting, because COVID already screwed everything up in Q1 2020, these issues were still not really sorted out by now. European ports will be in for some funny times now, they will run try until the Suez is open again. And they will get swamped. It will be sorted out so, it might be worse than usual, but generally these things can also happen due to bad weather. This industry knows what to do. Still really interesting, I am kind of sad I missed the SCM operations on that.
- snarf21 6y ago
  Right, the whole thing is running max JIT which means any hiccups ripple quite far.

bob33212 6y ago

Yes, these people complaining should at a minimum point us to a post where they suggested that we stockpile coffee or shipping containers years ago.

nitrogen 6y ago
They don't post about it, they just do it. They are the people whose pantries were never empty.
- carbotaniuman 6y ago
  And yet we as a society look down on preppers. It's quite sad to see people complain about shortages and do nothing themselves. These aren't even shortages due to economic reasons or poverty, but rather due to simply to disruptions.
  - A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
    I think part of it is that people in US have historically faced only several major disruptions ( 1939 depression being one of them ). Most people here have very limited idea how things work, when things are not conveniently available and don't seem all that comfortable with all the new ways they are being fleeced ( bots buying popular items, algorithms tricking them into paying more ).
  - vel0city 6y ago
    I am an Eagle Scout, and the Scout motto is "Be Prepared". I try and make sure I've got supplies to last me at least a couple of weeks if things get crazy, and plans for what to do when my home becomes unlivable. When the winter storm hit and knocked out power in my area, we were ready while many people I knew were scrambling to find food and shelter. I guess growing up in hurricane territory also instills the idea that things can go bad for a while and you need to do what you can to be ready. It always surprises friends of mine to see that the bottom shelf of my pantry contains a lot of shelf stable meals that only slowly get cycled through. They never understood why I'd bother keeping at least several days worth of food around, "just in case". Things today really aren't that crazy compared to what they could be like. Things will probably trend more towards normalcy in the next few months. But I know if things go bad, my immediate friends and family will be a bit more comfortable for a while longer than many of those around me.
  - lazyasciiart 6y ago
    My definition of "preppers" is a lot more specific than "people who stockpile some essential goods to see themselves through basic disasters or disruptions".
    - SpicyLemonZest 6y ago
      And mine used to be as well, but in retrospect I think it's clear that I wasn't being fair. Judging any movement by their extreme fringe is gonna make them look silly.
      - wccrawford 6y ago
        On the other hand, expanding a term to fit anything that somewhat resembles it really dilutes the meaning.
  - ElonMuskrat 6y ago
    That's quiet an extremist statement. There's quiet a few ticks on the continium from nuclear fallout bunker to a few months of food and water.
    - rlt 6y ago
      I would wager that the majority people, at least in liberal / urban centers, would look down even on “a few months of food and water” preppers, though that may have changed a bit in the past year.
      - menage 6y ago
        But "a few months of toilet paper" is basically one pack from Costco.
        wccrawford 6y ago
        Only if you bought it recently. Most people don't buy more until they've basically run out.
- robomartin 6y ago
  Part of it is being informed, paying attention and thinking critically. I recognized things were headed in the wrong direction back in early February of last year. That's when I went on an online shopping mission for a full week, buying provisions for at least a 90 day lockdown. I told friends, family and neighbors. I also told everyone to buy masks immediately, even if they were a bit more expensive than normal (you could buy real 3M N95 masks for $1 each, which was 5x normal price). A few people laughed at me for suggesting things could get really ugly. Others took the advise and acted on some of it. The first group had to endure long lines and very unpleasant conditions at local markets to get even the basics. The second group did OK. One of the things that was also not helping is that idiot politicians were going on TV to tell everyone everything was fine and were, quite literally, laughing at the Trump administration and calling them racist (and more) for travel bans, etc. The most horrific example of this was New York. Politicians in NY, from the Governor to the Mayor as well as health officials were telling everyone that this was nothing and that they should continue using the subway, going to restaurants, gathering, etc. They, quite literally, were responsible for tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of deaths (people from NY panicked when things got bad and exploded out of the state, taking the virus with them everywhere). You don't have to believe me, here they are in their own words (yes, I kept links because I though this would be important to remember): Some of these videos disappeared from YouTube, I had to find them again. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdKLx5MhTpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cdKLx5MhTpk https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcprNxC1fU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcprNxC1fU0 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbPPGrZH3VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UbPPGrZH3VY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmllqkU6j2k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CmllqkU6j2k Some of the highlights on this next one (note all the lies and misinformation): • Just like the normal flu • We should relax • We don't think it's going to be as bad as it is in other places • We have been ahead of this from day one • Go about your lives • Go about your business • There has to be prolonged exposure • Just wash your hands • No need to do anything special • We want New Yorkers to go about their daily lives • Ride the subway, ride the bus, go see your neighbors • We have the equipment • It's not like we are dealing with something we haven't dealt with before • We have the ability to address this • We have the capacity to keep this contained • Like the normal flu https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhLOp7UGNM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEhLOp7UGNM Here's another gem from Dr. Oxiris Barbot, NY Health Commissioner (once again, deadly lies): • The local risk is low • Our preparedness is high • Go about your lives • No indication to be using masks • We have measures • We have screening • No indication that going through the subway is a risk factor • No indications to be using masks • False sense of security • The risk is low https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkBW9ewPz8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rMkBW9ewPz8 Of course, the mainstream media went with these stories, smugly laughing at the Trump administration and gladly characterizing their actions as racially motivated. For context, the travel ban from China was put into place on January 31, 2020. Had these politicians and the media taken this event seriously it is likely hundreds of thousands of lives could have been saved. When I heard that I ignored what media and politicians were saying (all is well, not to worry, just like the flu) did my research and got ready early February. My hypothesis was very simple: Such action (the travel ban) would not be taken unless they learned of something very serious potentially coming to our shores. It was, pick a number, five standard deviations away from the mean in international politics. That caught my attention. We need to be honest about this. These politicians and officials were likely responsible for seeding the country with the virus and killing hundreds of thousands of people. Yet most people are uncomfortable with an honest evaluation of history, being biased is easier.
- habibur 6y ago
  And when scarcity hits, they don't spend from their stockpile, rather increase their stock fearing more scarcity ahead.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    If you can increase your stock and not have to spend from your stockpile, is there really scarcity?
refurb 6y ago
Indeed. And who is doing the work to manage the stockpile and pay for it? I did some work for a strategic US stockpile and it’s not trivial in the least.
- JamisonM 6y ago
  In the modern world it is much less costly to stockpile a moderate amount of excess cash flow. There have been no real serious shortfalls of goods in a once in a century pandemic and the cash would have served anyone well!

ClumsyPilot 6y ago

Your comment in the best example i for how people are so busy drinking the cool aid they dont even know how things were done 50 years ago. We had grain elevators and other stockpiles of essentials. A country would save grain from summer to feed it through winter, and have months spare. This does not result in some imaginary 'wastefull living'. Obviously you don't stockpile coffee and selfie sticks

dividedbyzero 6y ago
Given how many people would go through withdrawal if caffeine were to be unavailable all of a sudden, maybe nowadays coffee would be something worth having a bit of a stockpile of.
- robocat 6y ago
  Just keep a box of caffeine pills in your emergency rations. If coffee is unavailable, then use the pills to give up the habit, by reducing dosage every day. No headaches or other side effects (apart from missing the habit of making a coffee).
  - psychiatrist24 6y ago
    I bought caffeine pills when I went on a multi day hiking trip, because I was really worried about withdrawal :-) In the end I didn't need them, one cup of coffee I was able to get in the hut in the morning was enough.
    - kipchak 6y ago
      The Mount Hagen single instant coffee packets are pretty decent and light if you're boiling water on the trail.
- occamrazor 6y ago
  Switzerland has a strategic coffee stockpile. Of course every country has stockpiles of fuel and grains.

pope_meat 6y ago

Going to wait and see on this coffee situation: http://www.msn.com/en-xl/northamerica/top-stories/the-world-is-facing-a-coffee-deficit-in-supply-chain-nightmare/ar-BB1eV09I?MSCC=1613133500 http://www.msn.com/en-xl/northamerica/top-stories/the-world-...

nl 6y ago
If you read the article, it looks like shipments are currently delayed around 15 days. It seems unlikely to cause anything other than short term inconvenience.

A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago

I ran into an interesting issue the other day and I am starting to wonder if the harbinger of things to come. My dog food was 100% more expensive online. Local store only had one 30 pound bag. We are already stockpiling ramen and water and now I guess we will start adding dog food into the mix as well. Things have not fallen apart, but they have clearly changed.

cableshaft 6y ago
Where are you at that dog food has gotten 100% more expensive (or where are you checking?) It doesn't seem like it's gotten that much higher for me just checking Chewy.com.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 6y ago
  Amazon. There were only 2 non-local sellers so it may have been a fluke. I didn't check Chewy since I tend to wait for them to send me coupons to try them again. edit: Chicago-land
  - cableshaft 6y ago
    Also Chicagoland, but yeah we get ours through Chewy. Probably just the standard 'it's out of stock, so some random seller will throw it up there for 2-3x the price and hope someone buys it' that just about every product has on Amazon. I see it happen all the time with board games. Like this card pack for the Arkham Horror Card game, that someone's trying to sell for $40, when it retails for $15: https://www.amazon.com/Arkham-Horror-TCG-Dagon-Mythos/dp/B08JH2NYDY/ https://www.amazon.com/Arkham-Horror-TCG-Dagon-Mythos/dp/B08...
    - zo1 6y ago
      I definitely think that's a case of throwing crappy over-priced offers onto the wall and seeing what sticks. Just like crappy blog-spam, you never know when some fluke of the search algorithm will redirect some poor unknowing fool to your page or product and they are desperate or uninformed enough to buy whatever it is you are selling. 100% the fault of Amazon or whatever marketplace this is. Right now we should be having a rich taxonomy and unique product database that links all versions of the same product together so that I can click: "Chewy Dog Food 5kg" and get all the sellers offering it. Then proceed to sort by price, filter out the suppliers that look dodgy, add said suppliers to a "fake chinese product spam list" personal black list, and proceed to buy the cheapest original version of the product.

zamfi 6y ago

Funny you should mention coffee... https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26571129 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26571129

psychiatrist24 6y ago
Yes, I mentioned it precisely because I had read that story.

apatters 6y ago

There are too many things for a central planning committee to stockpile them all, sure. But if incentives are correct then private actors will spring up and stockpile them for you. What we have today is a supply chain that's been fine-tuned in large part by (de-)regulation for efficient, brittle, globalized JIT inventory but it wasn't always that way. One line of thinking goes, if the lion's share of the gains from the current framework will just go to a couple of globomegacorps anyway, why don't we shake things up.

asdfaoeu 6y ago
But there are private actors stockpiling them? The article notes they had 1m TEU in storage.

JMTQp8lwXL 6y ago

Coffee may not be the best example since it's not a complex supply chain: just a dry whole coffee bean (a raw commodity). A pencil, on the other hand, may have dozens of suppliers involved in the chain before a complete product is ready. It would serve as a stronger test for the health of the trade and manufacturing that sustains everyday life.

stkdump 6y ago

Whats even better than planning for costly buffers that are unused most of the time is having a system that can adapt to unplanned changes in circumstances. So far I don't see that this isn't the case, but time will tell.

radicalbyte 6y ago
In theory the system would prioritise - so in this case containers would become more expensive so non-essentials would no longer be transported.
- satellite2 6y ago
  If containers become more expensive only high profit margin products will be able to afford it. I have the impression that the highest profit margins typically fall on non essentials
  - tonyedgecombe 6y ago
    I don't know, right now the item that has been most affected in the UK is garden furniture. That hardly falls in the essential category.
  - ButtSpark69 6y ago
    ...and then what would happen to the price of essentials vs non-essentials...take this one step further and you've found the answer to your question.
    - hyper_dynamics 6y ago
      Is it that easy? It seems, that only works if people can pay for the essentials. For example, look at the grain prices that sparked the protests of the arabian spring. People could everywhere not afford their bread anymore while Saudi Arabia bought the grain at ultra high prices.
      - 6y ago

prox 6y ago

This is why more people (everyone!) should definitely read “Black Swan” by Nicholas Taleb. His book is an amazing read about how we get fooled by chance and how we deal with risk. Anti fragile systems are certainly possible.

hef19898 6y ago

Supply Chains are optimizing for these things every day. Inventory and long lead times mean a lot of bound capital and costs. Both things are to be reduced, everyday. Some do it better than others. The last container shortage, which lasted quite a while, was in 2019. Because of paint used on containers. The old obe wasn't allowed anymore in the EU and, if memory serves well, the US. So whole fleets had to be repainted. In China, because it is cheaper. So once containers returned to Asia, they were removed from circulation for a while. We also had the Hanjin bankruptcy. This time is interesting, because COVID already screwed everything up in Q1 2020, these issues were still not really sorted out by now. European ports will be in for some funny times now, they will run try until the Suez is open again. And they will get swamped. It will be sorted out so, it might be worse than usual, but generally these things can also happen due to bad weather. This industry knows what to do. Still really interesting, I am kind of sad I missed the SCM operations on that.

snarf21 6y ago
Right, the whole thing is running max JIT which means any hiccups ripple quite far.