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What caused the initial issue, the Suez fiasco?
by AlecSchueler 5y ago
What caused the initial issue, the Suez fiasco?
- Kluny 5y agoWell no, covid. It's still fallout from that. Factories in the cheap-labour countries like Taiwan closed down due to covid, and oftentimes management made conservative bets about how long covid would continue, so they didn't ramp up production or efficiency (or couldn't).
- icegreentea2 5y agoThe pandemic in general? Trans-pacific shipping got completely blown up (on both ends) multiple times since Feb/March 2019. Already while COVID was largely confined to China, supply problems were beginning to emerge, starting with China factories shutting down and internal networks (trucking) being disrupted by the pandemic and lockdowns. Everything just compounded from there. I remember reading daily posts on a supply chain subreddit talking about shipping indexes dropping daily in March. Like honestly, it's pretty amazing that shortages aren't worse. Perhaps a testament to how much of our trade is in non-critical goods.