4 ms·
> The US has now outsourced most of the production of goods to places in other countries. I think that is the point (or one of the points): it's not just logis
by cmenge 5y ago
> The US has now outsourced most of the production of goods to places in other countries.
I think that is the point (or one of the points): it's not just logistics and spare capacity - it's a much more complex set of issues.
This isn't something accounting practices or "less greed" would solve, as seems to be implied in the Twitter thread.
Would you have voted for a party that spent $1b annually on mask manufacturing subsidies for masks nobody even bought? Who could have foreseen that demand spike?
- joe_the_user 5y agoWould you have voted for a party that spent $1b annually on mask manufacturing subsidies for masks nobody even bought? I would have voted for a party with a program of "bring the manufacture of strategically crucial items back to the US and make it robust". This seems like it would even be Republican "bread and butter" and I don't see why either party had an issue with it.
- chii 5y agoHow you label or market a subsidy doesn't change it to not be a subsidy. i think a lot of people would not want such a subsidy.
- HWR_14 5y ago> Would you have voted for a party that spent $1b annually on mask manufacturing subsidies for masks nobody even bought? Who could have foreseen that demand spike? Many people did (only at the $450MM level/annually). It was considered standard practice to have the federal government purchase large quantities of N95 masks to have in case of an emergency. GWB started the program, and Obama distributed 100,000,000 masks during the H1N1 crisis from the stockpile. I will say that restocking the pile took a cut after 2010, Congress cut its funding and Obama's team didn't fight for it. And what funding they did get didn't seem to get prioritized into masks.
- kilna 5y ago> This isn't something accounting practices or "less greed" would solve Are you seriously trying to say that production being moved to China, et al. is not because of greed generally, and ROE specifically?
- lotsofpulp 5y agoIt might have something to do with drastically lower labor prices and environmental laws. There is only so much discrepancy in prices that global markets will allow before buyers start rewarding the lower priced sellers for taking advantage of the arbitrage.
- caethan 5y agoPlenty of people foresaw it. California spent ~$200m on building up a stockpile of PPE and other medical supplies back in 2006, before Brown cut funding for the program in 2011.
- AnimalMuppet 5y agoBeing right too early leaves room for the people who come after you to be wrong in a way that makes it useless that you were right.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- JaimeThompson 5y agoUse the stockpile to sell / provide such masks to the VA, Military, and other government organizations on a FIFO basis so the stock is never stale. For stock that can not be moved quickly enough donate it to other countries that may need it.
- ClumsyPilot 5y ago"mask manufacturing subsidies for masks nobody even bought? Who could have foreseen that demand spike?" The entire industrial capacity of USA, country of 300 million people, could produce zero Meltblown, so it could make zero masks. Do you think it's acceptable? People talk about conflict with China while we depent on them for toilet paper to wipe out butts, it's like a mentall ilness.
- HWR_14 5y agoThe US gets a neglible amount of toilet paper, if any, from China. And there was never a supply disruption: there was a demand disruption, a distribution disruption and a run.