COVID-19 has been a disaster in every way possible for the globe, and not just because millions of people have gotten sick, and hundreds of thousands have died. That of course is a huge problem.
No, I’m talking about the impact that a global pandemic has on an economy so tied up in every country having a role to play that when supply chains have been disrupted as they have, things start to slowly go haywire.
Especially when you’re a new business trying to find cheap electronics, like printers. A majority of the electronics we use these days are built overseas in a variety of East Asian countries – mainly China, but also Malaysia, Taiwan, Singapore, the Philippines, South Korea, with the list going on forever – which when shipping lanes are shut down and factories shuttered because of the need to slow and stop new infections, then nothing is getting produced.
For the consumer here in the United States like myself, that usually means that once the supply of, say, cheap Canon printers goes out of stock it can be a while before they are back on store shelves or available for order online. (I know I can order a more expensive printer and get it immediately. I’m a man on a budget right now… My point isn’t about the printer right now.)
There have always been downsides to a global economy. Winners and losers are chosen by market forces many times out of the hands of consumers. If all the manufacturing of a part goes overseas, then a customer has no choice but to buy that particular gizmo or gadget since no other alternative exists. So it reduces the ability of the consumer not only to have a choice, but to be provided with at least something on a store shelf when disaster strikes and that gizmo is not being produced in China, or Taiwan, or far off lands of any point on the globe.
It also ignores the other elephant in the room: On Time Production.
This is a subject I’ll have to come back to another day in more depth (maybe even for a podcast) but for now the broad strokes are that On Time Production is what happens when you take the concept of mass production and tailor it for an Amazon age, though it was already in place well before the World Wide Web took over the economy as it has. Basically in an effort to further streamline the time to market for any kind of product, manufacturers only produce what they project they need at any given time instead of, say, the old Ford Motor Company way in Detroit where you keep putting together Model T’s and rolling them out the back door of the factory into a parking lot.
On Time Production’s downside is that when something like a pandemic happens, and there isn’t enough product in stock to keep the supply chain going, you end up with empty store shelves where the printer I want to buy cheaply used to sit. Or you run out of latex gloves, N-95 masks and other personal protective gear that hospitals need.
So remember the next time you’re at Walmart purchasing some cheap plastic pitcher or need to find some isopropyl alcohol and can’t. On Time Delivery and overseas manufacturing for cheaper isn’t always the best solution. It may be cheaper, it may bring other countries out of poverty. But it makes life more difficult for the average consumer when people can’t find the items they need immediately.
ICYMI
Check out in this story what’s happening at Community Share Ministries in Cedartown. Worth a read.
Something to watch this morning
President Donald Trump? Wearing a face mask? Noooo… What’s crazy to me is that people are treating it like we’ve turned some corner. Believe it when I see it.
Something to read this morning
The New York Times is reporting on the economic crisis in Lebanon, that has seen power outages and families unable to afford essentials like food in what has traditionally in the past decades been a stable country in the Middle East.
You might have a video game worth its weight in gold somewhere in the basement. Well, maybe not worth $114,000 that this Super Mario Brothers copy got at auction.
Nah, Rep. Doug Collins isn’t pandering to the left. Here’s the Fox News video of him defending himself. (Not really something to read, I know.)
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