Supply Chain woes and solutions
November 5, 2021 1:40 PM Subscribe
Empty Shelves, no toys for Christmas, your custom order held up for months! The supply chain in America is already under stress and is reportedly getting worse.
Why is this happening? Ryan Johnson, a truck driver, explains the issue in ports: drivers have to wait in line to enter the port, in another to get loaded up, and then a third one to leave. The ports have no incentive to keep these lines moving and do not even offer a restroom to the drivers as they are not employees. Independent drivers are quitting because they cannot even make minimum wage at this rate.
Ryan Peterson, the CEO of a logistics company, explains one big issue with the Port of Long Beach (Twitter): a regulation about not stacking containers more than two high means gridlock and no one has space for storing even empty containers. This one is a success story as the regulation is now on hold after the tweetstorm.
Why is this happening? Ryan Johnson, a truck driver, explains the issue in ports: drivers have to wait in line to enter the port, in another to get loaded up, and then a third one to leave. The ports have no incentive to keep these lines moving and do not even offer a restroom to the drivers as they are not employees. Independent drivers are quitting because they cannot even make minimum wage at this rate.
Ryan Peterson, the CEO of a logistics company, explains one big issue with the Port of Long Beach (Twitter): a regulation about not stacking containers more than two high means gridlock and no one has space for storing even empty containers. This one is a success story as the regulation is now on hold after the tweetstorm.
Great story, and well-explained!
Couple of notes from a local:
As was pointed out in the comments on the post, the stacking problem is in the container yards in municipal Long Beach surrounding the terminals. The Port itself regularly stacks 5-6 high.
The idea of dedicating rail freight making shuttle runs to a relatively nearby empty property is that here in LA and the exurbs, the rail lines are shared with Amtrak and commuter rail. If they decided to run freight out to, say, the semi-closed March AFB in Riverside, I imagine they'd only be able to do it overnight.
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:25 PM on November 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
Couple of notes from a local:
As was pointed out in the comments on the post, the stacking problem is in the container yards in municipal Long Beach surrounding the terminals. The Port itself regularly stacks 5-6 high.
The idea of dedicating rail freight making shuttle runs to a relatively nearby empty property is that here in LA and the exurbs, the rail lines are shared with Amtrak and commuter rail. If they decided to run freight out to, say, the semi-closed March AFB in Riverside, I imagine they'd only be able to do it overnight.
posted by ApathyGirl at 2:25 PM on November 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
You go anywhere else in the world e.g. Europe and the majority of freight is carried by rail with large marshaling yards feeding through to smaller ones and the 'last kilometer' (marginal distance reference point) being handled by truck depots.
Without disputing the sorry state of American (and worldwide) infrastructure, this is actually reversed: the US moves a higher percentage of freight by train then does Europe. This is why Europe has wonderful passenger service and ours is terrible, since freight trains have priority on US tracks.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:38 PM on November 5, 2021 [27 favorites]
Without disputing the sorry state of American (and worldwide) infrastructure, this is actually reversed: the US moves a higher percentage of freight by train then does Europe. This is why Europe has wonderful passenger service and ours is terrible, since freight trains have priority on US tracks.
posted by Dip Flash at 2:38 PM on November 5, 2021 [27 favorites]
Other relevant details, via LA Times' recent TikTok deal with Under the Desk News. We have problems on America's end of this, but the problems also involve different problems in China. Seems worth remembering no one port, no one link of the chain, and no one country is going to be able to resolve this alone.
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:04 PM on November 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
posted by scaryblackdeath at 3:04 PM on November 5, 2021 [3 favorites]
I keep noticing weird shortages and absences. Nothing actually **BAD** just mild inconvenience. My grocery store suddenly can't get Sheba brand cat food. They have other brands, but not Sheeba. For a short time there were almost no canned tomatoes, and now there are canned tomatoes again but in more limited variety. Little things.
Nothing really major has gone short, yet, but it's alarming how fragile the just in time system is. And, like so much else, it was made to get more money for the CEO's yacht fund. Warehousing is expensive, so having everything arrive just in time means less warehousing and therefore more money for yachts.
posted by sotonohito at 3:42 PM on November 5, 2021 [25 favorites]
Nothing really major has gone short, yet, but it's alarming how fragile the just in time system is. And, like so much else, it was made to get more money for the CEO's yacht fund. Warehousing is expensive, so having everything arrive just in time means less warehousing and therefore more money for yachts.
posted by sotonohito at 3:42 PM on November 5, 2021 [25 favorites]
You go anywhere else in the world e.g. Europe and the majority of freight is carried by rail with large marshaling yards feeding through to smaller ones and the 'last kilometer' (marginal distance reference point) being handled by truck depots.
If you think that Europe isn't also dealing with the same issues, largely exacerbated by many countries having relied for far too long on cheap (mostly immigrant) labour which is likewise failing them now said labourers are understandably sick of being treated terribly for terrible pay and worse conditions, made worse by the pandemic and political upheaval -- not to mention the global problems of literal shipping being held up with myriad issues and costs tripling overnight -- I'm sad to tell you otherwise.
This isn't an American problem. It's a global problem, but really it's just the curtain finally falling away and revealing how shitty and skin-of-your-teeth things have been behind the scenes for too long.
posted by fight or flight at 4:26 PM on November 5, 2021 [25 favorites]
If you think that Europe isn't also dealing with the same issues, largely exacerbated by many countries having relied for far too long on cheap (mostly immigrant) labour which is likewise failing them now said labourers are understandably sick of being treated terribly for terrible pay and worse conditions, made worse by the pandemic and political upheaval -- not to mention the global problems of literal shipping being held up with myriad issues and costs tripling overnight -- I'm sad to tell you otherwise.
This isn't an American problem. It's a global problem, but really it's just the curtain finally falling away and revealing how shitty and skin-of-your-teeth things have been behind the scenes for too long.
posted by fight or flight at 4:26 PM on November 5, 2021 [25 favorites]
revealing how shitty and skin-of-your-teeth things have been behind the scenes
This is, of course, by design. The "just in time" model of manufacturing became all the rate in the 80s makes assumptions that the supply chain is under perfect control at all times. A "black swan" like a pandemic comes along and reveals the fragility of the system.
Previous methods might have been less efficient, but they also tolerated failure better.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:38 PM on November 5, 2021 [14 favorites]
This is, of course, by design. The "just in time" model of manufacturing became all the rate in the 80s makes assumptions that the supply chain is under perfect control at all times. A "black swan" like a pandemic comes along and reveals the fragility of the system.
Previous methods might have been less efficient, but they also tolerated failure better.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll at 8:38 PM on November 5, 2021 [14 favorites]
Some freight is being moved out of the LA and LB ports by train, and then being looted along the way.
posted by jimw at 9:08 PM on November 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
posted by jimw at 9:08 PM on November 5, 2021 [2 favorites]
You go anywhere else in the world, in NZ about all that travels by rail is milk powder and coal, the first dependant of the last, almost no climate consciousness at all in some industries. Trucking lobby has worked very hard to elevate trucking. Roads are in a shocking state and getting worse - have no proof but suspect some asphalt chemicals in short supply. Unemployment is very low, historically it's been manipulated high as it keeps inflation down - an Auckland graffiti in the early 80s near my work was unemployment is not working
And yes, we have lots of supply chain issues, and a desperate housing shortage. Meanwhile govt is intending to close our only oil refinery.
In Level 4 last year it became impossible to buy milk powder as the packets it comes in were all made in Asia. We can get it now but brand is a bottom dweller so who knows where the mill's from. And now we have a lead scare as the sole sugar importer used a ship that normally carries lead, seems all sugar since October 1 has had lead in it, testing appears to be voluntary, what a fucking mess. But the sun shines and I have landscapes up to my eyeballs.
I think mass tourism is gone: it was only possible here by employing tourists illegally and underpaying them. I still have hopes for independent, self-propelled travel through - apart from the flight here!
posted by unearthed at 9:50 PM on November 5, 2021 [7 favorites]
And yes, we have lots of supply chain issues, and a desperate housing shortage. Meanwhile govt is intending to close our only oil refinery.
In Level 4 last year it became impossible to buy milk powder as the packets it comes in were all made in Asia. We can get it now but brand is a bottom dweller so who knows where the mill's from. And now we have a lead scare as the sole sugar importer used a ship that normally carries lead, seems all sugar since October 1 has had lead in it, testing appears to be voluntary, what a fucking mess. But the sun shines and I have landscapes up to my eyeballs.
I think mass tourism is gone: it was only possible here by employing tourists illegally and underpaying them. I still have hopes for independent, self-propelled travel through - apart from the flight here!
posted by unearthed at 9:50 PM on November 5, 2021 [7 favorites]
Like sotonohito I, as a consumer, have noticed weird random shortages across the board. My son is waiting for replacement frames for his glasses, as the ones he's got now are more superglue than plastic at this point. Bicycle parts, different kinds of electronics, biodegradable dog poo bags, other random stuff is difficult to find. I live in Norway, btw, and we import a lot of stuff.
posted by Harald74 at 10:54 PM on November 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
posted by Harald74 at 10:54 PM on November 5, 2021 [4 favorites]
>A "black swan" like a pandemic comes along and reveals the fragility of the system.
Today in our game of "Malice or Incompetence," we get to bicker about who would benefit from a system vulnerable to disruption -- that they're able to sidestep themselves while profiting when it works -- or if we're lacking insight, it's incompetence and "these things happen."
Elsewhere my tech friends have been discussing unpredictability in distributed computer systems, and is something we talk about in general terms, modelling flows of things with unpredictable delays in networks of many other things going on. The best tool we have for making these delays predictable is for each node to pass information up and down the chain about queue depth (how much stuff is waiting) and how much stuff is being processed.
It's unthinkable that professional logistics organisationd, stockists and suppliers don't share that information for just-in-time decision-making, so our sense of missing stuff on shop shelves is after the best efforts of people is with those best efforts of the people in a system which is getting back to its feet after so many people working in production of the things we consume had to stop their lines to deal with severe illness.
posted by k3ninho at 3:36 AM on November 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
Today in our game of "Malice or Incompetence," we get to bicker about who would benefit from a system vulnerable to disruption -- that they're able to sidestep themselves while profiting when it works -- or if we're lacking insight, it's incompetence and "these things happen."
Elsewhere my tech friends have been discussing unpredictability in distributed computer systems, and is something we talk about in general terms, modelling flows of things with unpredictable delays in networks of many other things going on. The best tool we have for making these delays predictable is for each node to pass information up and down the chain about queue depth (how much stuff is waiting) and how much stuff is being processed.
It's unthinkable that professional logistics organisationd, stockists and suppliers don't share that information for just-in-time decision-making, so our sense of missing stuff on shop shelves is after the best efforts of people is with those best efforts of the people in a system which is getting back to its feet after so many people working in production of the things we consume had to stop their lines to deal with severe illness.
posted by k3ninho at 3:36 AM on November 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
When the pandemic first became "real" in the US – those first few days, when everyone was stockpiling food, hunkering down, and obsessively refreshing the JHU map – I remember feeling like the facade of our civilization had been torn aside, revealing the machinery underneath.
There were shortages of all kinds of things – toilet paper and hand sanitizer, of course, but also staples like coffee, chicken, and fresh fruit. I was reasonably confident that this would return to normal after the initial system shock, but it was still jarring – I'd never had to think much about the transportation logistics of my groceries before. Coffee shortages were something that was "supposed" to happen in war-torn countries overseas, not at my Wegmans.
Online ad targeting algorithms went haywire for a while – I remember a very abrupt and weird shift in the kinds of ads that I saw.
I'm finding it hard to put into words, but I had a distinct sense that a curtain had been pulled aside. The image painted on the curtain said: everything is fine; whatever vaguely-understood systems underpin your daily life will always keep humming invisibly along; just take them for granted. Behind the curtain, though, was a tottering house of cards – and it was unsettling to see.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:28 AM on November 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
There were shortages of all kinds of things – toilet paper and hand sanitizer, of course, but also staples like coffee, chicken, and fresh fruit. I was reasonably confident that this would return to normal after the initial system shock, but it was still jarring – I'd never had to think much about the transportation logistics of my groceries before. Coffee shortages were something that was "supposed" to happen in war-torn countries overseas, not at my Wegmans.
Online ad targeting algorithms went haywire for a while – I remember a very abrupt and weird shift in the kinds of ads that I saw.
I'm finding it hard to put into words, but I had a distinct sense that a curtain had been pulled aside. The image painted on the curtain said: everything is fine; whatever vaguely-understood systems underpin your daily life will always keep humming invisibly along; just take them for granted. Behind the curtain, though, was a tottering house of cards – and it was unsettling to see.
posted by escape from the potato planet at 4:28 AM on November 6, 2021 [6 favorites]
You go anywhere else in theworld in Switzerland all my multinational clients that manufacture things tell me that they have significant supply chain challenges.
These ranged from more unusual problems like waiting several weeks to get stuff shipped on a certain boat stuck in the Suez Canal to pervasive problems like significant price hikes in all raw materials and significantly longer lead times for any kind of purchases to transport costs multiplying. And this is before they tell me about hiring problems.
Some have had the foresight and liquidity to build up their inventories anyway to meet Xmas demand. Some have long-term purchase agreements that guarantee prices for a certain period and delay the effect on cost so that they can re-negotiate with customers on existing contracts and price new business differently/include contract provisions that allow them to pass on higher costs. But every single business I talk to is affected by this in some way.
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:21 AM on November 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
These ranged from more unusual problems like waiting several weeks to get stuff shipped on a certain boat stuck in the Suez Canal to pervasive problems like significant price hikes in all raw materials and significantly longer lead times for any kind of purchases to transport costs multiplying. And this is before they tell me about hiring problems.
Some have had the foresight and liquidity to build up their inventories anyway to meet Xmas demand. Some have long-term purchase agreements that guarantee prices for a certain period and delay the effect on cost so that they can re-negotiate with customers on existing contracts and price new business differently/include contract provisions that allow them to pass on higher costs. But every single business I talk to is affected by this in some way.
posted by koahiatamadl at 5:21 AM on November 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Watching this continuing collapse of global supply chains has really made me keep returning to think about a book I read decades ago, about how complex systems can break in impossible to predict ways. While the book is generally more focused on classical accidents (Three Mile Island, Challenger, etc.), what is happening today is an ongoing ‘accident’ of a global scale - that if it isn’t resolved quickly enough threatens to upend everything.
Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies
"Normal" accidents, or system accidents, are so-called by Perrow because such accidents are inevitable in extremely complex systems. Given the characteristic of the system involved, multiple failures that interact with each other will occur, despite efforts to avoid them. Perrow said that, while operator error is a very common problem, many failures relate to organizations rather than technology, and big accidents almost always have very small beginnings. Such events appear trivial to begin with before unpredictably cascading through the system to create a large event with severe consequences.
A good summary of it is here…
Accidents have always happened and there is a history of examining the more serious accidents to understand and prevent their recurrence. There is also a view that accidents are random, but this book makes it clear that significant accidents can’t be dismissed as unavoidable random events. Perhaps the most common explanation for these accidents is human error (60-80% of the time). Faulty design or poor training are also frequently cited causes. Perrow thought this was too shallow an analysis and much too useful to organizations in avoiding responsibility. A close reading of accident reports showed that many accidents occurred because of the interaction between parts of a system in ways that were deemed impossible by experts. The increasing complexity and automation of systems meant that it became more difficult to understand and control the systems when they misbehaved – well beyond the capacity of most people even when experienced and well trained. Some of these complex systems look remarkably simple to outsiders too.
Perrow starts with an everyday example of an accident. You are preparing for a job interview this morning. Your partner left the coffee pot on the stove (remember, this is 1984) and the pot cracked. You get out the old percolator and prepare coffee, which puts you a bit behind schedule. You rush out of the house to find that you’ve locked your car and house keys inside. Last week you lent your spare key to a friend to drop something off when you’d be away. You go to borrow a neighbor’s car, but it is in the shop for a repair. As a last resort, you start for the bus stop only to learn that the drivers went on strike this morning. Despite building in a redundancy (spare key) and having a backup system (neighbor car and bus), you miss the interview. The odds against all of these things going wrong seem outlandish and there is no sense that one misadventure caused any of the others. Arguably, the broken coffee pot or forgotten keys could be classified as human error, but the failures of the redundancies and backup components involved no human error. We tend to forget just how complex our ordinary lives are and how interdependent our activities are. This complexity and interdependence makes accidents of this sort inevitable.
posted by rambling wanderlust at 5:24 AM on November 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
Normal Accidents: Living with High-Risk Technologies
"Normal" accidents, or system accidents, are so-called by Perrow because such accidents are inevitable in extremely complex systems. Given the characteristic of the system involved, multiple failures that interact with each other will occur, despite efforts to avoid them. Perrow said that, while operator error is a very common problem, many failures relate to organizations rather than technology, and big accidents almost always have very small beginnings. Such events appear trivial to begin with before unpredictably cascading through the system to create a large event with severe consequences.
A good summary of it is here…
Accidents have always happened and there is a history of examining the more serious accidents to understand and prevent their recurrence. There is also a view that accidents are random, but this book makes it clear that significant accidents can’t be dismissed as unavoidable random events. Perhaps the most common explanation for these accidents is human error (60-80% of the time). Faulty design or poor training are also frequently cited causes. Perrow thought this was too shallow an analysis and much too useful to organizations in avoiding responsibility. A close reading of accident reports showed that many accidents occurred because of the interaction between parts of a system in ways that were deemed impossible by experts. The increasing complexity and automation of systems meant that it became more difficult to understand and control the systems when they misbehaved – well beyond the capacity of most people even when experienced and well trained. Some of these complex systems look remarkably simple to outsiders too.
Perrow starts with an everyday example of an accident. You are preparing for a job interview this morning. Your partner left the coffee pot on the stove (remember, this is 1984) and the pot cracked. You get out the old percolator and prepare coffee, which puts you a bit behind schedule. You rush out of the house to find that you’ve locked your car and house keys inside. Last week you lent your spare key to a friend to drop something off when you’d be away. You go to borrow a neighbor’s car, but it is in the shop for a repair. As a last resort, you start for the bus stop only to learn that the drivers went on strike this morning. Despite building in a redundancy (spare key) and having a backup system (neighbor car and bus), you miss the interview. The odds against all of these things going wrong seem outlandish and there is no sense that one misadventure caused any of the others. Arguably, the broken coffee pot or forgotten keys could be classified as human error, but the failures of the redundancies and backup components involved no human error. We tend to forget just how complex our ordinary lives are and how interdependent our activities are. This complexity and interdependence makes accidents of this sort inevitable.
posted by rambling wanderlust at 5:24 AM on November 6, 2021 [11 favorites]
>This complexity and interdependence makes accidents of this sort inevitable.
That's somewhat fatalistic. Who takes responsibility and how do we get better outcomes of this was inevitable?
In software, we're careful* to mark the difference between complicated systems with many moving parts and complex systems with occluded complications that cause unintended consequences for the bits that fall outside the cognitive scope of a single person or team.
For me, when diagnosing the failure of a complicated or complex system, there's almost always an assumption unchecked that lets the chain of unintended consequences wreak their havoc. I like the "layers of swiss cheese" metaphor where sometimes the holes line up in a multi-layered system and things fall through. For the global efficient just-in-time supply chain, those holes were sold to us as an advantage, but the global scope of the pandemic means we need spare capacity -- redundancy -- to cover up these holes.
Dave Snowden's Cynefin Framework -- the Welsh word pronounced kur-neh-fin that means Habitat -- might be interesting for migrating from unmanageable complexity down to manageable complicated systems.
*: some people are careful, ymmv
posted by k3ninho at 7:31 AM on November 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
That's somewhat fatalistic. Who takes responsibility and how do we get better outcomes of this was inevitable?
In software, we're careful* to mark the difference between complicated systems with many moving parts and complex systems with occluded complications that cause unintended consequences for the bits that fall outside the cognitive scope of a single person or team.
For me, when diagnosing the failure of a complicated or complex system, there's almost always an assumption unchecked that lets the chain of unintended consequences wreak their havoc. I like the "layers of swiss cheese" metaphor where sometimes the holes line up in a multi-layered system and things fall through. For the global efficient just-in-time supply chain, those holes were sold to us as an advantage, but the global scope of the pandemic means we need spare capacity -- redundancy -- to cover up these holes.
Dave Snowden's Cynefin Framework -- the Welsh word pronounced kur-neh-fin that means Habitat -- might be interesting for migrating from unmanageable complexity down to manageable complicated systems.
*: some people are careful, ymmv
posted by k3ninho at 7:31 AM on November 6, 2021 [4 favorites]
Some freight is being moved out of the LA and LB ports by train, and then being looted along the way.
Yes, it's not structural weaknesses in late-stage Capitalism, it's those darnhobos homeless camps next to the railways.
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:24 AM on November 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
Yes, it's not structural weaknesses in late-stage Capitalism, it's those darn
posted by TheWhiteSkull at 9:24 AM on November 6, 2021 [5 favorites]
Yes, it's not structural weaknesses in late-stage Capitalism, it's those darn hobos homeless camps next to the railways.
It's a tremendous opportunity to start turning the just-world fallacy back on the C-suite.
posted by rhizome at 12:41 PM on November 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
It's a tremendous opportunity to start turning the just-world fallacy back on the C-suite.
posted by rhizome at 12:41 PM on November 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
Malice or incompetence
My usual response applies: why not both?
posted by q*ben at 6:41 PM on November 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
My usual response applies: why not both?
posted by q*ben at 6:41 PM on November 6, 2021 [1 favorite]
This is, of course, by design. The "just in time" model of manufacturing became all the rate in the 80s makes assumptions that the supply chain is under perfect control at all times. A "black swan" like a pandemic comes along and reveals the fragility of the system.
This has been my theory for a while. When generations of MBAs spend their entire careers shaving any redundancy out of the system to wring out that last bit of profit for the C-suites, there's not a lot of resilience left. So what it if all depends on cheap wages and subsidized, planet-wrecking fuel? That's in the future, and we need to make this quarter's numbers!
Article about moving off just-in-time logistics from The Guardian...
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 7:37 PM on November 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
This has been my theory for a while. When generations of MBAs spend their entire careers shaving any redundancy out of the system to wring out that last bit of profit for the C-suites, there's not a lot of resilience left. So what it if all depends on cheap wages and subsidized, planet-wrecking fuel? That's in the future, and we need to make this quarter's numbers!
Article about moving off just-in-time logistics from The Guardian...
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 7:37 PM on November 6, 2021 [3 favorites]
It seems to me that a return to even a little bit of inventory-based retail will be huge for smaller and independent stores.
posted by rhizome at 12:32 AM on November 7, 2021
posted by rhizome at 12:32 AM on November 7, 2021
It seems to me that a return to even a little bit of inventory-based retail will be huge for smaller and independent stores.
As an owner of a smaller and independent store, I guess that I hope so. But investing more in inventory is really hard if (a) you are still struggling to recover from a pandemic where you had to close your doors but big box stores and Amazon did not with all of the related consumer behavior shifts and (b) it’s hard to get inventory and (c) costs are increasing and unstable.
And it’s not just the pandemic - the freeze in Texas last February knocked out refineries and the kinks that put in the supply chain in our industry are still getting worked out. The failures of the pandemic are probably just a hint of the failures to come in dealing with climate change.
posted by jimw at 1:59 AM on November 7, 2021 [8 favorites]
As an owner of a smaller and independent store, I guess that I hope so. But investing more in inventory is really hard if (a) you are still struggling to recover from a pandemic where you had to close your doors but big box stores and Amazon did not with all of the related consumer behavior shifts and (b) it’s hard to get inventory and (c) costs are increasing and unstable.
And it’s not just the pandemic - the freeze in Texas last February knocked out refineries and the kinks that put in the supply chain in our industry are still getting worked out. The failures of the pandemic are probably just a hint of the failures to come in dealing with climate change.
posted by jimw at 1:59 AM on November 7, 2021 [8 favorites]
freight trains have priority on US tracks.
De facto, albeit not de jure. For the record.
posted by BWA at 4:17 AM on November 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
De facto, albeit not de jure. For the record.
posted by BWA at 4:17 AM on November 7, 2021 [4 favorites]
freight trains have priority on US tracks.
It doesn't really matter if freight trains have priority, because the supply chain kink is that China makes lots of goods, China is closest to the west coast of the US, the west coast of the US has only a few train lines across the vast empty middle of the US to deliver goods back east. Freight trains were running basically at capacity before the pandemic. There was no spare capacity to grab.
This has been the case since the 1970s, so we've had a chance to remedy this for literally decades, but the collective shrug has been 'nah'.
Also, I personally think lots of this is dramatically overstated.
Also think about the effects of moving off JIT beyond you not getting your favorite coffee for one minute: your grocery store is going to be even larger (to store all the excess supply), your food even less fresh (more frozen, or canned). Price swings even more dramatic (whoops ordered too much canned pumpkin pie and it's about to expire - better order much less next time.).
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:13 AM on November 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
It doesn't really matter if freight trains have priority, because the supply chain kink is that China makes lots of goods, China is closest to the west coast of the US, the west coast of the US has only a few train lines across the vast empty middle of the US to deliver goods back east. Freight trains were running basically at capacity before the pandemic. There was no spare capacity to grab.
This has been the case since the 1970s, so we've had a chance to remedy this for literally decades, but the collective shrug has been 'nah'.
Also, I personally think lots of this is dramatically overstated.
Also think about the effects of moving off JIT beyond you not getting your favorite coffee for one minute: your grocery store is going to be even larger (to store all the excess supply), your food even less fresh (more frozen, or canned). Price swings even more dramatic (whoops ordered too much canned pumpkin pie and it's about to expire - better order much less next time.).
posted by The_Vegetables at 8:13 AM on November 8, 2021 [1 favorite]
I have a friend who used to work for a company that made in-house brands for grocery stores. Surplus canned goods were never a problem, they could always be funneled off to various states that had a lot of folks with large pantries.
We don't that much locally anymore, so when supply chains fuck up, we end up in situations where ER nurses are running into rooms wearing garbage bags and praying that they will have enough protection, or the one company in Italy that makes a particular type of swab can't keep up with demand.
Despite what the former administration people keep saying, we left a whole bunch of people hanging. Even now there are suspicious gaps that we may never recover from. I saw a thing that if you want to order a book, there's no paper in Europe until the new year. Still not sure when electronics will return to normal. Or if normal is even a thing anymore.
So much of our economy to ship things quickly, where we throw it away. Future generations will look at it in horror.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 3:15 PM on November 9, 2021
We don't that much locally anymore, so when supply chains fuck up, we end up in situations where ER nurses are running into rooms wearing garbage bags and praying that they will have enough protection, or the one company in Italy that makes a particular type of swab can't keep up with demand.
Despite what the former administration people keep saying, we left a whole bunch of people hanging. Even now there are suspicious gaps that we may never recover from. I saw a thing that if you want to order a book, there's no paper in Europe until the new year. Still not sure when electronics will return to normal. Or if normal is even a thing anymore.
So much of our economy to ship things quickly, where we throw it away. Future generations will look at it in horror.
posted by fifteen schnitzengruben is my limit at 3:15 PM on November 9, 2021
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The skeptic in me leads me to think that the 'get it while you can because otherwise you will have a lousy Christmas with nothing' is merely a stimulus prod to get people out of their bunkers and spending money to get the economy back on track, as well as a reason to jack up prices to recoup losses dating back to the early Covid days.
Again, sufficient time has passed for those involved in shipping to come up with the (clearly missing) Plan B and Plan C.
Capitalism and consumerism are such wonderful things. Now get out there and spend what little money you have OR use one of your many credit cards to get further into unsustainable debt...
posted by IndelibleUnderpants at 2:16 PM on November 5, 2021 [17 favorites]