(Replying to PARENT post)

Just in time manufacturing is a recipe for disaster when you allow a single nation to do the lion's share of everyone's manufacturing, and that nation is the first to shut down.

A decentralized manufacturing system with distribution through regional warehouses was more resilient, if less cost effective.

Some states, California and New York among them, did create their own local stockpiles of ventilators and PPE after the bird and swine flu scares, but did away with them in the fiscal crunch after the financial meltdown.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/california-once-had-mobile...

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-new-york-city-emergen...

πŸ‘€GeekyBearπŸ•‘5yπŸ”Ό0πŸ—¨οΈ0

(Replying to PARENT post)

The thing is, we always knew this, but we did it anyway.

Like we know that destroying all insects and and global warning are not sustainable. We know we can't have 7 billion humans eating meat. We know we should let not power concentrate too much into some entities. But we keep it up.

Since we don't react unless something forces us to, I'm starting to believe we need some medium crisis to happen like the covid19 so that a bigger one won't wipe us out in the future.

πŸ‘€BiteCode_devπŸ•‘5yπŸ”Ό0πŸ—¨οΈ0

(Replying to PARENT post)

This story is not about manufacturing, it is about incompetence and inaction at the very top of the US government. Bringing manufacturing into it at this point is just a distraction; yes it's an issue not it's not the main issue.

(Edit: very much a distraction. Completely sidesteps what the article is saying. Very dead cat on table. I should have been suspicious a bit earlier).

πŸ‘€throwaway_pdp09πŸ•‘5yπŸ”Ό0πŸ—¨οΈ0

(Replying to PARENT post)

In the end, California and Texas are projected to not exceed ICU capacity, but the most serious outbreak first happened on the east coast and I think that made all the difference for NY, NJ, MI, etc.

It means that states on the east coast would have needed far more acute preparation than states on the west coast. The fact that there could be such a difference in timing implies that this should be handled at the federal level -- or all major cities must prepare to be ground zero, which sounds very inefficient.

πŸ‘€threatofrainπŸ•‘5yπŸ”Ό0πŸ—¨οΈ0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Remember that our generals will always fight the last battle. We will be well prepared for the next pandemic. But the next big thing probably won’t be a pandemic.
πŸ‘€jl6πŸ•‘5yπŸ”Ό0πŸ—¨οΈ0

(Replying to PARENT post)

I think rewarding preparedness or other supporting functionalities is somehow a categorically unsolved problem. It's like being a defense player in team sports. You don't score any goals and if the others score, it's your fault.

It's only through some super fuzzy altruistic mechanisms that such work is supported.

πŸ‘€GravitylossπŸ•‘5yπŸ”Ό0πŸ—¨οΈ0

(Replying to PARENT post)

Sounds like the Zara model. To catch up with fashion trends fast, avoid the latency of cargo ships, and localize
πŸ‘€alephnanπŸ•‘5yπŸ”Ό0πŸ—¨οΈ0

(Replying to PARENT post)

On the other hand the land in US in non coastal or agricultural places is very cheap. You can have whole factories build for critical supplies and just conserve them. When the crisis and unemployment hits - just put people there to work.

This spare capacity can be maintained on the cheap.

πŸ‘€ReptileManπŸ•‘5yπŸ”Ό0πŸ—¨οΈ0

(Replying to PARENT post)

We need several fixes:

Force most countries to adopt freemarket, remove trade barriers, remove import and export duties (except for extreme situations like pandemic)

Right now lots of market imposes duties on import of American goods, this reduces American exports.

Some countries like India, Brazil play extremely unfair - this only helps few industrialists in these countries but overall public suffers usually as they are forced to buy substandard goods from local providers, instead of someone internationally competitive. But yes, it helps the politicians who usually get their money from those handful of those industrialists monopoly setup through import taxes.

In hyper competitive market, local producers will usually figure out the niches worth exploiting and they'll build long term advantage there rather than aiming for some generic niche where they've no competitive advantage.

This prevents countries like India or Brazil from becoming Taiwan

πŸ‘€econconπŸ•‘5yπŸ”Ό0πŸ—¨οΈ0