Birdnow's Aviary

May 18, 2021

Running Out of Everything

Timothy Birdnow

Thanks to our little Covid vacation last year we are now running out of everything.

From Bloomberg:

A year ago, as thepandemic ravaged country after country and economies shuddered, consumers were the ones panic-buying. Today, on the rebound, itâ€™s companies furiously stocking up.

Mattress producers to car manufacturers to aluminum foil makers are buying more materialthan they need to survive the breakneck speed at which demand for goods is recovering and assuage that primal fear of running out. The corporate buying and hoarding is pushing supply chains to the brink of seizing up. Shortages, transportation bottlenecks and price spikes are nearing the highest levels in recent memory, raising concern that a supercharged global economy will stoke inflation.

Copper, iron ore and steel. Corn, coffee, wheat and soybeans. Lumber, semiconductors, plastic and cardboard for packaging. The world is seemingly low on all of it. "You name it, and we have a shortage on it,â€Tom Linebarger, chairman and chief executive of engine and generator manufacturer Cummins Inc., said on a call this month. Clients are "trying to get everything they can because they see high demand,â€ Jennifer Rumsey, the Columbus, Indiana-based companyâ€™s president, said. "They think itâ€™s going to extend into next year.â€

The difference between the big crunch of 2021 and past supply disruptions is the sheer magnitude of it, and the fact that there is â€”as far as anyone can tell â€”no clear end in sight. Big orsmall, few businesses are spared

People don't realize how fragile those supply chains are - and how they can take down not just the world economy but civilization itself.

The Bronze Age was a time of easy international commerce and trade but it collapsed with the coming of the Sea People and other barbarians who cut the supply chains and everyone was dependent on everyone else. The empires that ruled at that time collapsed and it took centuries for a new world order to emerge.

I fear we are on the cusp of that now. We have, like the Bronze Age peoples, become overspecialized

and overly dependent on foreign trade. One dominoe falls and the whole thing crashes down. And right now so many on the Left are trying very hard to knock over those dominoes in the interest of "fairness" and a utopian fantasy of radical democratic equality.

The offal will hit the fan and it will be awful.

Chester McAteer adds:

These people are really not aware of the fragility of the global supply chain and the numerous weak links that barely keep it functioning. Two of the weakest links are energy and finance, each depending on the other to maintaining the other links in the chain that help us live in a "civilized world" (I use that term loosely). As in 2008/2009, we were within hours of the collaspe of the global supply chain. Few people apparently understand what would happen if this supply chain collaspes but essentially what we call civilization would cease to exist as we know it and the world would literally be reverted back to the living standards of the 12th century within a few weeks.

The problem is that once the supply chain crashes it can't simply be revived, it would take generations to restore.

Now, if that ever occurs don't think Governments will have the power or the wherewithal to help during such a collaspe, Government, particularly on a national or even regional scale will no longer exist, especially after the chaos ensues.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 08:24 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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