A tornado hit a Pfizer drug manufacturing plant in North Carolina a couple days ago. The plant was heavily damaged. Now there are numerous drug shortages.
When Covid hit there was a serious shortage of protective equipment. Most of it was being made in China. When China locked down that was pretty much it for much of the world’s production.
Most of the world’s computer chips are made by one company: Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co..
So how does critical manufacturing get so centralized? That’s just the way Capitalism works. Efficiencies of scale combined with the most efficient processes dominate markets. Before long any competition left are bit players -if that.
That’s great for driving prices down. It’s not so great when it comes to resiliency. If only one source for a product goes down it’s a scramble and there are shortages. If there were 100 sources for critical items the loss of one wouldn’t be a big deal. The rest could easily pick up the slack.
Right now there’s a big push to bring manufacturing back to North America. That’s not a Capitalist decision. It’s a political and strategic decision. Shaving a few pennies off the price is less important than supply security.
Russia right now is in terrible shape when it comes to key high tech supplies. They never learned to make the really high end stuff. Embargoes are taking their toll. Even basic stuff like roller bearings for trains were imported.
On an individual level all you can really do is to make sure you are well stocked up for your critical needs. When shortages do happen you cross your fingers and hope to be able to outlast the problem. If nothing else, having a cushion gives you time to figure out alternatives.
-Sixbears
It occurs to me that the older we get the more dire certain shortages can be, medications are a prime example. The Russians can't make electronics very well, but they do make a darn good vodka, could be the reason they can't make electronics very well. Sometimes making manufacturing decisions based on commerce vs. the needs of the people and the growth of the nation doesn't work out so well in the long run. We can afford a few more pennies for certain things. Things like the medications, well that becomes a whole different kind of conflict that has nothing to do with borders and cheap labor. It may be a good time to become Bilingual.
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