[blackjack21]

1) You just compared a whale to a guppie and didn't notice the size difference. You don't know enough to talk about this.

Following this epidemic, there will be serious efforts to rebalance the economy and diversify the supply chain. What is obvious is that the efficiency gains of single sourcing have significant strategic risks. For example, it's ludicrous to have persistent shortages of N-95 masks, but that has more to do with having outsourced so much of the production to China, and regulatory bifurcation of markets between medical and industrial use such as mining, textiles, construction or other trades that involve the need to filter fine particulate matter. A similar realization occurred after oil hit $147 a barrel in 2007. Today, the US is effectively energy independent. In 10 years, you will see a dramatic difference in US supply lines. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.

2) You are pursuing an insane fantasy.

Diversification is bog simple and routine for investment managers. It's going to become common for supply chain managers too. They will have to calculate political, geographic and other risk factors into their decision making.

3) That's managing trade, and it's already started. But that's a long ways from abrogating thousands of treaties and agreements.

Abrogating treaties happens all the time. The UK is pulling out of the EU for example. Emmanuel Macron is freaking out now about a potential end of the Schengen system. Ideology is nice for its simplicity, but when it comes into contact with reality, the ideology rarely seems as well thought out.

Zero interest is what they are paying, not what they are charging.

Banks are making their money on credit cards right now. Look what has happened to credit card stocks. If unemployment reaches 30%, they will see massive credit card defaults. There will be no moral stain for bankruptcy when the government orders businesses to shut down. There are even fears of a renter revolt, where people are simply not going to pay rent until the crisis is over. That will impact landlords, and their relationship with banks. Look what has happened to so many REITs.

[Godstud]

This says it all:

[Stormsmith]

@Godstud

*Like*

[late]

Following this epidemic, there will be serious efforts to rebalance the economy and diversify the supply chain. What is obvious is that the efficiency gains of single sourcing have significant strategic risks. For example, it's ludicrous to have persistent shortages of N-95 masks, but that has more to do with having outsourced so much of the production to China, and regulatory bifurcation of markets between medical and industrial use such as mining, textiles, construction or other trades that involve the need to filter fine particulate matter. A similar realization occurred after oil hit $147 a barrel in 2007. Today, the US is effectively energy independent. In 10 years, you will see a dramatic difference in US supply lines. It won't happen overnight, but it will happen.




Diversification is bog simple and routine for investment managers. It's going to become common for supply chain managers too. They will have to calculate political, geographic and other risk factors into their decision making.


Abrogating treaties happens all the time. The UK is pulling out of the EU for example. Emmanuel Macron is freaking out now about a potential end of the Schengen system. Ideology is nice for its simplicity, but when it comes into contact with reality, the ideology rarely seems as well thought out.


Banks are making their money on credit cards right now. Look what has happened to credit card stocks. If unemployment reaches 30%, they will see massive credit card defaults. There will be no moral stain for bankruptcy when the government orders businesses to shut down. There are even fears of a renter revolt, where people are simply not going to pay rent until the crisis is over. That will impact landlords, and their relationship with banks. Look what has happened to so many REITs.

You clearly still do not know the difference between the world now, and during the trade war that preceded WW2. The difference is a few orders of magnitude (many thousands of times more trade now).

Sure, we are diversifying now. No brainer... But you don't see any adults with skin in the game babbling hysterical isolationist insanity.

Nor will you. (Since you hadn't noticed, Trump was mostly lying)

[blackjack21]

You clearly still do not know the difference between the world now, and during the trade war that preceded WW2.

You clearly don't understand the difference between a tariff against a specific nation (China), and a general tariff like Smoot-Hawley.

The difference is a few orders of magnitude (many thousands of times more trade now).

There are significant technological reasons for that too, which have nothing to do with treaties. For example, intermodal shipping containers pioneered by American shipping entrepreneur Malcolm McClean virtually revolutionized shipping. Before shipping containers, much of industry was concentrated in cities. Not only did shipping containers make it possible to move out of expensive cities, it made it possible to outsource a lot of merchandise trade overseas. New York City used to have a garment district and an electronics district for example. US merchandise trade was about 1% of GDP. Now it is 7% of GDP. Shipping containers made that technologically feasible. In fact, immediately after the war, shipping was not as productive as it was during the war due to labor unions. Shipping containers changed all that radically. Instead of it taking two weeks to unload a ship of palletized cargo, a container ship could be unloaded in an 8-hour shift. It not only sped up shipping, but the containers could be easily put onto truck trailers or rail cars.

To help you disabuse yourself of your wild ideological disposition and to pass the time while in social isolation, I highly recommend The Box: How the Shipping Container Made the World Smaller and the World Economy Bigger.

Sure, we are diversifying now. No brainer...

Well, it's a little late to claim that realization as though you were smarter than everyone else now.

But you don't see any adults with skin in the game babbling hysterical isolationist insanity.

Opposition to making 90% of your medical supplies in China is not isolationism. Even idiot billionaires are starting to realize it now.

Nor will you. (Since you hadn't noticed, Trump was mostly lying)

I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Complete sentences would help you communicate better.

[late]

1) You clearly don't understand the difference between a tariff against a specific nation (China), and a general tariff like Smoot-Hawley.


2) There are significant technological reasons for that too, which have nothing to do with treaties. For example, intermodal shipping containers

3) To help you disabuse yourself of your wild ideological disposition


4) Well, it's a little late to claim that realization as though you were smarter than everyone else now.


5) Opposition to making 90% of your medical supplies in China is not isolationism. Even idiot billionaires are starting to realize it now.


6) I'm not sure what you are trying to say. Complete sentences would help you communicate better.

1) Way to miss the obvious. The important bit is the potential for things to go to hell in a handcart.

2) Container ships came to be because of the huge increase in trade that happened because of the world order Ike and Truman built. A world built on trade.

3) That's history, not ideology. It's what historians call the Standard Interpretation, or SI. You could spend the rest of your life just looking at the Bretton Woods agreements.

4) I read business news. I'm the guy that links to Forbes, Bloomberg and Business Insider. Not you.

5) You want a lot more than that.

6) Your idea is crazy, and when I say that, I mean a rubber room, strait jacket, level of demented. Not that this differs much from your usual.

[blackjack21]

1) Way to miss the obvious. The important bit is the potential for things to go to hell in a handcart.

They have gone to hell in a handcart in case you haven't noticed.

2) Container ships came to be because of the huge increase in trade that happened because of the world order Ike and Truman built. A world built on trade.

No. You really need to read the book. That production possibility became possible, because there were so many surplus cargo ships after the war. Labor unions were a driving force, too. It simply would not have been cost feasible without surplus war ships, and without labor unions demanding so much to load and unload ships. Eisenhower and Truman had little to do with it.

3) That's history, not ideology. It's what historians call the Standard Interpretation, or SI. You could spend the rest of your life just looking at the Bretton Woods agreements.

Much of Bretton Woods is dead. The idea that the US needs to build up nations like China by running massive trade deficits and leaving many Americans unemployed is no longer politically feasible.

4) I read business news. I'm the guy that links to Forbes, Bloomberg and Business Insider. Not you.

You might as well be reading the comic section.

[late]

They have gone to hell in a handcart in case you haven't noticed.

Everybody knows.

But there's always screwups eager to take a bad situation and make things a lot worse.