Coronavirus -- supply chains

The COVID-19 pandemic has shined some light on the significance of supply chains. To a final user the supply of toilet paper and milk products are ordinarily so reliable that they can be easily taken for granted. However, the pandemic has caused disruptions in the supply chains for them.

While there has been hording of toilet paper, the disruption has also occurred because there are two major kinds of toilet paper -- commercial and household. More people staying at home, schools closed, and many workplaces and businesses closed has lessened demand for the commercial kind and increased demand for the household kind. As this article explains, the two kinds are made, packaged, and distributed very differently. The changes in demand have caused a ripple effect back through many links in the supply chain.

A similar disruption has occurred in the supply chains for milk products. The first link in all chains is raw milk from the dairy farmer. However, the chains differ after that. As this article explains: "Mass closures of restaurants and schools have forced a sudden shift from those wholesale food-service markets to retail grocery stores, creating logistical and packaging nightmares for plants processing milk, butter and cheese. Trucking companies that haul dairy products are scrambling to get enough drivers as some who fear the virus have stopped working. And sales to major dairy export markets have dried up as the food-service sector largely shuts down globally."

There was also a sudden surge in demand for personal protective equipment (masks, gowns, etc.), beds in hospitals, and ventilators. The supply chains for these things did not have the size and resilience to adapt as quickly as many wished.

Facts like these should be a wake-up call for socialists like Bernie Sanders and Nathan Robinson, but I doubt they will. They talk like they take supply chains completely for granted. They show no grasp or interest in supply and demand or how products get made and distributed to the end user. They have nothing to say about the informative value of prices and quantities. Their sole concern is how income is distributed. All BS can say about prices are that some are too high for middle and lower income people and the cause is the greed of the wealthy. They show no grasp or appreciation for higher level decision-makers along any supply chain. Their overwhelming concern is the welfare of middle- and lower-income workers not responsible for any higher-level or even mid-level decision making.