20250311 Supply chains and community

Based on my recent experience and anecdotes from friends, it seems we are already falling back to supply chain disruptions in the U.S.

Supply chain resilience costs extra money to maintain (warehousing, multi-sourcing, etc.). To maximize profit, most chains have been "optimized" for "efficiency" which leaves little to no allowance for upstream problems.

Given the tariffs and other destruction wrought by current administration, I anticipate this will become as bad as it was in the first several months of covid pandemic, then last longer and become even more chaotic.

Suggestion 1: If you can possibly afford it, don't wait until the last minute to maintain your body, household, vehicle, etc. Restock critical supplies before you're out, and locate alternative options. My heart breaks that so many households are already in such financial precarity that this suggestion is impractical and classist. I'm not sure how else to word it.

Suggestion 2, even more important: Let's increase our people network connectivity so we can help each other directly or by locating and sharing pointers to resources. We are headed into an era where we need to become more community-sufficient and also "know a guy" to get other things done.