system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
Are Overly-Thin supply chains inevitable in a global marketplace? Is the solution decentralization and withdrawing with China?

There appears to be a growing consensus that global supply chains are too vulnerable to the kind of shocks covid introduced, reason being that efficiency has been prioritized over resilience.

We are now experiencing compounding shortages and inflation with no obvious end in sight. The standard of living expected by citizens in the wealthy world looks set to decline until supply chains are fully restored.

But isnt this inevitable? Corporations will generally choose short term profits over longer term issues like how they might adapt in the rare instance that severe disruptions last for long periods.

How could countries incentivize more local production without breaking trade rules? How could Trade wars be avoided if countries want to get their supply chains out of China?

I understand food and pharmaceuticals.....but what kind of Consumer goods should be manufactured in America? (or whatever wealthy country that imports more than exports)
gpt
No, "short" supply chains are not inevitable, but "long" supply chains are just not worth it.

Think about this for a second. This pandemic has been unprecedented in recent history, and even if the likelihood of another one would be way higher, people still wouldn't experience more than one or two in their lifetime. Or really any event hat would disrupt supply chains on this scale for such a long time.

On the other hand, surviving such an event without hiccups would basically mean holding a year worth of materials in stock. That is *insanely* expensive, and so would producing everything you can locally.

The choice is simple. You can spend huge amounts of time, effort and money to prepare for rare events, which also means lower wealth, lower growth, lower consumption, lower standard of living the vast majority of the time. Or you don't. That kinda sucks when these very rare events occur, but is much better the vast majority of the time. Guess what we prefer to do.

It's not inevitable, it's just not worth it to incur the cost that come with being ready for things people might never experience.

>We are now experiencing compounding shortages and inflation with no obvious end in sight. The standard of living expected by citizens in the wealthy world looks set to decline until supply chains are fully restored.

You have to keep that in context a bit. We've experienced these issues for rogzhly a year. And Inflation is expected to decline in coming months. It makes little sense to infer some long term trend from an ultimately short term event, even if it doesn't *feel* that way.