Arlo and Janis by Jimmy Johnson for October 21, 2021

This is probably the most “current event” I’ve seen in an A&J strip. Arlo has been famous for his concern over our country’s economic viability if we do not have a wild spending spree for Christmas…

I can only hope this experience will eat away at the perceived profits of the companies who took that route, enough to cause them to rethink the benefits of American workers manufacturing American made goods in America, with only 3,000 road miles from origin to destination. Sigh!

Who could have imagined something might go wrong? Um, anybody with half a brain?

Looks like somebody’s Christmas just fell off the ship.

The truth finally hits home. The Chinese don’t need their military to defeat us, they already own us from the inside & out.

The way things are going in the labor market I think we would have supply line issues even if it was manufactured here.

Greed never learns

Contain yourself, A.

Starting in the early 70’s, our jobs went from a worker making $25/hr in the USA, to $25/day in Mexico, to $25/week in China. Our woe is a direct result of rich business owner’s chasing profit ahead of our nation’s security and health.

Here in Virginia theres a company called Smithfield Foods (pork products). It was bought buy China 6 or 7 years ago.

When you need everything to be cheap, because your job got shipped overseas…

A container used to cost $2K each to ship from China, now it is from $13K to $19K. Used to take 6 days to unload, now 16 days.

Who would have thought this would occur when business owners shipped their companies to nations allowing workers to be paid pittances and have no safety/environmental laws that this might be a consequence?

And that’s not even mentioning the outsourcing of much of our engineering know-how and a lot of entry-level jobs.

I think it was Khrushchev who said something like “the capitalists will sell us the rope with which we’ll hang them.”

This is what MBA management and short-term profit thinking gets you. In a way, I’m glad the pandemic came when it did. Maybe it’s not too late to have learnt something from it.

Asians will put up with environmental hazards, pollution, lack of workplace safety, all at low wages, just to live another day. Westerners: not so much, especially those who can send their manufacturing expertise to Asia without any responsibility for improving working conditions there.

This is the origin of the so called “supply chain” problem.

Considering all the negative comment against China, why would anyone want a Socialist/Communist style Government here in the U.S.?

Yes Arlo, who could have???

Where’s the guy with the orange hair when you need him?

Part of the “Made in the USA” issue is that the cost of production is VERY high and the main expense is wages. Yes, I know unions help provide high wages and benefits to workers, but they do NOT admit that high wages and benefits are a HUGE expense to manufacturers and employers, who pass those costs onto the consumer with high prices, which in turn cause unions to demand even higher wages. It is a never ending upward spiral.Producers outsourced production to countries that have a stable, lower wage. They can manufacture the products at lower cost and keep their prices competitive.Don’t always blame the producers. Look at where the REAL cost of production lay. If production costs could be kept stable, prices would remain stable as wellThe one item that defies this is oil. Producers like OPEC and Venezuela keep the supply low to keep prices high. That is the “Law Of Supply and Demand”. If demand is high and supply low, prices will be high. If supply is high and demand is low, prices will drop. Economics 101. If the demand for oil drops, and the supply remains stable, prices will drop. OPEC ALWAYS cuts the supply to force prices up. We NEED to cut our dependence on oil, but that will never happen as long as there are so many influential oil barons in the USA.

The problem isn’t china, to quote pogo “We Have Met the Enemy and He Is Us”

Maybe this will shock us back to the less ‘conspicuous consumption’ days. Last year made a lot of weddings simpler. Perhaps this will begin to tame the ‘gotta have it now’ urge.

Stay away from Asia. Of course we need to get rid of dopey joe first.

arlo has a fine point

So … we see the same problem (if in the US) if the supplier is in Mexico or South America there isn’t a boat, it is a train or a truck. We have the same problem with products getting from North Carolina to Los Angeles. The boat isn’t really the problem.

When Japan chose to make war against the United States in 1941 the only real concern was for the US’s industrial capacity. When the time to make “Liberty ships” dropped to an average of 30 days that concern became a genuine threat.

I doubt that would apply today.

Americans have to be willing to pay the much higher prices that would result from Made in America products. Can hear the hue and cry right now — never will happen

Panel 3 is right on. Remember when we shipped all those good paying jobs oversees and supplemented them with service jobs for Americans at minimum wage. Thanks big corporations for talking congress into thinking it was good for out economy.

Another unintended consequence of shipping most of our manufacturing to China is that we are paying for the military build up of China. An enemy we could very well find ourselves in a shooting war with in the next 5 – 10 years. China is practicing and training for an invasion of Taiwan.

Business people rarely take the long view, only what benefits short-term profits.

I try and TRY to explain the fact that the virus-infected northern coal fields of China which fuels the factories that ‘make our toys and products,’ all slowed down by ‘the virus’ that slows down shipping, which slows down trucking, which slows down EVERYTHING here, but NO !! It’s all ‘the present administration’s’ fault ! Jeeez !! Dominos, anyone??

And having them delivered Just In Time (JIT) with minimal backlog and storage surely didn’t help either.

Well, yeah, but when the decision was made Libertarian economics (neoliberalism) had been raised by the GOP to the pinnacle of national economic policy (aided in no small part by a large percentage of Democrats) during the Reagan administration.

Off-shoring production not only benefited ROI (return on investment, ordained by god or somebody as the primary — all but sole — purpose of economic endeavor), it also inserted a poisoned-blade dagger into labor unionization. Capitol 100 – workers 0.

Republicans gloated, thinking Game Over.

Because what makes money today almost always — when reactionary conservatism is calling the shots — overrules any opposing point of view.

And ruling capital holding elites in the 70’s/80’s were very focused on recovering unfavorable income distribution New Deal-~1975 (meaning middle class wealth [and then some!] that would have never eluded their grasp if not for economic/taxation policy during those approximately 40 years) that “belonged” to them, having been “stolen” unjustly. And squashing those inferior upstart working class bugs who dared “steal” wealth from them, to boot!

What could possibly go wrong with their plan? All they did was return things to their “natural order”(sic) — a phrase often used by economic (and religious) conservatives to justify historical precedent based upon Appeal to Authority (“god’s plan” and “it has been/was always this way”).

But has it ever been the most just, the most fair, even the most rational (pragmatic)? (from the right, in response: crickets)

baskets and eggs.

Mainly, need more points of entry, easier access.

(and Three-D Printing)

Indeed, Arlo!

Thank goodness that goods don’t need to moved by truck or train as long as they’re made in the US. Also, I’m grateful that goods made in the US don’t need parts or components that originate from outside the country. Whew!

A week ago, there was around 65 vessels off Long Beach staged for docking.., now there’s over 100. Longshoremen management doesn’t want to pay overtime to catch up, to the point where the cascade effect will be biblical.

The government is paying people to stay home

The pollution is tremendous. We should make things here.

YES. Well said Mr. Johnson. This is what happens when decisions get made based on economic theory with no consideration for the larger consequences.

Yeah…what could possibly go wrong?

I can only hope that people realize the actual cause of the supply chain disruption, and not blame it nationalistic notions.

Companies which switched to just-in-time inventory control underestimated the likelihood of an improbably-large delay in deliveries. So when governments created the disruptions in the supply chain by shutting down so much of the economy, they weren’t able to ride out the delays using warehoused parts/material.

Companies that for years ate the cost of maintaining “too much” inventory were in a better position to stay in operation during times of supply-chain disruption. They could not only sell all they could make at typical prices, but even sell at higher prices.

Of course, at that point, their reward for being prudent for all those years would not only be entirely justifiable higher profits to offset the lower profits from the years of investing in “too much” inventory, but anger from customers, and accusations of “gouging” from politicians — and possibly punishment.

So, maybe those companies that supposedly underestimated the likelihood of an occasional supply-chain disruption did not. They knew their prudence wouldn’t be rewarded, but punished.

Very well put…