Global Supply Chain Crisis 2021: Megathread - A cozy thread for watching the supply chain fall apart just in time for the holidays

[Phalanges Mycologist]

Pretty insightful video. It also clearly explains how GM and the 'murican manufacturers misunderstood the core concepts of JIT, and how Toyota managed to have the foresight to course correct.

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GM, Ford halt some auto production as chip shortage worsens

The global shortage of computer chips is getting worse, forcing automakers to temporarily close factories including those that build popular pickup trucks.

www.marketwatch.com

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GM shutting down production at most of its plants in North America

General Motors will shut production at most of its North American plants for a week or two starting next week as the worsening chip shortage takes another bite out of its plans.

edition.cnn.com

Basically, it brought down GM to its knees.

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r/cars - GM shutting down production at most of its plants in North America due to chip shortage.

1,596 votes and 501 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

The used car market is going absolutely nuts atm.

But wait -- there's more.

View attachment 2567921

Automakers Accused of Chip Hoarding, U.S. Considers Defense Production Act

Despite the occasional media report claiming that the semiconductor shortage is nearly over, reality looks quite a bit different. Some manufacturers have managed to temporarily stabilize supply chains, even though others have continued announcing work stoppages as they run out of chips. Wait...

www.thetruthaboutcars.com

Meanwhile, Bosch opened a new plant in June.

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Bosch opens $1.2 billion chip plant in Germany – TechCrunch

Germany technology and parts supplier Robert Bosch opened a €1 billion ($1.2 billion) chip factory in Dresden, Germany on Monday, the single largest investment in the company’s history. The plant, which will mainly supply automotive customers, is a major signal that connected and electric vehicles …

techcrunch.com

I don't expect the German car manufacturers to be hit as hard as the 'murican ones.

It's hitting European car manufacturers really hard, in the 80's and 90's they brought in a lot of JIT consultants mostly from Japan and the USA and they bought right into it. At most pre-covid they had about 2 weeks supply in country covid dropped that to about a weeks reserve and now it's a case of building stocks running a line for a few days and then stopping it again they have a lot of orders they havent been able to fill and people are now cancelling there orders after nearly 20 months of no delivery so that's going to cause lay offs one plant I know is likely going to close for good and thats a plant making small vans.

One that most people havent noticed but I've been told is going to start biting soon is Tyers they just don't have them and there is a lot of problems getting patch kits as well, the other is steel that's getting really pricey as well China before Covid was doing it's normal pump and dump destablising the market and lots of places where struggling to get steel pre-covid and with China being the main supplier of steel for a lot of industries the single point of failure has sent the price sky rocketing, same is going for some grades of Copper.

My advice is if you rely on Steel for your industry and can buy extra now and sit on it if you can.

 

[Bonesjones]

Remember it wasn't that long ago that AMD and Intel shut down their American chip fabs.

 

[Ahriman]

Romanian Gamer Man weighs in

 

[Heinrich Maneuver]

UK - it's not 'food or petrol shortages' its a labour shortage, a shortage of 100,000 drivers according to the gov. Course this won't stop people panic buying. A group linked to Extinction Rebellion have also been blocking the port of Dover because they want the government to insulate people's houses, so they block roads and ports, feels staged to me. Anecdotal but the changes to IR35 tax laws led to a lot of Lithuanian and Polish drivers i knew quitting and going back to Europe because they would earn more back there than here. We're also having an energy crisis due to rising prices if that fits the cosy supply issues topic of this thread (archive)

 

[Ahriman]

A group linked to Extinction Rebellion have also been blocking the port of Dover because they want the government to insulate people's houses, so they block roads and ports, feels staged to me.

Words cannot express how much I loathe those fucking cunts.

I'm a big Massive Attack fan and seeing them support those sons of whores broke my heart.

 

[teriyakiburns]

Anecdotal but the changes to IR35 tax laws led to a lot of Lithuanian and Polish drivers i knew quitting and going back to Europe because they would earn more back there than here.

HMRC were warned about the effects of IR35 years ago, but they had all their fancy projections showing how much more revenue they could suck out of people - assuming that all the contract workers would just keep on working under the same conditions and not adapt to the changes. Or leave.

There's been a real shortage of contract software developers for the last couple of years. A lot of people in the field took the opportunity to retire rather than risk having several years of back taxes suddenly pulled out of an auditor's arse dropped on them. Truckers, nursing staff, doctors, chefs, all sorts of professions are being completely raped by it.

 

[Bonesjones]

Words cannot express how much I loathe those fucking cunts.

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I'm a big Massive Attack fan and seeing them support those sons of whores broke my heart.

The guy from Massive Attack has a 99% chance of being Banksy. (They were always touring around the area when his art would pop up) What do you expect?

 

[Mooger Meng]

So, just to double- and/or triple-check: there's a shitload of issues going on that can't reliably placed on one thing or another, because every other region in the goddamned world is having its own set of issues as the entirety of the supply chain breaks down piecemeal? Because I'm being reminded of a snippet from the book World War Z where someone shows the (in-universe) author an ingredient list of a bottle of root beer, then proceeds to explain how it's been all but impossible to make one since everything went to shit due to where the ingredients were sourced from.

Words cannot express how much I loathe those fucking cunts.

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I'm a big Massive Attack fan and seeing them support those sons of whores broke my heart.

People that genuinely worship a human extinction cult need to start with themselves before talking shit about the rest of the world.

 

[MadStan]

Keep in mind trucks are going off the roads too and due to lack of parts requiring seemingly insignificant items now in vast shortage, we are seeing some trucks idled...for want of a $300 part.

Been to Enterprise recently? Costs to rent have risen, with many now demanding per mile rates regardless of contracts that used to provide unlimited free miles. Notice that Fedex and UPS are using other peoples trucks? People are using Uhaul trucks for commercial business with huge costs associated.

It doesn't take much to squeeze these to bursting point. In the age of "Squeeze every penny out of the business to make it more attractive to investors" they often shed excess capacity because it costs to have it; much like the reason why many turned to fluid logistics instead of warehousing - to avoid the overheads of excess capacity and warehousing.

If as a company you are taxed on your stock at the end of the year, it is better if you have less on hand than more; thus fluid supply chains avoid this needless overhead and burden, and you rid yourself of warehouse requirements. But it all comes crashing down when something like this happens.

It is almost akin to a water supply system with no storage tank and pipes that have fixed diameters - when the lines drain and there are still demands to meet the maximum pipe diameter, you just can't supply enough water unless you increase the pressure to increase flow rate. But the pipes aren't made to take that much pressure because they would have cost too much to have as an excess luxury and cost..

The pipe diameter is our ports, our truckers and container ships. All of these things are suffering decreases, not increases.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

UK - it's not 'food or petrol shortages' its a labour shortage, a shortage of 100,000 drivers according to the gov.

I Know this is anecdotal but I've not seen any massive reduction of European workers, if anything before the Brexit freedom of movement cut off date I noticed a lot of people comming here as much as the EU hates to admit it the EU isnt popular in europe and most of the ones who where established didn't even think of leaving. That goes across age and wage brackets, the ones who left only came to the UK in the short term or where in wobbly positions to begin with.

I know a lot of scientists and machinists all eastern European who stayed as they would rather be here than anywhere else and a awful lot of them are younger as well they say that while the UK isn't perfect it's far better than where the EU looks to be going.

Because I'm being reminded of a snippet from the book World War Z where someone shows the (in-universe) author an ingredient list of a bottle of root beer, then proceeds to explain how it's been all but impossible to make one since everything went to shit due to where the ingredients were sourced from.

That is exactly the situation we are finding our selfs in, long complex supply lines are starting to wobble if not crumble what most people dont realise is just how odd our diets are now - we rely on foods we cant grow all year round but have them fresh year round because we fly them around the globe. Moving food around has always been a thing Bad grain crop in the UK? Buy it from the continent, bad season there as well? Price for the grain grows and farmers get first dibs for seed crop.

Tomatoes are the perfect example of this - the UK grows a lot of Tomatoes outdoors seasonally but very little of them are preserved for eating later on. But you can go to any super market and your likely to see Product of "Israel" "Spain" "South Africa" or "Australia" you can also go and get jars of Tomato sauce for under £1 year around, processed in the UK or on the continent. For a crop we grow at home that we dont think of as seasonal any more for it in its raw form.

Sugar is another prime example, We are so expecting of sweetened food it's absurd we have been adding sugar to foods that dont need it for decades now that a lot of people don't know what some foods taste like without it. I know people who've never had a coffee without Milk or Sugar and are repulsed by coffee on its own, hell Alcohol is Sugar and Carbs and I know people who havent had a real drink and rely on pop based booze, flavour profiled beer and spirits with mixers etc. Creature comforts no matter how simple have been weaponised to the point people are so separated from the reality of there food they can't understand how complex there diets are and how addicted they are to those foods.

Salt as well, Salt like Sugar is something we have been biologically wired to seek out but we also eat far more than we did when salted preserved food was the out of season main stay, but our food is massivly over salted we add salt to foods that we would never have done so before and we have been combing salt and sugar in ways that are bizarre as all hell.

 

[Billy Beer]

The petrol crisis in the UK was only caused because the media and government told people they're struggling to get petrol to TEN petrol stations.

Here's my prediction: High supply, low demand, petrol prices sky rocket. Magically, a massive supply is found but like everything, the price never drops. Seems as petrol is 80% tax, the government will coin in a shit load of wonga on the new petrol prices, adding money back into the coffers that were depleted by COVID.

FWIW Tesco, Asda, Shell and BP garages near me were all queued out of the forecourt and on to the roads/car parks when I went for a walk earlier. Gullible Muppets panic buying.

 

[George Lucas]

Exactly, and one of the most bonkers things is Soy is massively damaging to the environment in terms of deforestation and transport, Veganism is terrible for 3rd world farming communities as well as they tend to go looking for new foods to augment there diet with and find something that was only really grown for the locals by the locals they then buy up as much of it as they can pricing out the farmers who grew it meaning they can't afford to eat it they also tend to be the anti petrol guys not realising that there whole diet is made possible by the Petro Chemical industry the second that resource runs dry Fertiliser becomes much more difficult to use and the whole system comes crashing down.

When it comes to animal agriculture I've talked to vegans and vegetarians at length about it practically and ethically and they are always shocked when I start off by saying Yes we do need to do better when it comes to animal farming, we need to go back to mixed land use farming, smaller more diverse breeds and stop mono cropping, and we need to start doing that sooner rather than later. I always get the retort of well wouldn't it just be simpler just to not eat meat? and I have to explain why that would be a very bad idea for humans and the environment in general and have to explain to them that Animals are not just meat but fertilisers and provide a whole host of other resources we just cant replace and how that the number they bandi about of 60% of our food production goes for feed for 30% of what we actually eat is a massive fucking lie using half truths and out right fabrication.

I could go on about that but I wont as this isn't the tread for it but in short - Yes you are 100% that they are fucking idiots.

You can be vegan and not eat exotic shit (and still get all your required nutrients). It’s just that vegans want something that tastes like meat or whatever. (Turns out not being able to eat meat or cheese makes food really boring, who would’ve thought?) Jackfruit is what comes to mind. I don’t know if that’s one of the foods that increased in price locally, but it’s what I thought of.

No, you don’t need jackfruit if you are vegan. There’s a whole spectrum of other vegetables that is available for you to consume and is grown locally.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

FWIW Tesco, Asda, Shell and BP garages near me were all queued out of the forecourt and on to the roads/car parks when I went for a walk earlier. Gullible Muppets panic buying.

Same with Morrisons, Asda, Spa and a small independent place near me but the Spa and the independent had a sign out saying "Low diesel" and the Spa had a sign saying "NO JERRY CANS" ao some people must be filling up and filling a can or two.

 

[Billy Beer]

Same with Morrisons, Asda, Spa and a small independent place near me but the Spa and the independent had a sign out saying "Low diesel" and the Spa had a sign saying "NO JERRY CANS" ao some people must be filling up and filling a can or two.

Jesus christ, filling jerry cans? We're in a pandemic and most people won't go far, holidays have ended because winter is here and nobody can go abroad. What do they need the petrol for?

Imagine if we run out of petrol and can't fill the fuel-lorries with fuel because they've ran out.

 

[Stalphos Johnson]

Pretty insightful video. It also clearly explains how GM and the 'murican manufacturers misunderstood the core concepts of JIT, and how Toyota managed to have the foresight to course correct.

View attachment 2567914

GM, Ford halt some auto production as chip shortage worsens

The global shortage of computer chips is getting worse, forcing automakers to temporarily close factories including those that build popular pickup trucks.

www.marketwatch.com

View attachment 2567915

GM shutting down production at most of its plants in North America

General Motors will shut production at most of its North American plants for a week or two starting next week as the worsening chip shortage takes another bite out of its plans.

edition.cnn.com

Basically, it brought down GM to its knees.

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r/cars - GM shutting down production at most of its plants in North America due to chip shortage.

1,596 votes and 501 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

The used car market is going absolutely nuts atm.

But wait -- there's more.

View attachment 2567921

Automakers Accused of Chip Hoarding, U.S. Considers Defense Production Act

Despite the occasional media report claiming that the semiconductor shortage is nearly over, reality looks quite a bit different. Some manufacturers have managed to temporarily stabilize supply chains, even though others have continued announcing work stoppages as they run out of chips. Wait...

www.thetruthaboutcars.com

Meanwhile, Bosch opened a new plant in June.

View attachment 2567930

Bosch opens $1.2 billion chip plant in Germany – TechCrunch

Germany technology and parts supplier Robert Bosch opened a €1 billion ($1.2 billion) chip factory in Dresden, Germany on Monday, the single largest investment in the company’s history. The plant, which will mainly supply automotive customers, is a major signal that connected and electric vehicles …

techcrunch.com

I don't expect the German car manufacturers to be hit as hard as the 'murican ones.

Last weekend I drove by the GM truck plant in Flint, and a few miles north of Flint there was this previously empty field filled with thousands of new pickups just waiting to get the chips needed to finish them. I've also seen a ton of dealerships in small towns and cities absolutely empty or with just a few cars.

Here's what it looks like when empty:

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

Jesus christ, filling jerry cans? We're in a pandemic and most people won't go far, holidays have ended because winter is here and nobody can go abroad. What do they need the petrol for?

Imagine if we run out of petrol and can't fill the fuel-lorries with fuel because they've ran out.

Yea it's getting bonkers, I'm about 25 miles from a refinery and we're always the first communitys to get fuel resupplies so it doesnt make much sense. More frequently considering we have a Police and Fire station near by and they have there own pumps and a ambulance dispatch place around 5 minutes walk past them.

I've got my bicycle out and the trailer for it just in case the panic buying does create a shortage and I need to go anywhere.

 

[Ancient Pioneer]

Because I'm being reminded of a snippet from the book World War Z where someone shows the (in-universe) author an ingredient list of a bottle of root beer, then proceeds to explain how it's been all but impossible to make one since everything went to shit due to where the ingredients were sourced from.

Now you're beginning to understand why the Western Roman Empire unraveled so quickly. Importing marble from Corinth, grain from modern day Libya and Egypt, tin from England; the moment these supply lines got pinched the results were dramatic in how fast the Empire began to unravel, complex builds quickly fell off to simple structures and some trades effectively ceased to exist like marble sculptors, maintinence of infrastructure failed and the army was unable to support itself both with food and with pay as the very material to make coins was non-existent . France and Britain fell into this same trap with their Empires and now the United States as well. The United States is the most damning because it has no need of any country on earth, it can handle every demand internally. West Rome quickly became unable to fund its military at proper sizes, people became demoralized and when we extrapolate reasons behind laws being issued, the very concept of law and order broke down into widespread banditry which lead Emperor Majorian to issue edicts akin to a proto-2nd amendment so citizens could handle the banditry job themselves. Most of these European nations are unable to feed themselves, they have to network with other European nations to fill gaps.

Jesus christ, filling jerry cans? We're in a pandemic and most people won't go far, holidays have ended because winter is here and nobody can go abroad. What do they need the petrol for?

You're the fool, they're the intelligent ones. Better to have, and not need it, than not at all. You seriously need to start thinking in realistic terms about long term shortages. Even if there is going to be a rebound its better to not be fucked for months or a year or two. Even if they end up not needing the jerry can they can just use it to fill their car, also the pre-purchase hedges against inflation to a degree. The Soviet Union had citizenry that were tough as fucking nails but even they were bowed over by stuff just not existing for long periods of time. The Just-In-Time supply system grocery stores and other retail business operate on is very vulnerable to this kind of problem and operates under the assumption that everything operates perfectly.

 

[Billy Beer]

You're the fool, they're the intelligent ones. Better to have, and not need it, than not at all. You seriously need to start thinking in realistic terms about long term shortages. Even if there is going to be a rebound its better to not be fucked for months or a year or two. Even if they end up not needing the jerry can they can just use it to fill their car, also the pre-purchase hedges against inflation to a degree. The Soviet Union had citizenry that were tough as fucking nails but even they were bowed over by stuff just not existing for long periods of time. The Just-In-Time supply system grocery stores and other retail business operate on is very vulnerable to this kind of problem and operates under the assumption that everything operates perfectly.

We're not going to run out of fuel, we've been in worse situations a few times over the past 10-15 years, and pulled through. EVEN IF shit hit the fan, what's a 5L jerry can going to do? It will make bollox all difference in the grand scheme of things.

This is muppets panic buying with a 'fuck you, got mine' metallity. Ironically, they'll be the first to die if it gets bad, as they're reactionary and not planning. They may have a jerry can of diesel, but they won't have months worth of food stocked up.

I'll bet pounds to pennies that the fuel price goes up within the next week. The Govt needs to bring in cash without raising taxes.

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Veganism is terrible for 3rd world farming communities as well as they tend to go looking for new foods to augment there diet with and find something that was only really grown for the locals by the locals they then buy up as much of it as they can pricing out the farmers who grew it meaning they can't afford to eat it

This is one of those things which is partially true and usually gets brought up when people discuss quinoa but in actuality only some farmers suffered and the ones who specifically grew the quinoa or switched to growing quinoa predictably ended up doing better for themselves and in some cases lifted themselves out of poverty. Which I guess in its own way is globalism in a nutshell, since globalism picks winners and losers and causes all sorts of wealth disparity. Of course, the largest winners in globalism are the ones who take the biggest advantage of it which means all sorts of multinational fuckery that has led to this supply chain issue.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

We're not going to run out of fuel, we've been in worse situations a few times over the past 10-15 years,

Yea 2003 was the closest one we had I think and that was mostly a political issue, I can recall Army fuel bowsers doing deliveries to some places and Police having to break up the lines when they had limmited deliveries not many but enough to make the news.

They may have a jerry can of diesel, but they won't have months worth of food stocked up.

Exactly, there is a lot of people being stupid not buy buying things but not by buying the right things you might have 5l of fuel but you can eat that fuel.

This is one of those things which is partially true and usually gets brought up when people discuss quinoa but in actuality only some farmers suffered and the ones who specifically grew the quinoa or switched to growing quinoa predictably ended up doing better for themselves and in some cases lifted themselves out of poverty. Which I guess in its own way is globalism in a nutshell, since globalism picks winners and losers and causes all sorts of wealth disparity. Of course, the largest winners in globalism are the ones who take the biggest advantage of it which means all sorts of multinational fuckery that has led to this supply chain issue.

Admittedly I was being a bit over simple but it goes way beyond quinna, there is a lot of things that the locals cant afford but grow and it forces out the local food crops or gets adopted as a export crop, there is a video of coco beans and the farmers shelling them who had never tried chocolate and the guy who gave it to them said it was a privalidge to try it, this wasnt a old video it was about 5 years ago when I saw it and it was new for the show it was in.