The shortages are due to MBAs and businesses workshipping at the altar of JIT and outsourcing of "everything" since the 1990s.

I do performance work for my job. There is what I call engineering flex in designs and systems. JIT's flex is only 1-2%.

But we can scale, the pundits will say. The answer is no you won't, because the cost of bringing up another line of production is extremely expensive and it takes "years" to do so. Meanwhile, talk to the investors who want their money next quarter.

So ... take a drop where you cull supply lines (cough cough COVID), then bring them up. Guess what, most run lean, and only have supplies to last a few quarters if that (remember they are efficient baby!)

You lose infrastructure. So what you could do at 100% now is only 50-75%, if that, and the same rule from before applies. Years to build back up.

Now the load comes (demand) comes back, and that 25-50% surge happens when you have 1-2% of capacity. That means, it will take 25-50 fulfillment cycles to fulfill the backlog while maintaining status quo.

Boom.

That means what you see now will inflate massively as folks fight for that 1/2 and the prices will double while the quantity stays the same.

That is why, I expect even at food stuff level (stuff breaks down on a farm "a lot") and the fact that no one is interested in Ag (you know food is created at a grocery store per urban folks). To go radically up also.

Remember people's desire for organic or "to be kind "to the animals we slaughter for food? That costs a lot of money to do, so that means you will pay for it amongst everything else.

Then take everything else you talk to in this article. That adds variability and increases the cost and reduces the supply.

People want renewables? No qualms from me, but you do realize that in Germany the price per KwH is something like 30 cents an hour versus the fossil fuel based of 10 cents. So that means people should expect energy to double and triple which means "everything" gets that much more expensive.

But we should work together?

Won't happen, because it has been politicized. Sexism, racism, and all that have been deemed more important, and at this point, people will be labeled.

One can't label people on either side, and expect them to come together to work on a problem.

So enjoy the price inflation as it is a side effect of gridlock ...