The article headline makes it seem like the factories couldn't make the gloves.
But further down it says that the cost was double and factories couldn't get buyers.
These are very different failure modes, and speak to very different solutions.
But further down it says that the cost was double and factories couldn't get buyers.
These are very different failure modes, and speak to very different solutions.
That's how this goes from being a market issue to a skill issue.
It baffles me that this wasn’t made more explicit? That seems to be the root cause of the failure.
Note that a federal jobs program has something like 60-80% support by voters across all political spectrums in the USA.
For an object-level example, look at the difficulties the Russians had reconstituting their industrial base in the post-apocalyptic wasteland they found themselves after the 90s. It took them a decade to figure out how to restart production of the Tu-160M bomber, and they had all the original blueprints! Likewise, for a while, we forgot how to make this "FOGBANK" substance that's somehow important for nuclear weapons.
It's all too easy to forget how to do something if you stop doing it for a while.
Oh, and you also need to secure stable supply chains.
(We may be in trouble here)
Just because a foreign glove manufacturer has to comply with the same safety/quality standards for their product only scratches the surface. Domestic companies also have to operate compliant with regulations regarding hiring, real estate, safety, finance, and many more.
To be clear, a lot of those regulations (most of them!) achieve good things and should be preserved! Working/environmental/low-corruption conditions in the US (though they could be better) are often superior to those same conditions in the places we import from precisely because of those regulations. But not all regulations (even those with good goals) are effective, others are not worth the burden, and all of them in aggregate do directly contribute to domestic manufacturing loss. It’s a hard problem that others (e.g. Pahlka) have written about much more wisely than I can.
It needs to be in-service and available before any serious conflict.
Shorter expirations are managed by constantly selling the old to the domestic industry and purchasing new, like China does for grain and frozen meat while simultaneously being able to keep the market more stable by selling high and buying low. Switzerland has a lot of stockpiles, even including coffee[0], which the companies also go through FIFO.
0: "The 15 big Swiss coffee retailers, roasters and importers, such as Nestlé, are required by law to store heaps of raw coffee. Together, these mandated coffee reserves amount to about 15,000 tonnes—enough for three months’ consumption. The government finances the storage costs through a levy on imports of coffee. All 15 companies are in favour of maintaining the coffee reserve—as long as they are paid for it." Economist 2019
But a year before COVID, these warehouses were shut down, as the stockpiles were old, and needed a refresh, and politicians didnt see the need to spend tens of millions on new stockpiles.
The has happened several times over the last 100 years.
By Mid 2010 we pass with great contention and argument both Dodd Frank and the ACA. By August we could finally declare the swine flu pandemic over and congress is worrying about their campaigns and the 2011 budget.
This would have been a good time to get the job done and indeed this was tried. They couldn't get the 60 needed to pass the senate in order to pass the 2011 budget and indeed no budget was passed we instead relies on continuing resolutions to fund the government at current levels which left no funds for the mission and no real time for some standalone effort. Fortunately we have 9 more years before this becomes a crisis.
2011-2018 Republicans controlled congress. In 2017,2018 Republicans controlled congress AND the presidency. In 2019 dems finally got congress back but couldn't do shit by virtue of Trump.
It's weird that you put this on the Dems when it is so so clearly a Republican fumble like the entire rest of the pandemic.
“When the Department of Finance was looking at this, they asked a question: ‘How many times have the mobile field hospitals been used since we bought them?’ ” he said. “That was the same question they asked (the Public Health Department). ‘You’re not using it, why do we have it?’ ”
https://revealnews.org/article/california-created-a-massive-...
It's already being done so it seems more a cost related issue than lack of knowledge.