
How the World’s Richest Country Ran Out of Face Masks - ardy42
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/25/opinion/coronavirus-face-mask.html
======
cryoshon
framing the US as the world's "richest country" is a disservice here.

a few people are very rich, and many people are well off. but the institutions
of this country are, despite being the product of the "richest country",
entirely poor and weak.

public institutions have been hollowed out by decades of intentional neglect
and austerity. the CDC has no help to offer hospitals in need and is still
like a deer in headlights, months into the crisis. before their weakness was
exposed, the national stockpile was mostly empty. the cracks in the system
were never filled, and many were barely papered over.

private institutions have been optimized to extract profits rather than to
serve their stated social purpose. hospitals are now on the brink of going out
of business and closing down as the pandemic starts to ramp up. their
readiness was low beforehand, too, as there's no money to be made in being
prepared for a public health emergency.

so, how did the world's richest country run out of face masks? easy: we
organized our society around the idea that buying them and keeping them around
was too expensive to bother with.

~~~
rejschaap
They could change it to "richest countries", because the US isn't the only
rich country that screwed up. Look at Austria and Switzerland and their
reliance on importing masks from other countries. Or at the Netherlands, which
can actually produce large quantities of masks for domestic use but didn't
because the government was too busy downplaying the epidemic.

~~~
Daishiman
Those countries have implemented emergency legislation that makes up for
employee pay and institutes a bunch of emergency measures that will make the
countries come out the crisis rapidly and more robustly.

~~~
Gibbon1
I think the odds are about 2 to 3 that the wealthy and connected in the US use
the pandemic as an excuse to use free money to wholesale loot everyone else.

------
crazygringo
Unfortunately this article doesn't get at any actual "why". The author blames
just-in-time supply chains, but for me the crucial part is:

> _In 2006, Congress approved funds to add protective gear to a national
> strategic stockpile — among other things, the stockpile collected 52 million
> surgical face masks and 104 million N95 respirator masks. But about 100
> million masks in the stockpile were deployed in 2009 in the fight against
> the H1N1 flu pandemic, and the government never bothered to replace them.
> This month, Alex Azar, secretary of health and human services, testified
> that there are only about 40 million masks in the stockpile — around 1
> percent of the projected national need._

Stockpiles are _clearly_ the answer, since supply chains are always going to
fail in certain scenarios.

So the real questions here are, why didn't Congress create a bigger stockpile
and why didn't it ensure it was maintained?

I genuinely want an in-depth answer to this question.

Is this some kind of problem with democratic government? Or are other
democracies managinging responsible stockpiles just fine? Is it something
unique to American politics? Do Americans somehow hold their representatives
less accountable? Is it more the fault of one party over another? Is it
leaving responsibilities to Congress that ought to be delegated to an agency?
Is there are ideological or cultural component here, or just plain lack of
accountability and people not doing their jobs?

Seriously. It's important we have a _real in-depth analysis_ on this. Not
knee-jerk opiniated answers, but what _actually_ happened.

~~~
mistermann
> I genuinely want an in-depth answer to this question.

Me too. Even some in-depth, _evidence-based_ discussion would be an
improvement over the current state of affairs.

> In 2006, Congress approved funds to add protective gear to a national
> strategic stockpile — among other things, the stockpile collected 52 million
> surgical face masks and 104 million N95 respirator masks. But about 100
> million masks in the stockpile were _deployed in 2009 in the fight against
> the H1N1 flu pandemic, and the government never bothered to replace them_.

Ok, let's think about this:

According to Google, Donald Trump was elected on January 20, 2017.

According to Google, Barack Obama was elected on January 20, 2009, which would
imply he was the sitting President in 2009 (matching your reference above).

To me, this strongly implies that Barack Obama would have more influence over
this specific policy than Donald Trump.

And yet, in all the reading I've done on this specific attribute of the crisis
(and I've done _a lot_ ), there seems to be nearly unanimous consensus that it
was Donald Trump's "firing" of the head of the pandemic response team that
was(!) the(!) root cause of a lack of masks in stockpile. Full stop.

Now, there's no doubt at all in my mind that Trump has utterly botched this
response, I would even confidently speculate that he may be the worst
President in the history of the United States that could have been in charge
during this crisis. But this isn't _only_ what is being claimed - rather,
something very specific is also being claimed, and assuming I haven't made any
mistakes in my dates above, I simply am unable to see how that makes sense.
Your quotation seems to completely contradict this claim.

What in tarnation is going on here? This situation feels surreal to me. Like,
how is a person supposed to sort out fact from fiction in this information
environment? _I feel like I am unable to discern what is actually true._

~~~
DuskStar
> What in tarnation is going on here? This situation feels surreal to me.
> Like, how is a person supposed to sort out fact from fiction in this
> information environment? I feel like I am unable to discern what is actually
> true.

When Donald Trump complains about "fake news", this is what he's talking
about. He's genuinely incompetent, but that doesn't stop the press from
twisting things to make him look worse.

~~~
mistermann
I think at this point it's fair to say that holding high expectations for
Donald Trump is the sign of a true optimist, and I say this as a Trump
supporter.

But I'm curious what excuse people here would use for behavior that is little
better - if you can't beat 'em, join em? What's good for the goose is good for
the gander?

Not quite up to my personal standards, but at least that would be a valid and
defensible position to hold imho. But who among us has the integrity and
humility to explicitly admit to this behavior? I've made many silly mistakes
in my life, and said many things in the past, and surely I will continue to do
so into the future. But at least I'm _trying_ to speak truthfully, and will
admit without hesitation (or so I would like to believe) when I have been
caught red-handed spreading mistruths.

I suspect most people here aren't big believers in God, and that's ok, but I
believe there remains great value at this point in humanity's evolution to
contemplate ideas from a frame of mind _as if there was a (not "the") God_.
Done correctly, with sincere discipline, I believe one can bring significant
psychological force to bear on one's mind, to put one's mind into a state
where one may not be _completely_ "free" from one's preconceived notions,
biases, faith-based axioms (how many people are unaware that we all have them,
_even atheists_ ), etc, but "free enough" to start to begin seeing reality
more so for what it is.

Anyone who has studied Buddhism or related fields (psychology, neurology, etc)
is well aware of the tricks one's mind can get up to. I rarely see resistance
to these general ideas, even among non-practitioners.

But then close that tab and move to another one, where the topic of discussion
is not directly about Buddhism or psychology, where people are no longer
discussing these notions _at the abstract level_ , but grappling with them
first hand _at the object level_. I believe this is a fitting analogy ( _at
least_ ): those who have tried meditation are well aware how despite one
focusing 100% of your conscious energy on one point of focus (typically one's
breath), how long does it take before your mind is off on some sort of a wild
goose chase? 60 seconds? 30? 10?

Now, in light of this fact, contemplate the nature of human thought
(conceptualization of reality) and communication, processes several orders of
magnitude more complicated than focusing on your breath (which most people are
practically helpless with) - should we be surprised if occasionally our brain
produces output whose accuracy or logic is less than perfect? And that's even
when _trying one 's very hardest_ (see: bugs in code, making careless and
hurtful remarks to friends or strangers, framing things so as to avoid
something unpleasant "just this once"). Now imagine if you're _not even
trying_ to be disciplined, or correct, or honest, but rather "just kinda
winging it". Going with the flow. Conforming to the the cultural norms (aka:
"getting along" with others - "no rocking of the boat, please").

Man has grappled with (and written extensively on) such problems for as far
back as we have records. But it almost seems like we've now broadly adopted
the belief that we can now put the trivial ideas of ancient mankind behind us,
relegate them to the trash bin of history with all the other "objectively
incorrect" beliefs of yore. Who needs Gods and other such silly ways of
thinking about the world, when we have become so powerful that we are nearing
the realm of Gods ourselves?

Maybe. Maybe this is all correct. "Maybe it's me that's wrong." Maybe there
_is_ no wisdom or lessons from the past that have practical utility going
forward. Maybe we really have become Gods.

Maybe. Or maybe not. I have a feeling we shall find out before my number is
called.

Proof reading all this, and what a gigantic crock of delusional "woo woo" shit
this is. The rantings of an obvious delusional schizophrenic. Move along,
nothing to see here. And best make haste, there's a good chance this nut job
might be dangerous.

Maybe I just need to sit on the couch for the rest of the day and immerse
myself in some sitcoms and sports, maybe a little porn to add some spice. And
tomorrow, and the next day, and the next, and then maybe all these silly ideas
will just go away, and I can get back to dreaming about important things like
that new car I had my eye on a while back. Maybe.

------
saiya-jin
I thought this was about Switzerland... Just an opinion on a country that
usually is ahead of others in smart decisions - they have almost 0 medical
manufacturing here, and in past weeks were/are progressively getting screwed
by ie Germany stopping trucks full of face masks and medical equipment at the
border and forbidding them to come here. Outsourcing is not an issue only in
US.

Also, people in government responsible for raising alerts, closures etc. voted
2:1 to not do quarantine when Italy was already exploding with cases (mind
you, regions super close to Suisse!). Why? Effin' economical concerns, meaning
businesses stronghanding (probably corrupt) politicians to keep things
running. So while people were already dying en masse 50km south from here, all
the shops, restaurants and caffees were chock full of common folks were acting
like nothing is going on. Somebody didn't realize that it will take much
longer to get economy back afterwards...

Hospitals desperately unprepared with equipment. Doctors working with plain
stupid paper/cloth masks on emergencies, not having them swapped often.
Leaving schools open for way too long. I could go on... I expected more from
this country. I really did. Quick removal of any workers protection laws for
doctors.

I personally know few doctors that are already sick with Covid here, mainly
because system fucked them hard with lack of equipment, and they are properly
disappointed, desperate and furious.

So don't be harsh on US government, I think basically almost all governments
screwed up badly.

~~~
A4ET8a8uTh0
This is the part that annoys me. Most people would agree that this particular
virus presents a threat that should be addressed in a way that bypassed day to
day considerations.

But that is not the case. In US, the president openly says if it hurts economy
too bad, we might as well roll the dice and see what happens. Very annoying
given that the advice is likely coming from people who can cloister themselves
if needed.

Why does everything has to be calculated in terms of the dollar? Hell, a month
ago poster here was advocating killong off bat a species to save 2T in
imaginary assets.

It feels like I am going on a rant here, so I apologize. The past few days
have been bananas.

~~~
m23khan
hang in there friend, we are all in this Together.

------
m23khan
If you look at entire known Human history, pandemics, epidemics, wars,
famines, droughts and troubled economic times feature throughout and have
occurred in all parts of the World. Besides economic strife and war, things
are not always in the hands of Human (e.g. natural disasters).

What Countries around the World need to do going forward is to have a basic
level of economic self-reliance. Things like face mask, clothing, basic
medical equipment, basic things like plastic cutlery, etc. should be made in
all countries of the World and import of such items should be strictly
forbidden.

Only then can each Country have semblance of hope when disaster such as
COVID-19 strikes.

I don't know, maybe I am rambling but I feel all countries from Afghanistan to
United States to South Sudan to Zimbabwe need to enabled and forced to produce
necessities of life and such basic items instead of relying on China, Germany,
India, Vietnam and Bangladesh.

~~~
maxerickson
We don't need hard and fast rules about supply chains, we need to include
resiliency in more of our planning. That might lead to certain choices about
supply chains, but the point is that it should be an outcome of thought and
planning.

------
sidesquid
Back in February I ordered a few boxes of 3M masks from a distributor in US
because the US was the only country with no mask export laws yet.

~~~
Infinitesimus
Nice foresight! Hopefully you have enough for you and yours and perhaps can
donate to local institutions that could benefit too

~~~
sidesquid
I ended up using one box of the three cartons I ordered so I donated the rest
to the churches and Hospitals!

------
CleanCoder
Does everyone here have a NYTimes subscription or is there a way to read this
article without one?

~~~
bcraven
[http://archive.vn/oUJ6Z](http://archive.vn/oUJ6Z)

------
notlukesky
Allocation of resources is always a political decision. There are multiple
things governments all over the world stockpile in ranging from weapons, oil,
maple syrup and even medical equipment. The electorate votes them in. Clearly
the priorities of the electorate can change over crisis and a new set of
values can be ushered in or forgotten quickly.

My favorite is when the French health minister Roselyne Bachelot sold
stockpiled medical supplies in France in 2010 and there was no political cost
to it from the electorate:

[https://www.france24.com/en/20100103-france-sell-off-
million...](https://www.france24.com/en/20100103-france-sell-off-millions-
surplus-flu-shots)

------
grecy
The most important question is will the US learn from it's mistakes and
actually improve it's preparedness and healthcare and public services, or will
everything be re-built brick for brick in the same way the serves the rich and
keeps the poor down?

------
Simulacra
All this article highlights is that when you don't order more, you run out.
This is not political, it's simply a mismanagement of inventory, and not being
prepared for a disaster where multitudes of an item will be needed.

------
RickJWagner
I read a Facebook post this week that I hope is true. A nurse was complaining
that respirator maintenance meant periodic visits to each room, which required
a new mask as each room was entered.

The nurse suggested to management that the respirator tubes be lengthened,
allowing the machines to be put in the hallway. Then each maintenance cycle
required only one mask!

Not sure if it was true, but even if it wasn't it showed good thinking.

~~~
leereeves
Would that work?

A longer tube would mean a lot more air needs to be moved to raise and lower
the pressure.

------
larrik
It seems to me that the main reason we are running out is that doctors have a
lot of patients and use a new mask each and every time they move to a new
patient. I'm not sure that's all that helpful (but it definitely could be
absolutely necessary), and it seems quite wasteful.

------
twomoretime
I think at this point it's clear that the United States is also the most self-
hating country in the world. Our media harps on the exact same pseudo-
controversies that Russian trolls use as wedge issues, primarily because
people online tend to swallow anything anti-american whole, particularly given
the current state of politics.

And this article starts strong with partisan fuckery. It blames Trump:

>President Trump, bizarrely, has so far resisted ordering companies to produce
more supplies and equipment

It when the source is clicked it mentions Trump is resisting _signing an
executive order_. Apparently people are upset that Trump _isn 't_ acting like
a king. But the article takes its swipe and most people won't click the link.
The problem is elsewhere in the article. Quite simply it's globalism. If we
had local production we could ramp it up just in time. But people let their
partisan idiocy get in the way of rational decision making and right now
antiglobalism not with the range of socially acceptable discourse... But don't
worry, Coronavirus is about to push the political pendulum right.

------
jeffdavis
The U.S. seems to have dropped the ball on testing. That's really the only
mistake that seems likely to matter that anyone might have conceivably _not_
made.

Global supply chains are a fact of life. The strongest fighter against over-
dependence on China is Trump, and he was ridiculed as "protectionist". Trump's
travel restrictions were similarly ridiculed.

Strategic stockpiles are spotty. Sometimes the thing you stockpile is what you
need; often not. Did every other country have a stockpile of masks except the
US?

~~~
kingaillas
>That's really the only mistake that seems likely to matter that anyone might
have conceivably not made.

How about reacting 6-8 weeks earlier, rather than wasting so many weeks of
warnings in denial mode, calling it a hoax by rival politicians, downplaying
and lying the whole time?

>Global supply chains are a fact of life.

And that clearly needs to be rethought because the dependencies introduced can
cause a global economic meltdown. As evidence I introduce: the current
situation.

>Strategic stockpiles are spotty.

Doesn't matter since you can't run a country like you run a business. For one,
when a business is trouble it throw out all free-market ideology and
immediately cries for government for help. The government doesn't have that
option.

The US is willing to spend $700 billion a year on the military, yet this war
is being fought by doctors, nurses, hospitals, grocery stores, delivery
people, and truck drivers.

Sounds to me like devoting, I don't know, 1% of the military budget for future
pandemics (just lump that in under nuclear/biological/chemical threats) would
be a wise move. Having $8 billion of PPE around would be extremely handy right
now.

------
AtlasBarfed
Modern supply chains are concentrated on pulling manufactured goods from far
away where they can offload environmental costs on countries that don't
care/are corrupt, wasting energy taking it halfway around the world, and then
selling it in America.

They also don't warehouse anything. Everything we depend on really is about 30
days supply tops, and the goal of supply chain management is to get as close
to perfect demand anticipation as possible, which is as little warehoused
goods as possible.

So everything has a huge lead time.

The "economics" of it (at least for the next foreseeable earnings quarter) was
pretty cut and dry on paper. Of course that economics is just for the bank
accounts of the rich, and the environmental costs, lack of "production
security", and other concerns that couldn't be quantified easily (and thus are
culturally ignored in economics) were ignored.

What I find particularly galling is that we are on a solid fourth iteration of
a possible pandemic that was reliant on ventilators and infection disease in
general (SARS, MERS, H5N1, Covid-19), and the CDC and DOD should have had a
turnkey plan to address covering shortfalls of critical medical equipment with
whatever domestic manufacturing we have left.

Of course Trump has allegedly fired a lot of the old-timers, but even if those
people are gone, the basics of the plan should be around, but clearly that
doesn't exist.

~~~
basch
Environmental and labor.

It's perplexed me how one can be pro union rights, pro globalization, pro
human rights and not a nationalist, all at the same time.

"Treating people fairly is important, we can't offer jobs that don't protect
people. Encourage spending to be for foreign goods not blanked by those
protections."

------
minikites
The incentive structure of market capitalism is not aligned with the interests
of society or the welfare of individuals.

------
nulldog22
Richest country? What, by what metric?

~~~
crazygringo
By GDP. I don't think there's any debate there.

~~~
nulldog22
It's 23 Trillion dollars in debt

~~~
exclusiv
Seems you have an agenda, but I'll help you out.

"The financial position of the United States includes assets of at least
$269.6 trillion (1576% of GDP) and debts of $145.8 trillion (852% of GDP) to
produce a net worth of at least $123.8 trillion (723% of GDP)[a] as of Q1
2014."

[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_Un...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Financial_position_of_the_United_States)

------
chmod775
> That’s where cheap, disposable face masks, eye protection, gloves and gowns
> come in.

The world appears to have entirely forgotten that there are re-usable
facemasks which you just boil/steam in hot water to sterilize.

They were heavily used only a short time ago.

You would just need to have 1-2 per medical worker and you'd be fine.

The "disposable everything" attitude is coming to bite blind capitalism in the
ass yet again.

------
chewz
It is Chernobyl of capitalism.. Sure.

------
watertom
All this article highlights is that you can't run the government as a
business.

The GOP has convinced their voters that running the government as a business
is a great idea, it's not. The GOP have convinced scared white, Christian,
racist, xenophobic people that all the government does is waste their hard
earned money paying benefits to poor, non-working, non-white, non-Christian,
non-citizen, LGBTQ's.

I ran Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity for a very large Financial
Institution.

I would say we were world class in our preparedness, but there is NO WAY that
a business could be prepared for a __real disaster __. I had to fight tooth
and nail for every penny I got, and every time I heard the same line from all
the board members, "This is a waste of resources, for something that will
probably never happen in our lifetime, if ever."

A Business can't stockpile, cash, products, buildings, capacity, extra remote
employees, etc. in order to sustain an event lasting 6-12 months, that __MIGHT
NEVER HAPPEN __.

Yes, we all knew this _could_ happen, but there was no way to predict when it
would happen.

Only a government can and should be preparing for really bad things that might
never happen.

Frankly running DR & BC wrecked my career at that firm because I was seen as
Don Quixote, "Tilting at Windmills." I was assigned the job and did my best,
assuming it was a stepping stone, and it was, but they expected me to just put
on a show. Instead I took the job seriously, and it eroded their confidence in
me, they expected that I should have recognized it as a fluff job, used only
to get me exposure to the BOD, justifying the next step up in my career,
instead I was "sent down" and had no choice but to leave.

~~~
gambler
_> The GOP [...] racist, xenophobic [...]_

It's pretty obvious that the wast _majority_ of people in power right now are
not very good at preparedness planning _or_ rapid crisis response. This
includes both parties. This also includes many state and local governments,
not just feds.

People using this crisis to blame "the other side" and spout their usual
talking points (now with even more hysteria) is getting really old, really
fast.

~~~
tomweingarten
Do you have any evidence to back up this "both sides" argument? The responses
executed by each party are starkly different, and the results are in some
cases are already measurable. To give just one exapmle:

[https://www.wbir.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/10liste...](https://www.wbir.com/article/news/health/coronavirus/10listens-
how-do-tennessee-and-kentucky-compare-in-their-response-to-
covid-19/51-bd8e321b-838a-4d4e-ab5d-8a4abbe9e897)

~~~
Aloha
I think that you can blame both parties for the overall lack of preparedness,
yes, we've had more proactive responses in crisis situations by Democrats -
but we've seen several decades of bipartisan cuts to the CDC, and other
disaster preparedness agencies for decades.

Terri Gross interviewed Max Brooks yesterday, an author and disaster
preparedness expert

[https://www.npr.org/transcripts/820601571](https://www.npr.org/transcripts/820601571)

"MAX BROOKS: I think there are massive gaps in our systems that are being
exposed right now, which - by the way - this is not news to the experts.
Anybody who works in these fields could have told you years ago that we were
vulnerable to this. It's going to rip through our prisons. It's going to rip
through our homeless population. God willing it doesn't rip through our
nursing homes.

But what no one is talking about, what terrifies me, what keeps me up at night
are the secondary casualties that will occur because of hospital overflow.
What I mean is we're only talking about now how many people are going to die
if the coronavirus really rips through our country; what is not being talked
about enough or what needs to be talked about are the people who are still
going to die of cancer, of accidents, of other diseases because they simply
can't get into the hospitals because the hospitals are choked with coronavirus
patients.

GROSS: So that's a flaw in the system that you think is being revealed.

MAX BROOKS: That is a tremendous flaw in the system right now. And we used to
be very good at this. I can tell you that one of the gut-wrenching moments I
had years and years ago was during the homeland nuclear disaster scenario
called Vibrant Response. And I spoke to someone from the Defense Logistics
Agency. And what the DLA does is they're responsible for all the bottled water
and bandages and everything that FEMA uses in a crisis - the military as well.
They - if there's something out there that we need, that the government needs,
they buy it.

What he told me was, up until the end of the Cold War, we had prepositioned
stockpiles of emergency supplies all over the country, and that was in case we
got nuked, so we could pull from these warehouses. Now, the peacetime dividend
was, even though we never got nuked, we still had hurricanes and floods and
other disasters, and there they were, ready to go. After the Cold War,
somebody got the idea that this was inefficient, it was expensive - get rid of
them and buy what you need on Day 1 of a crisis from the big box stores.

Here's the problem - the big box stores don't have warehouses, either, because
they know it's inefficient. So these huge stores need to turn over their stock
every 24 hours. So what if you have a crisis at the very moment that these
stores are reshelving. And I witnessed that firsthand during Superstorm Sandy.
We're watching TV here on the West Coast about what's happening to New York.
And my wife says to me, you know what? We've always talked about getting a
generator. What if we have an earthquake while this is happening? Go get it
now. I got in the car. I go to Home Depot - generators gone. FEMA had taken
them all.

So we don't have stockpiling anymore on a national level. We're seeing on TV
the stockpiles of masks right now that the federal government is distributing;
that is nothing compared to what we used to have.

GROSS: I'm even thinking about things that we're supposed to have at home to
protect ourselves. Hand sanitizer - OK, local distilleries are starting to
make that now. Things like Lysol or Clorox wipes, you can't find them
anyplace, at least not as we record this. Vinyl gloves or rubber gloves, those
are really hard to find, too. So we're being told to protect ourselves with
supplies we can't get access to.

MAX BROOKS: No. And this is the problem, is in this country, we used to have
these stockpiles, and it was called civil defense because we knew when the
bombs were dropped and the cities were nuked, that we would need all of this,
and it was all the lessons of World War II. So if this pandemic, let's say,
happened in 1965, there would be no shortages; it would be ready to go. But
post-Cold War, it's all become about the bottom line. And that trickles down
to us, like you said, the individual citizens.

I see panic buying in LA and I'm shocked because how does everyone in Los
Angeles not already have an earthquake kit? Which, by the way, the earthquake
kit is supposed to be much more extensive than a pandemic kit because, at
least in a pandemic, the lights are on and the water is running. In an
earthquake, you're camping out. So why are my fellow Angelenos caught so
desperately unprepared?"

~~~
baldeagle
'Bi-partisan' just means that both groups came to a compromise to get some of
the things they want. You then have to look into how the bills and rules
evolved to figure out how it came to be. My guess (non-researched) is that the
party that has cutting government budgets as a priority was the one injecting
a lessening of resources into the process.

~~~
tracker1
Both major parties dramatically increase spending more often than they reduce
it. Bureaucracy and waste are incentivized at every level given how budgeting
works in practice. They both prop up corporate welfare and military expansion.

We are the only major country in the world that doesn't have a fist fight on
their congressional floor now and then... to me, it just indicates that most
don't mean what they say.

------
jeffdavis
Blaming capitalism seems weird. Capitalism is not the only economic system
with just-in-time or globally-interdependent supply chains. And capitalism
can't explain why our strategic government stockpiles were never replenished.

There's a tendancy to compare the results of a system to what a wise, common-
sense person with 20/20 hindsight would do if they were in charge. But that's
not how things work. People in a system often fall victim to all kinds of bad
assumptions, often thinking that others are wholly or partially responsible
for dealing with a particular risk.

It looks like the US was caught flat-footed. It's too early to say how
resilient we are, though. And it's way too early to start trying to push
specific political angles like the idea that some mythical-but-non-specific
non-capitalist system would have served us better.

~~~
jahaja
The relevant incentives are there because of capitalism. Just as the
incentives to cover things up or shift blame were there in the USSR during
Chernobyl.

~~~
jeffdavis
Without a point of comparison this is meaningless. Do command economies have a
"mask czar" that makes sure nobody runs out of masks? And does that, in
general, work better?

~~~
jahaja
Why do you assume a command economy?

