I know my husband is going to freak out tomorrow when we grocery shop and I buy powdered milk, extra cooking oil and dried beans (which I will only eat if I am starving).
Sad times we live in, isn’t it?
]]>Try finding a garden hose in December.
]]>The companies would need to hire and train more people, and locate more raw materials. There are no huge reserves of anything.
Hell, there were major developments shut down after Katrina because they couldn’t get CPVC water pipe to install bathrooms and kitchens. I had the guy who does the major plumbing for my landlord come and buy the half dozen 10-foot lengths I had for patching problems for the places my Mother manages, so he could continue working without resorting to copper.
People get used to only buying when they need something, and if the system breaks down, they are screwed.
I admit, it looks really great in a PowerPoint presentation.
]]>When I was managing engineering projects, I never designed with components that didn’t have at least two sources. Sure, it meant more work, but it also meant competition (with lower costs) and redundancy for when things went wrong with a supplier. I’d had a very bad experience with single source components in a project when the company supplying a particular part was taken over by a bigger company, and they stopped manufacturing the part. I try never to repeat a mistake.
KISS is all very well and good, and generally, I like simplicity a lot! But there are times when simplicity is begging for trouble.
]]>In manufacturing, a strike at one parts plant can quickly cause an industry shut down because no one has the warehouse space to buy in advance of a strike, and cost cutting means most things are single sourced. There is no back-up plan.
Hurricane veterans have supplies of food and water because we are aware that, in the case of my little town, a couple of bridges fail and we can only be reached by air or water. The North-South roads go over rivers, and the East-West over bayous and bays.
People really don’t appreciate how delicate out situation really is.
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