In HOW THE WORLD RAN OUT OF EVERYTHING: Inside the Global Supply Chain (Mariner Books; on sale June 11), Peter S. Goodman, award-winning journalist and global economics correspondent at the New York Times, reveals the fascinating inner workings of our unstable worldwide supply chain and the factors that have led to its fragility. While the pandemic put a spotlight on the supply chain's state of distress, it merely laid bare the vulnerabilities that had building up over decades, underscoring the troubling reality that the system was always at risk of collapse-and still is.
Among the issues the book examines:
. How China rose to become the center of global manufacturing, and the key elements that shaped the era of China-centric globalization-the advent of container shipping and the embrace of "Just in Time" manufacturing (disdaining extra inventory as a threat to the bottom line)
. How the supply chain depends on myriad forms of labor exploitation and has been constructed by and for the benefit of shareholders, at the expense of reliability and the welfare of workers
. How the industries at the center of the supply chain-from shipping and rail to meat processing- liberated themselves from rules imposed to limit their dominance, and how these monopolists have engineered scarcity to boost their prices while profiting off calamity
. How a critical reconfiguration of the supply chain may be underway, with China's central dominance in manufacturing giving way to an emphasis on regional supply networks to safeguard society through greater resilience
Pulling back the curtain on how the supply chain truly operates, Goodman highlights the triumphs and struggles of the human players behind this intricate system-from factories in Asia to an almond grower in Northern California, from a group of striking railroad workers in Texas to a truck driver whom Goodman accompanies across hundreds of miles of the Great Plains. Diving deep into the heart of the supply chain, exposing the ruthless business logic and complex networks that underpin our daily lives,
HOW THE WORLD RAN OUT OF EVERYTHING issues an urgent wake-up call to reshape the way we obtain the essential goods on which we rely. As Goodman warns, we can't predict when the next shock to the system will arrive, but we can be certain it is coming.
Peter S. Goodman is the global economics correspondent at the New York Times. He was previously the Times's European economics correspondent, based in London, and the national economics correspondent, based in New York, where he played a leading role in the paper's award-winning coverage of the Great Recession, including a series that was a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Previously, he covered the Internet bubble and bust as the Washington Post's telecommunications reporter and served as the Post's China-based Asian economics correspondent. He is the author of Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World and Past Due: The End of Easy Money and the Renewal of the American Economy. He graduated from Reed College and completed a master's in Vietnamese history from the University of California, Berkeley.
KEY FACTS FROM HOW THE WORLD RAN OUT OF EVERYTHING
1. Between 2009 and 2018, the largest American companies distributed more than 90 percent of their profits to shareholders via dividends and buybacks of shares. This was a major reason why their inventories were minimal heading into the pandemic-a key factor in the shortages of many products.
2. By the middle of 2021, roughly 13 percent of the world's container shipping fleet was stuck in floating traffic jams off major ports around the globe, waiting for a chance to load and unload. More than $1 trillion worth of product was caught in this congestion.
3. Chinese factories made more than 80 percent of face masks sold in the United States before the pandemic, and more than 90 percent of many basic antibiotics.
4. During the worst of the pandemic, patients were unable to secure life-saving medical devices because manufacturers could not purchase enough computer chips. Chipmakers prioritized sales to their most important customers-Apple, Google, Samsung and other producers of electronic gadgets.
5. By May 2021, the cost of moving a container of goods across the Pacific from the factories of China to retailers in the United States had reached $25,000, a more than ten-fold increase compared to before the pandemic.
6. By the spring of 2022, California almond farmers were stuck with 1.1 billion pounds of nuts left from the previous year's harvest because cargo ships were refusing to pick up agricultural exports at American ports. They preferred to haul empty containers back to China to cash in on astronomical prices for moving factory goods.
7. American railroads have become so devoted to satisfying Wall Street's craving for statistical markers that they routinely attach loaded freight cars to the wrong trains-yielding delays and product shortages-rather than leaving them in yards and increasing so-called "dwell time."
8. At the same time that American meatpackers were citing the threat of food shortages in persuading the Trump administration to keep slaughterhouses open during the pandemic-resulting in the deaths of hundreds of workers-the industry was sitting on huge surpluses of frozen pork while increasing exports to China.
9. By 2020, four companies controlled 85 percent of the American slaughterhouse capacity for beef-a monopolistic grip greater than during the era of the Robber Barons.
10. By the spring of 2022, more than half of the increase in American prices for goods was the result of fatter profits for corporations, while only 8 percent of the increases stemmed from higher pay for workers.
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