At my work we have had lots of issues with certain supplies so we've figured out alternative products to widen the road we're widening. But it's strange some of the items in short supply. As it turns out it's items from overseas that are not to be found. The stuff made in the US is now starting to show up again or was never in short supply. What started out as pandemic related is no longer the case.
Meanwhile my local grocery store no longer looks like one in Soviet Russia in the 1980's but instead looks about the same as it looks on any Super Bowl Sunday. Holes in products here and there but overall well stocked.
That sounds like a good thing!
Years ago an engineer friend of mine told me that the corporation he worked for started getting pipe fittings and valves from a China supplier, because they were cheaper. After a few years of "savings" they noted that valves or fittings that NEVER failed in the past, were now failing. Undoubtedly they were purchasing inferior products, and overall there were no savings because the inferior products caused disruptions in productions, and damage, and needed to be replaced. Eventually the decision was made to use USA made fittings.
Years later another engineer explained to me that made in the USA had a definition that is deceptive. Machined parts might be machined in a foreign country, but shipped here and assembled here, and that MIGHT be defined as Made in the USA, particularly if it was shipped by a USA owned shipping company.
IMO we need to bring manufacturing back to America. We need to make products from start to finish. Japan's Admiral Yamamoto was quoted as saying after the attack on Pearl Harbor... "I have seen America's industrial might. I am afraid that we have awakened a sleeping giant!"
