How the World Ran Out of Everything

Using the example of a small businessman trying to get his novelty toy manufactured and delivered in time for Christmas 2021, Goodman does an admirable job of presenting how the failure of every part of the supply chain during the pandemic was inevitable. Obscenely wealthy CEOs outsourced millions of jobs to China for its dirt-cheap labor, lobbied for deregulating pretty much every industry that was needed to move goods from one place to the other, and deliberately kept inventories low. Then that stupid COVID virus came along and ruined the party for them. (The rest of us are hardly blameless; we all loved the fact that our precious cell phones and fast fashion clothes were so inexpensive.)

Sure, there were a few years of union growth, wage increases, and attempts to move factories back to this continent after the immediate COVID crisis. But then we all screamed about inflation and most of that progress was reversed. With a journalistic combination of data and human interest, Goodman's analysis is interesting and easy for a layperson to follow. The book ends with a whimper, however; his suggested fix for the tenuousness of the supply chain is simply to re-regulate these industries. Might be nice, won't happen, and a pig in lipstick is still a pig.