In his novel Night Watch, one of Terry Pratchett’s characters pauses to reflect on the delicate instrument that is even a moderately complex society. “When the machinery of city life faltered, the wheels stopped turning and all the little rules broke down,”: the life that every citizen takes for granted suddenly evaporates.
“A city … was only two meals away from chaos at the best of times.” When the shops expected deliveries and they didn’t arrive, “the whole machine breaks down. And it goes on breaking down. And it breaks down the people.”
Across many parts of the West, some are starting to warn that, despite superficially hanging on through the Covid panic, the machinery is breaking down.
Several industry groups have warned world leaders of a worldwide supply-chain “system collapse” due to pandemic restrictions, coming as Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell suggested that the current period of higher inflation will last until 2022.
So far — so far — it might seem as if the delusions of the likes of Jacinda Ardern – that national, let alone global economies, could be “paused” without consequence – were justified. Which might tickle Ardern’s socialist fantasies of a command economy but, sooner or later, as it does for all socialists, hard reality will come knocking.
The people who actually make things work, the lifters, are trying to get the message across to the leaners who live under the delusion of control’s efficacy.
The International Chamber of Shipping, a coalition of truck drivers, seafarers, and airline workers, has warned in a letter to heads of state attending the United Nations General Assembly that governments need to restore freedom of movement to transportation workers amid persistent COVID-19 restrictions and quarantines.
If nothing is done, they warned of a “global transport system collapse” and suggested that “global supply chains are beginning to buckle as two years’ worth of strain on transport workers take their toll,” according to the letter. It was signed by the International Air Transport Association (IATA), the International Road Transport Union (IRU), and the International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF).
The US and Britain are already experiencing shortages of food and fuel. The “laptop class”, who’ve been acting as if the pandemic was a long, big holiday in their pyjamas, are dimly starting to realise that it’s not all mummy-blogging and Amazon shopping.
“All transport sectors are also seeing a shortage of workers, and expect more to leave as a result of the poor treatment millions have faced during the pandemic, putting the supply chain under greater threat,” the letter said. “We also ask that WHO and the ILO raise this at the U.N. General Assembly and call on heads of government to take meaningful and swift action to resolve this crisis now,” they wrote.
Like something out of an Ayn Rand novel, the lifters are walking away — and the leaners are starting to panic.
Gene Seroka, executive director of the Port of Los Angeles, attempted to shed some light on the problem during a recent ABC News interview, noting that there’s a significant backup of container ships off the coast of major ports of entry.
“We’re witnessing a pandemic-induced buying surge by the American consumer, the likes of which we’ve never seen.”
Naturally, the biggest leaners of all, the bureaucracy, are blind to the consequences of years of their own meddling.
The Federal Reserve doesn’t anticipate the current trend to “lead to a new inflation regime, in which inflation remains high year after year,” Powell said.
The Epoch Times
Sure. Remember how the Federal Reserve slept through the slow-building avalanche that was the Global Financial Crisis?
Still, as Tim Poole says, who’ll come through this easier? At least we rural types tend to have our own gardens, usually a few chickens. Country folk have guns, too.
Let’s see how the “progressives” make out when their local Wholefoods suddenly runs out of organic kale.
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