Supply chains in COVID.

The COVID shaped black swan is here.. It may be a good reason to put some pressure on anti competitive behavior.

Amazon Prime is no longer prime, delivery dates are anyone’s guess and supply chain issues affect everything from soy sauce to GPUs. I am in favor of free markets generally, but we don’t actually operate in one (from farmer subsidies, to bank bailouts and tariffs).

I like that FTC is signaling an interest to investigate our nation’s logistics networks. Not that Uncle Sam knows better (the dmv is not a paragon of innovation), but transparency + data is a fair ask. The pressure will lead to self regulation. Even slight realignment of incentives will drive different marginal decisions in a corporate network. More is unlikely recent judicial precedent.

The government can say they are looking into regulating Google and all of a sudden less search results are funneled away from small businesses. Everyone wins.

A casual nod to a big stick (left unused) goes a long way. We have over optimized our supply chains on cost. It’s time we build some resiliency into the system. The government is key here. Someone like McKinsey will guide the Fortune 500 to a robust strategy, but they do so given static government constraints.

These have been effectively fixed for a while and we are seeing the gaps. Hints at regulation should be a good nudge to try a fresh equilibrium.