We used to have a domain of expertise dedicated to maximizing production by eliminating bottlenecks. It's called total planning. You will say, but that was Soviets. No, the US also had that capacity, but hidden in obscure defense mobilization preparedness offices, defunded in 90s https://twitter.com/zeithistoriker/status/1240119890683494401

Folks've been talking about activating DPA emergency powers, but who will do the mobilization? We got rid of the mobilizers. We don't have the expertise anymore! Trump's inaction is only partially about his dumbness. Even if he was a genius, he does not have the staff for the job

At this point our best bet probably is the Defense Priorities and Allocation System run jointly Commerce, DOD, GSA, and DHS. DPAS has its origins in WWII's Controlled Materials Plan and allows planners to manage supply chains for defense production.
https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/other-areas/strategic-industries-and-economic-security-sies/defense-priorities-a-allocations-system-program-dpas

There is a reason these agencies were created. First two years of the WWII mobilization showed that you could not simply bring in bunch of businessmen (sounds familiar?) and expect them to be able to jump start the war mobilization. The situation got so bad that in 1942,

war production nearly stopped bc of accumulating material imbalances. For instance, bc GM used too much steel to build tanks, Amtrak could not repair railroads, which meant the tanks could not be deployed! So, what did War Production Board do? You might think total planning and

getting rid of markets. This was indeed advocated by Kuznets and Bob Nathan (inventors of GNP), but instead another group from finance proposed Controlled Materials Plan: controlling critical materials through a voucher system. State gives the end producer the token, and the firm

pays its suppliers with that token. This goes all the way down to the supply chain to the raw material producers who buy their raw materials from government warehouses that monopolized critical raw materials. (A critical material backed money system!)

This is one of the main reasons why the US never had to abandon the free market system during the war. In the postwar period this was even further developed and was used for running "limited wars" for long-periods w/out disrupting the civilian free market economy.

Today this system of mobilizing resources works so well that we don't even realize the state plans a significant sector of the US manufacturing base without directly intervening in intra-firm decisions. So, maybe this system could work if we want to ramp up pandemic production!

Guess what? Mobilization agencies were absorbed into FEMA in 1979, but unfortunately they were defunded in 1993 (per @Boondoggle2). FEMA still has rapid response expertise, but as an official notes not so much systematic production planning capacity. https://twitter.com/adam_tooze/status/1240282056384548865?s=20

@threadreaderapp unroll please