I’m going to let you in on a secret: 99% of the Twitterati who opine about global supply chains have never managed one.

I manage global supply chains for a living and can tell you that right now it’s often easier for me to get product from Chinese vendors than American vendors.

The lockdowns have made American supply chains a total mess. Businesses only partially open with skeleton crews, truckers uncertain if they’re allowed to make pickups, crucial supplies sold out.

Not that it’s easy to get product from China. Air freight is pretty much dead at the moment. But ocean freight from China is totally in motion again and most of their factories are open and running.

Nassim Taleb style localism preaches that we need more local redundancies to reduce risk, but the simple truth of the present moment is that international availability is saving our ass because all of America is totally jacked right now.

The problem with pretty much everyone who still thinks we should quarantine is they have no clue how badly they’re mucking up everything because they don’t produce essential goods and don’t understand what’s involved or what’s at stake.

The quarantine is totally unsustainable, even for a few more weeks. It needs to end yesterday. We are teetering ever closer to real breakdowns in the pricing cues and delivery mechanisms that make the world work.