๐จThread of Threads on Supply Chains and US Response During COVID-19
At the request of many readers, I'm compiling and pinning a master thread of all the long-form information I've prepared since the emergence of COVID-19.
New threads will be appended to this as I write them.
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1,000 km upriver from Shanghai and the mouth of the Yangtze Delta sits a marvel of modern mega-engineering:
The Three Gorges Dam.
It might be about to collapse. What happens if it does?
1/
It should be pointed out that law enforcement was far more decisive and thorough in rescuing some documents than a classroom full of kids being held hostage.
These gangs are far more organized and capable than the media has been giving them credit for, and Barbecue is not some basic thug with a bit of charisma.
Dude was a doorkicker for years in one of the most dangerous places on earth, and has no semblance of human morality orโฆ
This is not someone who understands how the food supply chain works.
The ship is sinking and these grotesquely incompetent midwits are valorizing the iceberg that hit it.
Biden official Samantha Power celebrates fertilizer shortages that will force farmers to โhasten transitionsโ to โnatural solutions, like manure and compost.โ
โNever let a crisis go to waste."
The catastrophic failure cascades of supply chains are not a conspiracy, except one of building an overoptimized house of cards.
Shifting the blame to some nebulous "they" is attempting to avoid the bill that has come due for decades of outsourcing our economic sovereignty.
At some point, maybe the hoarding of grain, fertilizers, feed ingredients, and protein might be considered a signal that PRC is planning something that would result in a high likelihood of maritime embargo (or disruption to normal trade flows)?
The IRS gets a jobs program for 87,000 mall ninjas who can't hold a firearm correctly.
Meanwhile, DOD has less than a hundred people to investigate foreign entity acquisitions of American businesses, commercial assets, and land for national security threats.
Thisisfine.jpg
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The axis of the world turns upon control of four resources:
Protein
Water
Energy
Firepower
The first is the subject of this thread.
China's enormous population demands massive amounts of protein.
And a war is on for it.
1/
The fifteen largest containerships currently sitting in the LA Harbor annually emit more CO2 than all the cars in the world combined.
Reshoring manufacturing to America is a major step towards resolving the climate crisis, agreed
@SecretaryPete
?
I resigned last week from my job over enforced vaccination.
However, that was only possible due to a level of career optionality not everyone has access to.
A lot of normal people are being forced to choose between vaccine or financial/familial ruin.
This is incredibly unjust.
If the vaccine is completely safe, why is Biden planning to compensate government workers who are injured as a result of his vaccine mandate?
Who will compensate those who donโt work for the government but are injured as a result of his vaccine mandate?
What happens when Russia calls the West's bluff and begins transacting business outside of SWIFT using yuan and CIPS as clearinghouses for trade?
The bifurcation is here, I think.
I am beyond pissed.
In 72 hours, the Red Sea shipping challenge has gone from worrisome (but manageable) to goat rodeo to colossal clusterfuck.
The Euro shipping cartel is leveraging every resource to strongarm DoD into fleet protection, the Biden Admin is in chaos on what toโฆ
~50% of air cargo is shipped in the bellies of passenger jets.
Because of its significantly higher per-kg cost versus ocean freight, air freight is mainly used for time critical shipments of auto parts, medicines, garments, PPE, and electronics.
This will be a big problem.
Was "Science" able to save the lives of all those Nigerian children when Pfizer conducted illegal trials of Trovan in the mid-90's?
Or all the people killed by a defective artificial heart valve product in the 80's?
#ScienceInServiceOfProfit
Thanks to the likely weeks-long blockade of the Suez Canal, ships on the Eurasian routes now have to cross the Indian Ocean and transit the Cape.
This will add time and complextiy to port rotations, fuel planning, and crewing.
Exponential impact with each passing day.
PRC has achieved total dominance of the global amino acid, vitamin, and trace mineral industry.
These are irreplaceable components of animal and human food supply chains.
PRC knows this, so remind me why we can't use Defense Production Act to spur manufacturing here in the US?
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The US military, for all of its might, still faces physical limits of distance and time.
Control of key landmasses enables logistical operations at scale.
The US has one of the most important. China wants it.
Thread.
Long post on missile attack math in the Red Sea:
USS Carney has currently engaged 22 (I'm not keeping perfect score) aerial attack platforms launched by Houthi rebels on maritime assets (or the Carney itself) in the immediate vicinity of Yemen and the Bab-el-Mandeb chokepoint.โฆ
Cost of an Iranian-made (or -designed) drone: roughly $25K
Cost per shot of an Aster 15/30 (Sea Viper): $1-2M
I'd say we can probably infer the Houthi's strategy here.
Retail fertilizer is ripping in the Midwest as growers begin to put on purchases for spring product.
Anhydrous has set a new record at $1492/ton, which is 200% more than this time last year.
With harvest delivered corn in the low $5/bu range right now, it doesn't pencil.
@johncardillo
These vans are owned by small businessmen who lease them from Amazon to be contracted carriers.
#BLM
continues to destroy the lives and welfare of innocent people.
Sneering condescension for an average American participating in the electoral process is why we find ourselves at the precipice of a strongly nationalist moment.
The Beltway is watching its castles crumble, and has no response except to double down on arrogance.
So, the guy who defeated the NJ Senate president ran because he was denied a concealed carry permit.
I'm sure this will all go very well and produce a fine, informed legislator.
Cost of an Iranian-made (or -designed) drone: roughly $25K
Cost per shot of an Aster 15/30 (Sea Viper): $1-2M
I'd say we can probably infer the Houthi's strategy here.
Fun theoretical exercise I'm currently working on for the
@fortisanalysis
side of things:
US refineries (total) only store about 40 million gallons of military-grade jet fuel at any given time, or about 36,400 flight hours for an F/A-18E/F Super Hornet launched from an aircraftโฆ
Potential major labor issue brewing at the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach right now related to the unresolved ILWU/PMA labor agreement from 2022.
Second shift of ILWU longshoremen walked out last night, and first shift did not show up this morning.
All cargo is stopped andโฆ
China heavily escalating its gray zone (and overt) incursions into Taiwainese airspace in recent days, w/ multiple major USN elements in the region.
Turkey rationing power.
UAE being attacked with missiles.
Russia/Ukraine about to go off.
We are living in a Tom Clancy novel.
No, they are going after a taxpayer-funded news and entertainment entity for coopting impressionable children into a cultural dogfight over a politicized public health campaign.
You either don't understand the distinction, or are not an honest broker on the topic.
They're actually going after... Big Bird for promoting the COVID vaccine?
Imagine being triggered by a fictional character promoting a vaccine that has already saved countless lives.
This kind of stuff seems to always turn out to be an open secret.
Lincoln Project has served their useful idiot roles for the Left and are now going under the bus.
21 Young Men Accuse Lincoln Project Founder of Unsolicited Sexual Advances
Including grooming a 14-year-old
John Weaver was a longtime advisor to John McCain and John Kasich
The largest bank bailout in history was memed into existence in 48 hours and propagated by influencers and bots largely using GPT-generated articles and threads.
Remember how the Xi stans at various think tanks and media outlets keep assuring us that Belt and Road is not a predatory play for infrastructure in resource-rich regions of the world?
China to take over Ugandaโs Entebbe International Airport for default on debt repayment.
China has rejected Uganda's request to re-negotiate toxic clauses in the $200m loan picked six years ago for the Airport expansion.
The Airport is the only Intl Airport in the country.
Pass the PRIME Act, now.
Consumers should have increased optionality to build safe, cost-effective, local meat supply chains, rather than depend on fragile megacorp oligopolies that only exist due to regulatory capture.
cc:
@RepThomasMassie
I found the most condescending comment by economists of 2021. Cattle ranchers are going out of business because of meatpacking monopolists, and an Oklahoma ag economist told them to stop being so 'emotional.'
So, let's divert for a moment to what happens downriver if the Three Gorges Dam fails.
A 100m-tall wall of water will rush out at more than 100 km/hr.
In 30 minutes, Yichang and its 4 million residents will be engulfed.
(Map Credit: u/BerryBlue_BlueBerry @ Reddit)
20/
Completed over twenty-one years (1994-2015) out of more than 28 million cubic meters of concrete and 463,000 tons of steel, the 185 meter tall Three Gorges Dam is today the largest hydroelectric dam on earth.
It generates around 2% of China's total electrical power demand.
2/
This is on you,
@GrandForksCity
.
The most powerful senators involved in our national security are now openly expressing serious concerns about Fufeng.
I warned your city council to their faces in March this would only get worse - and I've kept my word.
Narrator: "They actually weren't stunned, but must pretend to be to hide the fact that the PLA probably stole half that tech from US prime contractors and subcontractors."
Game this out.
Passive resistance by the truckers must eventually be met with violent escalation by authorities, because state violence is the final answer to enough citizens saying "No. Now what?"
Is Trudeau willing to go to the mat on this?
1/x
UPDATE: CBC News has learned Justin Trudeau will inform the provinces he will invoke the Emergencies Act to give the government extra powers to deal with the protests across the country. Trudeau said there were no plans to deploy the military.
Cloud People favor exquisite and complex solutions because it validates their perceived status.
Mud People favor *what works* because they know reality is a punishing master.
Emergent chaos thus favors the redneck because he is oriented towards simple solutions.
In simple terms, the Yangtze River logistics and manufacturing complex comprises 46% of the volume of the largest port on earth, since all cargo flows through Shanghai.
Failure of the Three Gorges Dam would annihilate the entire logistics infrastructure of central China.
25/
Chatter is that BASF will have to shut down their enormous vitamin plant at Ludwigshafen.
The site's huge energy requirements are met by a natgas pipeline fed directly by Gazprom.
The plant is a major global provider of vitamins A, E, B2, and B5 for animal feed and human care.
Have you considered that "low ambition" might simply be people selecting for a different type of life than high speed low drag entrepreneurialism, celebrity, or whatever?
And that the Midwest being a great place to raise a family is one output of that "low ambition"?
In whichโฆ
A major problem for the Midwest is that it attracts low ambition people.
This used to be true for the South too but that's changed big time.
Atlanta became a magnet for many of America's black elite. High finance has set up shop in Miami/Palm Beach. Austin, despite its deepโฆ
There's somewhere between 15-20 million AR15-pattern rifles owned by US citizens.
That's millions of firearms owners who are not likely to turn their rifles in due to a "ban".
Totally unrelated, what happened last time Chipman was involved in confiscating illegal firearms?
"Plant-Based Meat" = massive increase in GMO oilseed production, fertilizer and pesticide use, and further concentration of power of multinational food and agtech companies.
It also means consolidation of ranches and farms at rapid scale.
This is BIG.
TSMC is reportedly going to charter a vessel to ship several thousand containers to its newbuild semicondutor manufacturing site in the Phoenix area.
It's going to take tight cooperation with the port and a lot of trucks/chassis.
1/x
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The US, above all, depends on its ports to keep the retail supply chains moving - we are a net importer, with a trade deficit of $600B for 2019.
What happens if the ports - our lifeblood - are bottlenecked?
Thread.
Let me state this clearly:
The US is a maritime-dependent nation with the finest Navy ever deployed, but one that is increasingly gelded even as China rises.
The Coast Guard and US Merchant Marines are doing yeoman's work in defense of this nation despite shrinking manpower andโฆ
@KeithWoodsYT
That's because Hamas sets up mosques, hospitals, homes, and schools as bases of operation to use civilians (especially women and children) as living meat shields and dead tools of propaganda.
But go off, king.
From its birth, the US has faced every existential threat known to man.
Yet here we are.
The history of this century has not been written only a quarter of the way in.
This nation was not built by front runners.
It will not be rebuilt by them either.
Never short America.
I have a bitter pill for many of you:
Itโs an Asian century.
China is up now.
Possibly India after that.
The sooner you accept this, the better off you will be.
I have a second point to make that is important.
I meet a lot of Americans who travel to Latin America, Northโฆ
Yes, they're much further ahead in dystopian systems and technologies that reinforce totalitarianism.
The influencer Right is just on fire with these great takes.
Must be that great view from the top of the bell curve.
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Starting late 2019, a coronavirus now dubbed SARS-CoV-2 emerged from China, becoming a pandemic that has forever altered the world's economic, cultural, and political landscape.
This is the story of the testing supply chain in the US.
1/
The disconnect in these social vaccine pressure campaigns is that for many people, "vaccine hesitancy" is less about safety or efficacy, than it is a proxy for one's collapsing faith in institutions.
Lockdowns and performative compliance by politicians spent their moral capital.
Coming to the West soon?
"Xi Jinping is hiring 87,000 agriculture police officers, and they're coming for Chinese farmers. Farmers can only plant the crops the government approves."
The Yangtze River Economic Basin has a GDP of more than $6.5 trillion, or about half of all China's GDP.
Recall, China represents 28% of all manufacturing output - globally. More than half of that is in the YREB.
15% of the world's production would go offline in 24 hours.
29/
Timely reminder that Smithfield is owned by the megacorp WH Foods, a de facto instrument of CCP policy worldwide.
The sale of Smithfield was cleared in 2013 by CFIUS, and remains one of the greatest failures of oversight by the Committee in its history.
๐จFufeng Group, a huge Chinese manufacturer of in-demand animal feed ingredients, is building their next plant in...Grand Forks, ND.
American corn.
American energy.
American labor.
American buyers.
All the raw materials for Chinese corporate profits.
Unacceptable,
@DougBurgum
.
The Three Gorges Dam has become a point of pride for the CCP.
Mega-engineering projects are a signal to the world that a nation has stepped into an elite tier of economic powerhouses.
For the CCP, it is further proof that authoritarianism is more effective than capitalism.
5/
Just send this thread to everyone who has some silly explanation for why the ports are a parking lot.
I told you this could happen, and how, back in March 2020.
It's a catastrophic failure cascade, not a conspiracy.
And we are not yet at the bottom.
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The US, above all, depends on its ports to keep the retail supply chains moving - we are a net importer, with a trade deficit of $600B for 2019.
What happens if the ports - our lifeblood - are bottlenecked?
Thread.
Ships are not being denied entry.
This is a predictable, inevitable outcome of overoptimized (fragile) supply chains and political malpractice.
Someone please get me on whatever platform is big enough to supplychainsplain what exactly is happening here.
This is a ransom note, not a proposal.
My counterproposal:
- Deployment of Mexican military forces to fully secure *their* southern border with USSOUTHCOM monitors provided full access
- Interdiction and return of all vessels, buses, and other conveyances transiting Mexicanโฆ
The president of Mexicoโs proposal for stemming immigration includes:
- The U.S. commit $20 billion a year to poor countries in Latin America and the Caribbean
-Lift sanctions on Venezuela
-End the Cuban embargo
-Legalize law-abiding Mexicans living in the U.S.
However, the project did not come without enormous costs.
The price tag has run more than $30 billion USD.
Choking off the sedimentary flow of the river reduces the available fertile silt required by farmland downstream, and increases risk of flooding.
6/
Since Orioles legend Cal Ripken Jr. is trending for some reason, this is the perfect opportunity to remind you that his brother Billy's 1989 Fleer is the greatest baseball card in history.
cc:
@PitchingNinja
Did Musk spend $40B+ to privatize Twitter so that he can shorten the learning curve of some super-AI by feeding it a firehose of realtime human interactions?
I have no idea.
But it's a compelling reason for a mega-genius to want to own the world's largest multilingual hivemind.
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There are nations aligned with the US that continue to fly under the radar.
They are indispensible allies, the first line of defense in great power conflict.
Poland is about to emerge as one of the most important.
Thread.
Chinese-produced fentanyl and/or precursors will kill many more Americans in the next three years than "white supremacy".
So will homelessness, food insecurity, poor roads, and veteran suicide.
Priorities.
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The US Navy has been one of the critical pillars upholding American influence around the world.
It's been so dominant, in fact, that America has basically controlled the global commons for 60 years.
All of that is changing.
Thread.
From December.
"But China has nothing to do with Ukraine!"
Ask yourself why China began buying all of their Russia-origin cargoes FOB starting around this time.
(FOB means buyer owns the cargo once on the ship at the origin port - i.e. it's Chinese cargo, not Russian.)
At some point, maybe the hoarding of grain, fertilizers, feed ingredients, and protein might be considered a signal that PRC is planning something that would result in a high likelihood of maritime embargo (or disruption to normal trade flows)?
As far back as 1918, Chinese political leaders have promoted damming the Three Gorges due to the ever-present threat of catastrophic flooding up and down the Yangtze River.
In 1931, more than 300K people were killed by floods.
In 1954 and 1998, 3K+ perished in each year.
3/
It's beyond my ken to assess the structural risks and likelihood of failure for the TGD.
CCP officials are downplaying risk, because that's what they do.
Now to the point of this thread - extrapolating the geopolitical/supply chain impact of failure of Three Gorges Dam.
8/
All things considered, the Three Gorges Dam truly is a herculean feat of engineering, political willpower, and propaganda.
This despite the risks and challenges for the people of China - especially the more than 55 million people who live along the Yangtze downstream.
7/
No big deal, just China announcing it's going to impede international shipping lanes while firing into Taiwan's territorial waters.
Goal is to increase the risk profile of Taiwan for critical imports/exports and slowly choke it commercially.
From 12pm (Beijing Time) August 4 to 12pm August 7, 2022, the Chinese People's Liberation Army will conduct important
#militaryexercises
and training activities including live-fire
#drills
in the following maritime areas and their air space.
Respectfully
@IlhanMN
, if America is so bad, why did your family emigrate here?
You are an immigrant from Somalia that constantly spouts anti-American sentiments and pals around with dictators, yet you have wealth, status, and a platform.
How oppressed are you, actually?
Maersk is the largest ocean logistics company on earth.
It operates 75 port terminals globally, has 780+ vessels, and did $39B in revenue in 2020.
When it was hit with the
#NotPetya
ransomware in 2017, only one powered-off computer in Lagos held a backup of all company data.
Something is missing in this story. What kind of company has no backup for their critical data?
Colonial Pipeline CEO warns of fuel shortages following cyberattack
#FoxBusiness
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All war is about terrain and resources - these are the raw materials of power.
And when multiple entities decide they MUST control a certain place or asset, conflict is inevitable.
One such place is the South China Sea.
Let's go.
1/
I've been telling people for months that President Ali is a formidable intellect and coming into his own as a true leader.
He has similarly formidable advisors and officials on his team.
He's also a family man who loves his nation and is very aware of its history and presentโฆ
Pertamina (Indonesia's state-owned oil company) signed a deal with CPC in June 2020 to double this refinery's capacity.
CPC is Taiwan's state-owned oil and petrochemical company.
This marks two of Taiwan's most strategically important companies to be hit in the past five days.
There's an entire genre of real-life disaster porn about Chinese infrastructure failures, but you do you.
Also, Pemex is a state-owned enterprise of the Mexican government. Some might call this "socialism", not capitalism.
Dear Santa,
All I want for Christmas is to own a shipyard and a tech transfer agreement to build an American version of the Skjรถld-class corvette.
Thank you,
H
For the past two years, China had at most 50-100 new daily covid cases. Now it's 5000, and it is shutting down key supply chain arteries that feed the US economy.
So bizarre
"When you see headlines and reports of mass firings, and hundreds of people losing their jobs, look at the bigger story...Amazon increased its earnings by billions due to acquiring small- to medium-size businesses in the wake of this supply chain crisis and gov't inaction."
Seen here: possibly the two most unqualified individuals to "lead" a multi-billion dollar economic and infrastructure emergency are discussing things they know nothing about, making promises they can't keep, and thinking they are helping somehow.
Meanwhile off camera, anโฆ
I'm a broken record on this by now:
Without massive, quantifiable advancements in *US-domiciled and -controlled* production of raw materials, intermediate/finished goods, and R&D, any bill that emphasizes stored energy over nuke/natgas increases our dependence on China.
People are mad at
@Sen_JoeManchin
for killing Biden's Build Back Better, but progressive dogmatism is to blame. Dems could have written a bill that expanded nuclear & nat gas. Instead, they doubled down on bloated, inflationary subsidies for renewables.
The rail service - called "Chongqing-Xinjiang-Europe Railway" - stretches more than 11,000 km and traverses a number of Central Asian nations.
It is operated jointly by Chinese, Russian, and German logistics companies, and just departed its 10,000 train in March.
11/