'I received from a reader named Mike the following reply to the
above entitled post. I'll give my reply afterwards -- Roleigh
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Roleigh;
I so appreciate receiving your emails and the essential service
you are providing to all of us.
Just a quick couple questions regarding this email, if you have
time.
Isn't "stockpiling" somewhat neccessary to prepare for the days
ahead? Doesn't everyone need to start putting some essential
items away now? I am thinking primarily of personal and
community preparations. It seems to me that there is a real
possibility that we will see food shortages in the year 2000, for
instance.
What is the solution to the problem of balancing the need to
prepare for the future and creating shortages now?
Thanks again
Mike
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Mike,
I agree stockpiling is essential to being able to weather
shortages in 2000. The earlier the stockpiling is done the
better. I think history will find that the biggest factor that
compounds the already tragic situation of Y2K will be JIT--Just
in Time inventory management. JIT, in my opinion, is based upon
the assumption that there will never be systemic, global
interruptions. Y2K is a subset of the class of numeric overflow
problems, which in a high technology world, are systemic, global
interruptions if they are used everywhere. Y2K is history's most
dramatic example of such a problem and won't be repeated on this
scale for quite some time but Dr. Stockton and Capers Jones give
future dates (see my that other numeric overflows are "scheduled"
to take place. See my Y2K reprint at
y2ktoday.com
Other events are unscheduled (such as the overflow of the Social
Security number, the 10 digit phone number in the USA, the Unix
operating system date field--this is dated though, etc.) The
next major, equivalent to Y2K event, will be around the year
3,600 when one of the every 2800 years exception to the leap year
takes place (see
ourworld.compuserve.com.
Because almost none of our corporations are promising to
overproduce in 1999 to make up for almost inevitable productivity
losses in 2000, the only way to stir these companies to
overproduce in 1999 is to place orders with them--the earlier the
better.
The downside to this advice is that once too many corporations go
over- board in stockpiling, shortages will take place in 1999
(rather than taking place in 2000 if nothing happened). The
upside is that shortages in 1999 are not true shortages--because
of stockpiling, extra production has taken place. A displacement
of the goods has occurred. Prices will rise and there will be an
incentive for stockpiled goods to be sold back to the market.
That, to me, is better than only a normal year's worth of
ordering going on in 1999 to be followed by a year of
production-shortages which in the area of essential goods would
cause immense tragedy to take place. However, for those
individuals and businesses that did not stock- pile early, they
have to pay the premium for the resold-at-higher-prices goods.
That is bad for such companies/individuals, but to me, that is
better than being in the position where such goods are not
available regardless of the price.
Stockpiling, therefore, is "bad" but not as bad as not
stockpiling. It is a necessary disadvantage that I believe we
are better off enduring. However, the earlier the stockpiling is
done, the earlier manufacturers in 1999 ramp up production and
that is very good, overall.
Does that answer your question? I hope I have made my position
clear.
--Roleigh |
