Why we ran out of everything during the pandemic, and why it had less to do with the pandemic and more to do with the corporations that made us much more vulnerable to it

Remember the supply chain problems of 2020 and 2021? The story we were told was that the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted the global economy's ability to make and transport goods of every type imaginable: Surgical masks. Car parts. Infant formula. 

But as New York Times' global economic correspondent Peter Goodman explains in his new book, “How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain,” the story is more complicated than that. 

On this episode, Goodman and Mark Blyth discuss how, over decades, consulting firms and shareholders built a system that drove up profits but imperiled our economy, ultimately making COVID-related supply shocks (and the inflation that followed) much worse than they needed to be. Furthermore, if Goodman is right, it’s only a matter of time before we risk running out of everything again.

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