Sold Out

Informationen zum Autor James Rickards is the Editor of Strategic Intelligence, a financial newsletter, and the bestselling author of The New Great Depression , Aftermath , The Road to Ruin , and many more. He is an investment advisor, lawyer, inventor, and economist, and has held senior positions at Citibank, Long-Term Capital Management, and Caxton Associates. Klappentext "Our global economy faces unprecedented challenges in the next few months. But whether we sink or swim depends on how prepared we are - and what we do now to thwart the coming collapse"-- Leseprobe Chapter One The Shelves Are Bare One of the bedrock characteristics of disruptions is that they are almost never the result of a single failure. A large-scale disruption is usually the result of a confluence of several factors. . . . There are typically many signs that a disruption is about to take place. -Yossi Sheffi The Resilient Enterprise The Endless Supply Chain Supply chains are not part of the economy. They are the economy. It's impossible to think of any commodity, process, or finished product that's not part of a supply chain. This precept applies to natural resources and human artifacts. It applies to objects and intangibles. It applies to goods and services. We are immersed in supply chains. The irony is that we scarcely see them. The term "supply chain" is just a name we give to a nexus of logistics, inputs, processes, transportation, packaging, distribution, marketing, customer relations, vendor relations, and human capital that in the aggregate supports the supply and demand for every physical, digital, intellectual, or artistic artifact on the planet and in space. The supply chain is everywhere. Supply chain management has come so far in recent decades and resulted in such efficiencies that consumers take good delivery for granted. Amazon and Walmart are leaders in the efficient delivery of high-quality, low-cost products, yet they are hardly alone. Supply chain efficiencies have trickled down to the boutique retail level, where a proprietor can go online and easily track a shipment of carved trays from Thailand arriving by container cargo on its way to a regional distribution center. When we enter her store, we expect the trays to be available. When we shop at Amazon we expect next-day delivery to our door. We don't think any of this is special. We take it for granted. Behind the scenes from the retail buyer's perspective is not only a long, complex supply chain but an army of assembly-line workers, dockworkers, crews, drivers, warehouse managers, and other logistics experts working to keep the supply chain moving. Links in the supply chain do break, but professionals prepare for such events with backup suppliers, alternate trucking lines, safety stock (extra inventory kept in case of disruptions), and other techniques to keep goods on shelves. Most of this is invisible to consumers. That's why supply chains are not well understood. Still, most consumers have only rudimentary notions of how supply chains work, and few understand how extensive, complex, and vulnerable they are. If you go to the store to buy a loaf of bread, you know the bread did not mystically appear on the shelf. It was delivered by a local bakery, put on the shelf by a clerk, then you purchased it, carried it home, and served it with dinner. That's a succinct description of a simple supply chain-from baker to store to home. That description barely scratches the surface. What about the truck driver who delivered the bread from the bakery to the store? Where did the bakery get the flour, yeast, and water needed to make the bread? What about the ovens used to bake the bread? When the bread was baked it was put in clear or paper wrappers of some sort. Who made the wrappers? When we ask those questions, we move from a simple supply chain to...

Auteur

James Rickards is the Editor of Strategic Intelligence, a financial newsletter, and the bestselling author of The New Great Depression, Aftermath, The Road to Ruin, and many more. He is an investment advisor, lawyer, inventor, and economist, and has held senior positions at Citibank, Long-Term Capital Management, and Caxton Associates.

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From the man who predicted the worst economic crisis in US history comes Jim Rickards’ second prediction – the collapse of our global economy.

The supply chain crisis is coming to a head. Today, your favorite products are missing from store shelves, caught in supply chain limbo somewhere in the Pacific Ocean. But what does this supply chain disruption look like six months, or even three years, from now? While we hope that post-pandemic recovery will absolve these issues, the reality is that digital currency, meme stonks, and social media can’t solve the age-old problem of producing and moving physical goods across oceans and continents. According to Jim Rickards, consumer frustration is only the tip of a very large, menacing iceberg that threatens global economic collapse.

In Sold Out, Rickards shares his predictions for our post-pandemic future and outlines how consumers and business owners can get ahead of the collapse. You’ll learn how energy shortages in China – fueled by the trade war with Australia – are disrupting the steel market and forcing entire factories to shut down. You’ll also learn how rising inflation will ultimately lead to deflation in a few short years – as consumer spending eventually tanks due to higher taxes, excessive debt, and increased layoffs – and why such economic conditions will closely resemble the 1930s. Finally, Rickards will look at the future of money, including the erasure of the American dollar itself.

Our global economy faces unprecedented challenges in the next few months. But whether we sink or swim depends on how prepared we are – and what we do now to thwart the coming collapse.

Échantillon de lecture
Chapter One

The Shelves Are Bare

One of the bedrock characteristics of disruptions is that they are almost never the result of a single failure. A large-scale disruption is usually the result of a confluence of several factors. . . . There are typically many signs that a disruption is about to take place.

-Yossi Sheffi

The Resilient Enterprise

The Endless Supply Chain

Supply chains are not part of the economy. They are the economy. It's impossible to think of any commodity, process, or finished product that's not part of a supply chain. This precept applies to natural resources and human artifacts. It applies to objects and intangibles. It applies to goods and services. We are immersed in supply chains. The irony is that we scarcely see them.

The term "supply chain" is just a name we give to a nexus of logistics, inputs, processes, transportation, packaging, distribution, marketing, customer relations, vendor relations, and human capital that in the aggregate supports the supply and demand for every physical, digital, intellectual, or artistic artifact on the planet and in space. The supply chain is everywhere.

Supply chain management has come so far in recent decades and resulted in such efficiencies that consumers take good delivery for granted. Amazon and Walmart are leaders in the efficient delivery of high-quality, low-cost products, yet they are hardly alone. Supply chain efficiencies have trickled down to the boutique retail level, where a proprietor can go online and easily track a shipment of carved trays from Thailand arriving by container cargo on its way to a regional distribution center. When we enter her store, we expect the trays to be available. When we shop at Amazon we expect next-day delivery to our door. We don't think any of this is special. We take it for granted.

Behind the scenes from the retail buyer's perspective is not only a long, complex su…