Truffles, Nova Scotia Lox and Supply Chains

Back when America was great, our stuff moved from Point A to Point B to Point C without too much trouble. It got made in a factory or shop, loaded on a truck and shipped to a warehouse or wholesaler, and when the Five and Dime ran out they ordered some more.

That was not good enough because, as the MBAs tell us, “Time is money.” Now the global economy needs “logistics” so everything gets where it needs to be “just in time.”

For example, here is Merlin Sheldrake’s account of the truffle trade from Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds. “Exporters have developed sophisticated chilled packing systems to maintain truffles at optimum conditions as they are washed, packed, hand-delivered to the airport, flown around the world, collected from the airport, carried through customs, repacked, and distributed to consumers — all within forty-eight hours.”

Then something went wrong. Millions of workers around the globe called in sick for some reason. They got away with it because Dr. Fauci wrote excuses for them.

So now our stuff gets from point to point too late or if it gets there, it’s not enough to stock the shelves. The Five and Dime changes its name to the Fifty and Delivery Surcharge. Or, as an old friend, Billy Bob Beaudarc would put it, “Run for the hills, Ma, the inflation monster got loose and it’s comin’ to get us.”

Before panic sets in, we should ask ourselves if we really need all that stuff. Consider our growing need for storage units. As George Carlin once put it, we don’t even have a place for all our stuff. Also, there is nothing new about long lags or vagaries between supply and demand. An old joke told in certain Manhattan circles goes like this. A kosher fishmonger in Canada smokes a fresh catch of salmon, ships it to the Fulton Fish Market near the Manhattan downtown docks, where a Zabar brother procures it for their deli on the upper West Side, where a society hostess orders it for her famous artist party on the upper East Side, at which everybody promptly gets very ill. Upon which, the complaints and lawsuit threats move back up the chain, eventually to the fishmonger who replies, “Those lox weren’t for eating. They were for selling.”

Joe Biden is using the old politics to fight the inflation monster while the Republicans are trying to blame him for turning it loose. Maybe if Biden went up to the top of Runyon Canyon just below the HOLLYWOOD sign, looked out over the LA basin and said , “Let the longshoremen do 24/7 so America can have Christmas” - good optics but bad politics and not the supply side solution. Biden needs to stay on point with his version of the New Deal so many, if not most, Americans will be able to afford Christmas. He needs to stay on top of an immigration policy that brings in the workers willing to do the jobs most of us would rather not. Plus, he needs to save our democracy from the insurrectionists trying to tear it down. Besides, most people in Bandera County get by without the Lox and truffle gravy anyway.

Tom Denyer has resided in the county since 1979.