Alternative Title 1: Boy Scouts – “Be prepared”
Alternative Title 2: America’s Preppers are Finally Getting a Little Respect
JIT – Just in Time. Usually a manufacturing term, it means that needed parts or sub-assemblies for a larger product are outsourced to other but are delivered to a factory “just in time to when it’s needed”. Decades have been spent in finely honing how this supply chain has been built and the ability to keep in-house stock inventories as low as possible (after all, cash that is tied up in pre-manufacturing inventory is money that is dead for being used for other purposes. After all, as I have personally seen, the lack of a 50 cent part can stop a multi-million dollar manufacturing line. Sure, there are repercussions to that vendor if it happens but it can happen. Now, we’re seeing this on a massive scale.
And while that is a big deal with Purchasing Managers and Logistics experts, we civilians have become used to the idea, even if unconsciously, and how we run our households. Before the last two weeks and runs on all kinds of residential and home products, we just assumed that what we wanted, we could get it, when we wanted, at the price we were willing to pay, at our local store whom we EXPECTED to have those products. And now it isn’t happening.
Surprise! Best laid plans and all that – or sheer ignorance of how logistics and supply chains work. Have people not heard that if truck traffic was halted for 3 days, grocery stores would be wiped out entirely – and then what? Instead of self-reliance, we’ve outsourced it to others. And when SHTF comes along (nicely put, a Black Swan event like we are experiencing right now), people have panicked (although I HAVE been scratching my head – really, toilet paper FIRST??). Every time a disaster comes along, it seems that people have to be told to have two, three days of food in place – then Govt will come along and rescue them. If people had been watching and thinking, they’d have already have stuff in place instead of running like chickens with their heads cut off.
Curt La Haise has put up with plenty of razzing from friends over the years who have called him paranoid for stockpiling an eight-month supply of food in his basement and having enough fuel to power his generator for almost an entire winter.They’re not laughing anymore amid panic buying that has cleared store shelves across the U.S. and growing fears that the new coronavirus will force many Americans to self-quarantine for weeks in their homes.
“Now my friends are like, ‘What should I do, what should I get?’” said La Haise, who operates a firearms and safety training business near Sun Prairie, Wisconsin. “Prepping doesn’t look so bad now.”
Unfortunately, the TV show on National Geographic a few years ago, often portrayed them as kooks, fringe groups, and members of conspiracy groups. Hey, our grandparents (well, at least mine) and earlier did what preppers are doing now. Back then, just in time didn’t exist, the supply chains (think crops) failed, and what did you do then? You laid in supplies ahead of time to protect your family for times like this.
And the runs we are seeing shows we (well, most) have forgotten those lesson. I’m fairly sure that there are going to be shortages for a while but we’ll cope. It will be interesting if people will remember AFTER this is done “hey, it wouldn’t hurt to pick up an extra can, box, or something to throw into the freezer the next time I go to the store”. Sure, that takes up space but then again, you don’t have to panic. That space, btw? My grandparents called it “a pantry” – cute, eh? Right there out in the open.
Think of it as just another form of insurance. One that, over some amount of time, you just eat.
