Thread by @jonst0kes

Just unprecedented demand for *zooms in on pic* french fried onions. People are just spending their stimulus money & buying these french fried onions in bulk. Definition nothing else weird going on!

https://twitter.com/AsheSchow/status/1451204344599257088

If this bit annoys you, you should unfollow or mute me, because I'm gonna keep doing "people just so HUNGRY... unprecedented surge in demand for $FOODSTUFFS right now... such a healthy, healthy economy, like a young athlete!" for the next 2 months.

To clarify why whether you're Mayor Pete or a right-wing inflation hawk, your demand-side explanation for all the shortages is simplistic, here are some things that've happened:

- Factory closures in Asia due to flooding, blackouts, COVID
- Shipping capacity offline due to COVID

- Trucking capacity offline due to COVID (complex reasons here), parts shortages, worker exhaustion
- Port capacity offline due to worker issues, parts shortages
- Fertilizer & DEF price spikes + CO2 shortages due to rising natgas prices.

This is just off the top of my head. There are others.

Stimulus + demand shift are compounding factors the above. Supply chains = overly efficient complex system prone to cascades, feedback, race conditions. This is why an exogenous, monocausal explanation is inadequate.

Although while I'm ranting about bad monocausal explanations for the present mess, I want give a special shout-out to the most bafflingly obtuse one of them all: the supply chain crisis is fake & being ginned up by the media for clicks + GOP for anti-Biden ammo. 🤯

"Definition nothing else weird going on!" lol I can't type. 😂 Although it almost sounds like A Thing, like I've been watching TikTok & the kids say "Definition this bleach-snorting challenge is legit AF".