Re:Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula shortage
by alasdair_ on Saturday May 14, 2022 @03:43PM
(#31381604)
Stockpile to a point and then regularly auction off things that are nearing end of life (or, in the case of baby formula that is heavily provided by state programs, just give it to the states to distribute).
We have national oil reserves. Having reserves of other essential assets seems fine to me, especially in the case where there are few substitute goods.
Re:Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula shortage
by kareemsabri on Saturday May 14, 2022 @03:50PM
(#31381670)
Why is that necessary when it appears there is sufficient global supply and regulations are causing it to be unavailable to the US market? The issue isn't a shortage of production, as far as I can tell. And even if there were, a stockpile only absorbs a temporary shortage. A strong industry with many producers is what the government should desire, I imagine.
Re:Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula shortage
by alasdair_ on Saturday May 14, 2022 @06:28PM
(#31383286)
It makes sense from a national defense perspective to have reasonable stockpiles of essential goods.
Re:Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula shortage
by kareemsabri on Saturday May 14, 2022 @06:41PM
(#31383408)
I'm not a national defense expert, but it seems to make sense to ensure your country can get access to essential goods. One possible solution would be stockpiling them. Another would be maintaining the capacity either in the state or the private sector to acquire or manufacture them rapidly. It feels like hindsight 20/20 to say "why didn't the government have a stockpile of [thing we had a shortage of]".
It appears to me the policy here led to essentially a single point of failure or low optionality for the market to get the product. Not clear stockpiling is the answer to that problem.
Re:Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula shortage
by Consultant32452 on Sunday May 15, 2022 @02:20AM
(#31385623)
It's literally impossible to stockpile all essential goods.
Re:Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula shortage
by azemetre on Saturday May 14, 2022 @06:47PM
(#31383456)
In our current political climate, people would attack this during the good times as wasteful and not a good use of money. I agree with you, but we have a party in this country that doesn't think good governance is a virtue.
Re:Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula shortage
by bee_rider on Saturday May 14, 2022 @05:06PM
(#31382445)
I was actually thinking of something like that as well. If nothing else, the cast-offs from a stockpiling program could be a nice social welfare program.
Re:Bad government policy is fueling the infant formula shortage
by kevin_thibedeau on Saturday May 14, 2022 @05:34PM
(#31382772)
> n95s eventually degrade
Only the ones that depend on an electrostatic spray to assist filtration.
Also, masks become unusually important when there's an epidemic, so we wouldn't expect the economy to have capacity to deal with that. We should expect that in a well balanced economy, the supply of baby formula should basically match the demand. It seems to me that instead of government stockpiles (since they can't stockpile everything and don't know what will be needed) it would make more sense to monitor the market more closely and keep tabs on inventory... and, actually, it is pretty surprising that they didn't catch this before it became an issue.