The stuff I've seen issues with have fairly clear demand-side stories behind them. For instance: everything home construction or renovation-wise. A lot of things that were planned around a certain level of demand is struggling to keep up with a boom.

"Supply is unlimited" was 'fleddr's impression of the old status quo, but I don't think that was ever accurate. I think demand was predictable and well-planned-for is a better description of what the status quo was. Historical supply constraints showed themselves in areas like console launches - a certain level was planned for, and it wouldn't be economical to meet that all on day 1 vs a lower steady-state production, for instance.

Covid-induced behavioral changes shifted a lot of demand around very rapidly. We are learning that the system can't respond instantly, but:

* how surprising is that, and is it really something that could realistically be avoided in the future in case of other major instantaneous changes? Investing a lot of money in new garage door production right now is a big gamble - what happens if you clear that backlog and demand settles back to historical levels?

* and, how concerning should that be? Is it indicative of permanent societal decline or future failure? That's the part I'd consider alarmist and poorly supported based on what we've seen so far. Many sorts of leisure goods, grocery store items, etc, have nearly fully recovered compared to summer of 2020 shortages. My amazon orders anecdotally mostly are coming in 1 day. Not all of them have, but which way do we think it'll go?

I just find this really silly that something as simple as a garage door takes 5 months and held up by a global supply chain, given this is the United States and our history of steel and machinery manufacturing.

Carter and Reagan and basically every president afterwards decided that it was better for the economy if the USA didn't have steel plants. They were probably right too unfortunately.

> our history

you said it ;)