Just In Time... For Now

Cataline over at the Dark Herald recommended that if you want a computer upgrade, get it now.

No big deal it happens every year. Vendors plan for it by stocking up their inventory. Nobody really likes stocking up their inventory since it ties up a lot of capital in way that can’t be quickly liquidated at need.

But it has to be done and once fabrication starts up again the inventories smooth out as the surplus starts to run low.

This year the fabrication plants didn’t start up again.

Shortly, and I do mean very, very shortly the inventories at Amazon, New Egg, Best Buy and everywhere else are going to be running out of merch. So if you were thinking of buying or upgrading your computer in the next couple of months, you had better buy today.

Sure, "Just in time" is more efficient, in a world where needs and transportation and manufacturing capacity are readily available and predictably reliable.

Until they're not.

As Taleb would, and I believe has put it - it's fragile.

Update: FWIW, I'm cautious. We literally don't know what to believe coming out of China but given some of the measure's taken that aren't pure dissident propaganda, it's hitting China hard.

That said, all the big scary flus coming out of China have turned out to be... not so much... when out and about in the rest of the world. Maybe a nastier than usual strain but still subsumed in the ocean of people who fall sick from, and die of, the regular flu each year.

So... my guess? I don't think we're looking at spanish flu mark II, at least not this year, but we may be looking at something nastier than the usual version, compounded by the crash stop of the Chinese economy where our so called betters decided to offload our jobs and supplies to. I'm sure that more people will be sicker than usual but I'm guessing at this point that as plagues go, it's not going to rise far above the average noise level except for the press screaming about it.

I hope I'm not wrong. I've made sure I'm stocked up anyway.