How the World Ran Out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain

“Humanity has come to depend on a disorganized and rickety global supply chain for access to the products of our age,” according to this informative if overly detailed report. New York Times journalist Goodman (Davos Man) frames his study around the efforts of Hagan Walker, the owner of a company that makes small novelty light-up cubes, to transport his products from the Chinese factory where they’re made to his Mississippi warehouse. While tracing the knickknacks’ journey, Goodman explores how American companies moved factories to China to take advantage of lower labor costs and how corporate consultants encouraged a fragile “just in time” business model that realized short-term savings by eliminating warehouse inventory that had previously insulated businesses from supply shortages. Deregulation is also to blame, Goodman posits, arguing that a 1980 law making it “easier for new competitors to enter trucking” depleted the strength of the Teamsters, allowing nonunion companies to set abysmal employment conditions that resulted in a decades-long shortage of drivers. Goodman succeeds in showing how complex factors intertwine to enable, or hobble, global commerce, but the granular background on longshoremen, shipping container transport, and trade policies can sometimes be a slog. Still, this has plenty to offer anyone wondering how products end up on store shelves. Agent: Gail Ross, WME. (June)