Global stresses

No matter what your job is or what industry you work in, the past two years have been a wild ride, and the rollercoaster the world’s been on shows no signs of settling down anytime soon.

After the recent Omicron surge of COVID-19, cases have been on the decline in the U.S., but we live in a global economy and China is facing massive increases in cases. At the time of this writing, China placed the 17.5 million residents of Shenzhen into lockdown for at least a week, the first time the government has sealed off an entire province since the area surrounding Wuhan in early 2020.

Vladimir Putin has invaded Ukraine, starting an unprovoked war in a country that has faced continued Russian aggression as it advances reforms to strengthen democratic institutions, fight corruption, and promote conditions for economic growth and competition. This is just another one of Putin’s maneuvers after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014.

Then there’s the supply chain. According to a recent Oxford Economics Research Briefing | US, “Supply chain stress is poised to intensify.” Author Oren Klachkin, lead US economist, notes that, “Backlogs in the LA/Long Beach ports subsided compared to January. But transportation challenges remain, as costly shipping rates persisted, trucking dynamics were unchanged, and air cargo load factors stayed high.” Adding to shipping challenges is the war in Ukraine, which is “making it harder and more costly for goods (and people) to move freely across the globe. Key shipping routes are blocked, and others are feeling ripple effects from the conflict.”

But that’s not all, the authority overseeing the Suez Canal – which handles ~15% of global trade flows – increased tolls on March 1, 2022, by as much as 10% on some vessel types, just 1 month after they were increased 6%.

Other areas still facing challenges are automakers as the computer chip shortage continues. However, Ford and GM are bucking the auto industry’s insistence that “You can’t build a car with 99% of the parts” by delivering vehicles without all available features, expecting to retrofit those features later when chips are available.

Well, that may work well for a car owner that has to sacrifice not having rear climate controllable by passengers, but for medical devices – retrofitting something after it’s been implanted is not an option. (Revision surgeries are done, but you don’t want to go into a procedure knowing it’s only functioning with 99% of the parts.)

Then there are increasing prices of oil, natural gas, gasoline, metals, and more, which are impacting consumers globally. While these increases are tough on consumers, they can’t compare to fleeing your home from an unprovoked war.

Global stresses are impacting all of us. How are you handling it?