The Intersection of Supply Side Economics and Real Life

    One of the several magazines I receive comes from the Haslam School of Business at the University of Tennessee. In one of the last issues the graduate PhD program in Supply Side Management was featured. Now I had heard of this major, but did not know that the program had made it to the PhD level. It was not even heard about just a few years prior.

   Anyway, to begin this little story of the intersection of supply side economics and the real world of living, there is a little background. 

   Some few months back, Carolyn and I traded in her Buick Encore. One of us decided that we needed a tad more room, and so we opted for a new Buick Envision. It has been a great car. Good ride, good mileage and plenty of room for an old couple. 

   One Sunday, as we were coming home from church, the Envision had an altercation with an older Honda. Our passenger side front door was struck by a driver's side mirror, resulting in a fair sized dent in said door.

   The Good Hands people gave us the name of a fixer for our problem, and we made an appointment to have it looked at. The man at the shop, Chris by name, said they could repair it by replacing the dented door, just take the old one off and put a new one on, then paint to match.

   Then supply side economics came into play. We had bought an American car manufactured in China. Doors were apparently plentiful in China, but rather scarce on this side of the Pacific.

   We could get the door, but the question became, When?

   The only thing we could count on, according to Chris, was the fact that my door was on a ship somewhere, packed in a container, but with no date for arrival in the US. The only piece of information Chris could promise was that he would let us know when his supplier gave him a firm date for the arrival of my door.

   All of a sudden all those stories about the numbers of container ships sitting loaded in ports waiting for the go ahead to take to the seas, or those who had already made it to their destination and were awaiting a dock to unload, became important. 

   My door was being held captive by the logistics of the supply chain. I had been interrupted by Covid, and my dent was only a wounded statistic, unable to find restitution.

   But at least my Envision had company. 

   My lonely Ford Ranger, a 2007 Ford model, which I had purchased a couple of years back as is, also sported a dented passenger door, which we had decided not to repair as it did not compromise the use of the truck. 

   My truck has a friend now, and for how long, we do not know. These vehicles can commensurate with each other, but their owners are left holding onto a piece a paper written in Chinese.