Asking this question only a handful of years after a global pandemic...

If the next pandemic is 50% deadly, not being able to make gloves is surely the canary in the coal mine proving we wouldn't be able to make any other PPE.

And no country can rely on another if it's do or die. Other blocs will keep to themselves.

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JumpCrisscross 2 hours ago | parent | next [-]

And in the midst of a start-stop petrochemical supply crisis.

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jeffrallen 3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Those who do not learn from history... probably don't make gloves.

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raverbashing 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It's amazing how much those spreadsheet heads know nothing about how the actual world works

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hypeatei 13 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Doing basic math makes someone a "spreadsheet head"? If the "actual world" wanted American-made gloves then this cash injection from the government would've resulted in a boom in glove manufacturing here, no?

I always see catastrophizing and autarkist-coded takes like this which imply the US is a house of cards because we don't manufacture everything under the sun at all times. You have to realize that preparing for a doomsday scenario like 50% fatality rate pandemic has a cost that someone foots the bill for. Even in 2020 with a buffoon running the country, we still reacted very quickly and developed multiple vaccines to combat a novel virus (yes, the response was bungled in other ways but I digress)... people, markets, etc. are adaptable and we will figure it out.

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vrganj 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

You gotta optimize everything for the market man! It's magic! Everything will work out if we only make number go up!

Who cares about silly stuff like health emergencies, the climate catastrophe or war. Number must go up!

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ikari_pl 3 hours ago | parent | next [-]

correction: the number must go up FASTER. if it just keeps going up same as yesterday, we will lose investors

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philipallstar 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

You don't need to optimise for the market. The market is the optimising machine. Get in its way with slow regulators or subsidies or bailouts and you get all the problems.

	▲	vrganj an hour ago \| parent [-]
		Heh sure, it's great at optimizing. The problem is it's an optimizing function for the rich getting richer, not for the good of society, not for reducing human suffering, not even, y'know, the survival of the human race.

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fartfeatures 2 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Redundancy is just waste wearing a trench coat etc etc.

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matchbok3 an hour ago | parent | prev [-]

Well, for the most part this is actually true. Taking care of the exceptions is the hard part.

Also, "climate catastrophe" is not a thing.

	▲	vrganj 33 minutes ago \| parent [-]
		>Also, "climate catastrophe" is not a thing. It takes a deep ideological commitment to close ones eyes to the reality in front of us. Our planet is literally dying. The oceans are boiling [0], marine life is dying [1]. Land close to the water will be land under water soon [2]. The ice caps are melting and setting free all sorts of diseases. [3] Large parts of our planet on fire all the time now, here's one from Australia from this year [4], but I'm sure you've read about wildfires in Australia last year, California every year, Greece last year etc etc. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2026/jan/09/profound... [1] https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-026-03013-5 [2] https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02299-w [3] https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/could-microbes-l... [4] https://phys.org/news/2026-01-australia-declares-state-disas...