Unraveling the Global Supply Chain Crisis: How Corporations Profited from Shortages during the COVID-19 Pandemic

In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we witnessed a global crisis caused by shortages of essential goods such as toilet paper, hand sanitizer, microchips, and exercise bikes. The economy was thrown off balance due to high demand and supply chain disruptions. It is now clear that corporations played a significant role in these shortages. Peter Goodman, an experienced New York Times journalist who specializes in covering the global economy, sheds light on this issue in his new book “How the World Ran out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain”.

Goodman delves into how the global supply chain became consolidated and eventually came under the control of just three companies. This created a complex and unexpected crisis that unfolded worldwide. As inflation began to affect the economy, corporations saw an opportunity to increase prices as consumers became desperate – leading to what has been referred to as “greedflation”. In this episode of Lever Time, Goodman and Lindsay Owens, executive director of The Groundwork Collaborative, join senior podcast producer Arjun Singh to discuss how this resulted in inflation.

For a full unedited transcript of the episode, click here.