Goodman’s ‘How the World Ran Out of Everything’: Unraveling Corporations’ Role in Supply Chain Shortages and Greedflation

In a recent episode of Lever Time, we delved into the complex relationship between corporations and the supply chain during the COVID-19 pandemic. We discovered that while corporations played a significant role in creating shortages, they also took advantage of the crisis to engage in price gouging.

The pandemic exposed shortages in supplies such as toilet paper, hand sanitizer, microchips, and exercise bikes, leading to economic instability. It became evident that corporations had played a significant role in creating these shortages. Peter Goodman, a veteran New York Times reporter covering the global economy, recounts this complicated history in his new book How the World Ran out of Everything: Inside the Global Supply Chain.

Goodman highlights how the supply chain initially went global, then became consolidated, and ultimately ended up controlled by just three companies. This consolidation led to a crisis that impacted regions across the world. As inflation began to affect the economy, corporations saw an opportunity to capitalize on consumer desperation by raising prices, resulting in what has been coined as “greedflation.”

During this episode of Lever Time, Goodman and Lindsay Owens, the executive director of The Groundwork Collaborative, discussed how corporations exploited inflation. They sat down with senior podcast producer Arjun Singh to unpack the repercussions of this behavior.

For an unedited transcript of the episode, click here.