一个什么都缺货的世界：全球陷入供应链大混乱
The World Is Still Short of Everything. Get Used to It.
PETER S. GOODMAN, KEITH BRADSHER
2021年8月31日
Like most people in the developed world, Kirsten Gjesdal had long taken for granted her ability to order whatever she needs and then watch the goods arrive, without any thought about the factories, container ships and trucks involved in delivery.
和大多数发达国家的人一样，科尔丝藤·杰斯达尔(Kirsten Gjesdal)长期以来都理所当然地认为，她有能力订购自己需要的任何东西，然后货会送上门来。她从未想过生产东西的工厂、运货的集装箱船，以及送货上门过程中的卡车。
Not anymore.
不再是这样。
At her kitchen supply store in Brookings, S.D., Ms. Gjesdal has given up stocking place mats, having wearied of telling customers that she can only guess when more will come. She recently received a pot lid she had purchased eight months earlier. She has grown accustomed to paying surcharges to cover the soaring shipping costs of the goods she buys. She has already placed orders for Christmas items like wreaths and baking pans.
杰斯达尔在南达科他州布鲁金斯市经营一家厨房用品店，她已经放弃了备货餐具垫，因为她已厌倦了总告诉顾客她对更多的餐具垫何时到货只有猜测。她最近刚收到一个她八个月前就下了订单的锅盖。她已经习惯了为她订购的商品支付运费飞涨带来的附加费。她已经下了诸如门上挂的花环和烤盘等圣诞节商品的订单。
“It’s nuts,” she said. “It’s definitely not getting back to normal.”
“这太疯狂了，”她说。“这肯定不会恢复正常。”
The challenges confronting Ms. Gjesdal’s shop, Carrot Seed Kitchen, are a testament to the breadth and persistence of the chaos roiling the global economy, as manufacturers and the shipping industry contend with an unrelenting pandemic.
杰斯达尔的商店叫“胡萝卜种子厨房”(Carrot Seed Kitchen)，她的商店面临的挑战显示了打乱全球经济的混乱范围之大和持续时间之长，因为制造商和航运业都不得不应对没有减弱迹象的新冠大流行。
Delays, product shortages and rising costs continue to bedevil businesses large and small. And consumers are confronted with an experience once rare in modern times: no stock available, and no idea when it will come in.
延误、产品短缺和成本上升继续困扰着大大小小的企业。消费者们面对一种现代社会曾经罕见的经历：没有库存，也不知道什么时候会到货。
In the face of an enduring shortage of computer chips, Toyota this month announced that it would slash its global production of cars by 40 percent. Factories around the world are limiting operations — despite powerful demand for their wares — because they cannot buy metal parts, plastics and other raw materials. Construction companies are paying more for paint, lumber and hardware, while waiting weeks and sometimes months to receive what they need.
面对计算机芯片的持续短缺，丰田已在本月宣布削减其40%的全球汽车产量。世界各地的工厂都在限制产量——尽管产品需求强劲——因为工厂买不到金属部件、塑料和其他原材料。建筑公司正在为油漆、木材和五金支付更多的钱，但要等上数周甚至数月才能收到他们所需的东西。
In Britain, the National Health Service recently advised that it must delay some blood tests because of a shortage of needed gear. A recent survey by the Confederation of British Industry found the worst shortages of parts in the history of the index, which started in 1977.
英国的全民医疗服务体系(National Health Service)最近告诫民众，由于所需设备短缺，必须推迟一些血液检测项目。英国工业联合会(Confederation of British Industry)最近的一项调查发现了有史以来最糟的零部件短缺指数，该指数是从1977年开始发布的。
The Great Supply Chain Disruption is a central element of the extraordinary uncertainty that continues to frame economic prospects worldwide. If the shortages persist well into next year, that could advance rising prices on a range of commodities. As central banks from the United States to Australia debate the appropriate level of concern about inflation, they must consider a question none can answer with full confidence: Are the shortages and delays merely temporary mishaps accompanying the resumption of business, or something more insidious that could last well into next year?
全球经济前景中继续存在着异常的不确定性，“供应链大混乱”(Great Supply Chain Disruption)是这种不确定性的核心因素。如果短缺一直持续到明年，有可能会推动一系列大宗商品的价格上涨。从美国到澳大利亚的中央银行都在讨论对通货膨胀的适当关注程度时，它们必须考虑一个没有人可以完全自信回答的问题：短缺和延迟只是随着商业复苏而出现的短暂问题，还是可能会持续到明年的更严重隐患？
“There is a genuine uncertainty here,” said Adam S. Posen, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee and now the president of the Peterson Institute for International Economics in Washington. Normalcy might be “another year or two” away, he added.
“这里面确实存在不确定性，”曾任英国央行利率制定委员会成员、现为华盛顿彼得森国际经济研究所(Peterson Institute for International Economics)所长的亚当·S·波森(Adam S. Posen)说。他还表示，可能需要“一两年”时间才能恢复正常。
In March, as global shipping prices spiked and as many goods became scarce, conventional wisdom had it that the trouble was largely the result of a surplus of orders reflecting extraordinary shifts in demand. Consumers in the United States and other wealthy countries had taken pandemic lockdowns as the impetus to add gaming consoles and exercise bikes to their homes, swamping the shipping industry with cargo, and exhausting the supplies of many components. After a few months, many assumed, factories would catch up with demand, and ships would work through the backlog.
今年3月，随着全球航运成本飙升，许多商品变得稀缺，传统观点曾认为，这个问题在很大程度上是订单过剩的结果，反映的是需求的异常变化。美国和其他富裕国家的消费者被新冠大流行限制在家中，驱使他们为家里添购游戏机和健身自行车，导致大批集装箱让航运业应接不暇，也导致许多零部件的供应耗尽。许多人曾认为，几个月后，工厂生产会赶上需求，货船也会把积压下来的货物运完。
That is not what happened.
这并没有发生。
Just as the health crisis has proved stubborn and unpredictable, the turmoil in international commerce has gone on longer than many expected because shortages and delays in some products have made it impossible to make others.
正如公共卫生危机已被证明难以对付且不可预测，国际贸易的混乱也比许多人预期的时间持续得更久，因为一些产品的短缺和延误让其他产品的生产变得不可能。
At the same time, many companies had slashed their inventories in recent years, embracing lean production to cut costs and boost profits. That left minimal margin for error.
与此同时，许多公司都曾在最近几年里大幅削减库存，为削减成本、提高利润采用了精益生产模式，给出差错留下最小的余地。
A giant ship lodged in the Suez Canal earlier this year, halting traffic on a vital waterway linking Europe to Asia for a week, added to the mayhem on the seas. So did a series of temporary coronavirus-related closures of key ports in China.
今年早些时候，一艘巨型货轮在苏伊士运河搁浅，导致连接欧洲与亚洲的重要航道交通中断了一周，加剧了海运业的混乱。中国的一系列与新冠疫情有关的港口临时关闭也加剧了这种混乱。
The world has gained a painful lesson in how interconnected economies are across vast distances, with delay and shortages in any one place rippling out nearly everywhere.
世界已得到了一个痛苦的教训：相隔万里的经济体如此紧密地关联在一起，以至于任何一个地方的延误和短缺都会波及到几乎所有地方。
A shipping container that cannot be unloaded in Los Angeles because too many dock workers are in quarantine is a container that cannot be loaded with soybeans in Iowa, leaving buyers in Indonesia waiting, and potentially triggering a shortage of animal feed in Southeast Asia.
由于太多的码头工人被隔离，运到洛杉矶的集装箱无法卸货，导致爱荷华州的大豆没有集装箱可运，印度尼西亚的买家只能等待，于是引发东南亚动物饲料短缺的可能。
An unexpected jump in orders for televisions in Canada or Japan exacerbates the shortage of computer chips, forcing auto manufacturers to slow production lines from South Korea to Germany to Brazil.
加拿大或日本的电视机订单的意外增长，加剧了计算机芯片的短缺，迫使汽车制造商放慢从韩国到德国再到巴西的生产线。
“There is no end in sight,” said Alan Holland, chief executive of Keelvar, a company based in Cork, Ireland, that makes software used to manage supply chains. “Everybody should be assuming we are going to have an extended period of disruptions.”
“看不到结束的时间，”总部位于爱尔兰科克的Keelvar公司首席执行官艾伦·霍兰德(Alan Holland)说，这家公司生产用于管理供应链的软件。“每个人都应该假设，我们将面临一段较长的混乱期。”
In the West Midlands of England, Tony Hague has tired of trying to predict when the madness will end.
在英格兰的西米德兰兹，托尼·黑格(Tony Hague)已厌倦了试图预测这种疯狂何时会结束。
His company, PP Control & Automation, designs and builds systems for companies that make machinery used in a range of industries, from food processing to power generation. Demand for his products is expanding, and his roughly 240 employees have been working at full capacity. Still, he is contending with shortages.
他的公司PP Control & Automation为从食品加工到发电等一系列行业的机械制造公司设计和制造系统。对他产品的需求正在扩大，他的大约240名员工一直在满负荷工作。尽管如此，他面临着短缺的问题。
One customer in England that makes machines to seal packaged food has been hobbled by its inability to secure needed parts. Its supplier in Japan used to take four to six weeks to deliver key devices; now it takes half a year. The Japanese factory has struggled to secure its own electrical components, most of them produced in Asia and using computer chips. Auto manufacturers’ desperation to secure chips has made those components harder to obtain.
英国一家生产包装食品密封机器的公司因无法确保其所需部件的供货而步履维艰。公司在日本的供应商过去四到六周就能交付关键设备，现在需要半年。那家日本供应商一直在努力确保其所需的电子元件，这些元件多数在亚洲生产，使用的是计算机芯片。汽车制造商们不顾一切获得芯片，让这些零部件更难获得。
“It’s definitely getting worse,” Mr. Hague said. “It hasn’t bottomed out yet.”
“情况肯定是越来越糟，”黑格说。“还没到最糟的时候。”
For the global economy, shipping is at the center of the explanation for what has gone awry.
航运是解释全球经济出了什么问题的核心所在。
As Americans enduring lockdowns filled basements with treadmills and kitchens with mixers, they generated extra demand for Chinese-made factory goods. At the same time, millions of shipping containers — the building blocks of sea cargo — were scattered around the globe, used to deliver protective equipment like face masks.
随着不能出家门的美国人都在他们的地下室里装跑步机，给他们的厨房添加搅拌器，他们给制造这些产品的中国工厂产生了额外的需求。与此同时，海上货运的组成部分——数以百万计的海运集装箱，为运送口罩等防疫设备分散在全球各地。
The container shortages were exacerbated by delays in unloading cargo at American ports, because workers stayed home to slow the pandemic’s spread.
为了减慢大流行的传播速度，码头工人们被隔离在家中，导致美国港口卸货延误，加剧了集装箱短缺的问题。
Then, in late March, came the fiasco in the Suez Canal, the pathway for about 12 percent of the world’s trade. With hundreds of other ships blocked, the impact played out for months.
后来，今年3月底又发生了苏伊士运河被堵住的情况，那是占世界贸易约12%的货物的通道。数百艘货船受阻，影响持续了好几个月。
In May, China shut down a huge container port near Shenzhen — one of the nation’s leading industrial cities — after a small outbreak of a coronavirus variant. The port did not resume operations for several weeks.
今年5月发生了一次新冠病毒变异株的小规模暴发后，中国关闭了主要工业城市之一深圳附近的一个大型集装箱港口。港口几个周后才恢复运行。
Then, in the middle of August, Chinese authorities shut down a container terminal near the city of Ningbo, after one employee tested positive. Ningbo is the world’s third-largest container port, so its closure held the potential to snowball into a global event, even threatening the supply of goods to American stores in time for Black Friday sales around Thanksgiving.
再后来，在8月中旬，由于一名员工的病毒检测呈阳性，中国当局关闭了宁波附近的一个集装箱码头。宁波是世界第三大集装箱港口，该港口的关闭有可能成为波及全球的滚雪球事件，甚至会威胁美国商店感恩节后的黑色星期五促销活动的商品供应。
By Wednesday, the Ningbo terminal was back in operation. But China’s decision to close it because of a single Covid case resonated as a warning that the government might shut other ports.
宁波码头已在上周三恢复运行。但中国因一例新冠病毒检测阳性就关闭港口的决定，给外界敲响了中国政府可能关闭其他港口的警钟。
In Miami Beach, Eric Poses, an inventor of board games, developed a product aptly named for the pandemic: The Worst-Case Scenario Card Game, a title that could also be applied to his experience relying on China to make and ship the product.
在迈阿密海滩，桌面游戏的发明者埃里克·波赛斯(Eric Poses)开发了一款以大流行现状命名的产品：最坏情况纸牌游戏(The Worst-Case Scenario Card Game)，这个名字也可以用于他依靠中国来制造和运输产品的经历。
Before the pandemic, shipping a 40-foot container of games from Shanghai to the warehouse he uses in Michigan cost $6,000 to $7,000, Mr. Poses said. His next shipment, scheduled to leave China in mid-September, will cost at least $26,000. And his freight agent warned him that the price will most likely rise, to $35,000, because of rail and trucking difficulties in the United States.
波赛斯说，新冠大流行前，把一个40英尺集装箱从上海运到他在密歇根的仓库需要花6000至7000美元。他定于9月中旬离开中国的下一批货物运费已至少是2.6万美元。货运代理警告他，由于美国铁路和卡车运输的困难，运费很可能会涨到3.5万美元。
Cheap and reliable sea transport has long been a foundational part of international trade, allowing manufacturers to shift production far and wide in search of low-wage labor and cheap materials.
长期以来，廉价可靠的海运一直是国际贸易的重要组成部分，让制造商们能为寻找低工资劳动力和廉价原材料将生产在世界各地转移。
Columbia Sportswear has typified the trend, expanding from its base in Portland, Ore., to become a global outdoor gear brand. The company has relied on factories in Asia to make its goods and taken the ocean cargo network for granted.
哥伦比亚运动服饰公司(Columbia Sportswear)是这个趋势的典型，这家公司已从其俄勒冈州波特兰市的基地扩张为一个全球户外装备品牌。该公司一直靠亚洲的工厂为其生产产品，并把海上货运网络当成想当然的东西。
“It’s sort of like, everyday when you get up in the morning, you turn on the lights and the lights always work,” said Timothy Boyle, Columbia’s chief executive.
“有点像是每天早上你起床将灯打开，灯总在工作那样，”哥伦比亚的首席执行官蒂莫西·博伊尔(Timothy Boyle)说。
But the price of moving goods to the United States from Asia is up as much as tenfold since the beginning of the pandemic, and Columbia might have to reconsider its traditional mode.
但自新冠大流行以来，从亚洲向美国运输货物的价格已经上涨了10倍之多，哥伦比亚可能不得不重新考虑自己的传统模式。
“It’s a question of how long this lasts,” Mr. Boyle said.
“一个问题是，这种情况会持续多久，”博伊尔说。
Some trade experts suggest that product shortages are now being exacerbated by rational reactions to recent events. Because of the pandemic, humanity now knows the fear of running out of toilet paper. That experience might be driving consumers and businesses to order more and earlier than previously needed.
一些贸易专家认为，对近期事件的合理反应正在加剧产品短缺问题。由于新冠大流行，人类现在有了厕纸用完的恐惧。这种恐惧可能会促使消费者和企业更早地订购比以前更多的物品。
Ordinarily, the peak demand for trans-Pacific shipping begins in late summer and ends in the winter, after holiday season products are stocked. But last winter, the peak season never ended, and now it has merged with the rush for this holiday season — reinforcing the pressure on factories, warehouses, ships and trucks.
通常情况下，跨太平洋的货运需求高峰始于夏末，结束于冬季，也就是年底节假日期间的货物备全之后。但去年冬季，货运需求的高峰一直没有结束，现在又与今年节假日期间购物高潮汇合在一起，加剧了工厂、仓库、货船和卡车的压力。
“We have this vicious cycle of all the natural human instincts responding, and making the problem worse,” said Willy C. Shih, an international trade expert at Harvard Business School. “I don’t see it getting better until next year.”
“我们有这样一种恶性循环，所有的人类本能反应，让问题变得更糟，”哈佛商学院国际贸易专家史兆威(Willy C. Shih)说。“我看不出来情况会在明年之前好转。”
