Our stuff was being made in China, until many of our supply chains were severed due to Covid, leading to Chinese defaults, shortages, and an increased cost of doing business. Now a certain amount of stuff simply isn't getting made at all.

The question at play is will they recover to 2019 levels? Will China be able to deal with the defaults of businesses who provided key nodes in the supply chain while juggling their 0-covid strategy? What will happen to the cost of doing business when China loses 20% of its workers over the next decade or so due to aging?

I've been a broken record about this but I highly recommend The Great Demographic Reversal. It provides a high level view of the forces at play in our world and is a real eye opener.

caycep said prices were artificially low but that's not quite right - prices were as low as they deserved to be because China had workers and we were able to make deals to mobilize them. In the coming decades I'm not convinced we will have that luxury.