Yup, turned out that inventory isn't pure capital waste after all. It's an insurance policy, an investment in stability.

Bring back inventory.

And in ten years, when the pandemic has passed, the MBA beancounters and/or "activist investors" will ask the question "do we need stockpiles of inventory???" again. And then history will repeat itself - many years of profit, followed by a crisis of some kind and then we will have another "delivery crisis".

> It's an insurance policy

That's a really good way of putting it.

Stockpiling as a general concept doesn't worsen things.

Rapidly increasing your stockpile size as a response to shortages is what worsens things.

There is a balance to everything.