The Myth of the Proverbs 31 Woman

 Last night I heard an inspiring and encouraging message given to women at our church. (I was like the church mouse hiding in the balcony running tech.) The base text for the talk was Proverbs 31.20. There are many good attributes in this chapter of the bible. The female speaker pointed out how nearly impossible it is to be as good as this described wife; others have also noted that no woman in the bible lives up to the Prov. 31 standards. However, I was kind of expecting the female speaker to discredit the lofty aspirations because of its authorship.

Not many people read closely the text leading into the chapter. Essentially, this chapter is written by the (future) queen's mother-in-law as perhaps a snipe towards her son's mate: The sayings of King Lemuel contain this message, which his mother taught him.

Might not the mother's-in-law perspective contribute to the lofty standards. I am not discounting the divine inspiration of the writing. I am saying we need to show grace and mercy to women who think they've failed if they miss a beat according to these verses. Just like being disinherited from the Kingdom because we are greedy, envious, quarrelsome, etc., we know God is gracious. The Sermon on the Mount also might be considered impossible standards and yet Christ says, "Knock and the door shall be opened" which will allow us into the kingdom even if we are not consistently poor in spirit. Or we might be persecuted for our own stupid mistakes, and not righteousness' sake.

[Also published on We Are Out of Our Mind blog.]

Supply Chain Woes Today: Predictable in Early 2020

Supply chain issues have been in the news a lot. As well as worker shortages, the Great Resignation (voluntary leaving of jobs) in healthcare and customer service type jobs, particularly. But while some people in the news like to blame politicians, most of us in business must admit that there are many other non-political reasons for shortages:

• Diversion of materials and goods manufacturing to deal with COVID crisis last year, whether it was a massive shift to technology goods for remote work or diversion of steel from automotive to other industries; it can take a bit to have a return of distribution into the abandoned channels. Ever play the Beer Game?
• Workers staying home: half stayed home because of COVID fears and lack of childcare. Even with the loss of extra unemployment benefits in the US and the reopening of most public schools this fall, many workers are still staying home.
• COVID is still having an impact on the labor force availability. Perhaps you've seen reduced hours--even temporary closures--of many restaurants and grocery stores because of a lack of staff due to COVID exposures.
• Many developed nations import from less developed nations and they have not had the COVID vaccine availability and therefore a much, much lower rate of resistance to the virus. Thus, the labor force effects we see here are amplified in those countries, which can mean goods and source materials being in short supply.
• Logistics issues are exacerbated with yoyo demand in goods (remember the Beer Game?). Therefore, there can be excess pressure on trucking, shipping, air freight and so on creating log jams...and, you guessed it, shortages of goods and materials being available. Business inventories dropped 5% in the 1st 3 months of the pandemic and slowly rebuilt through the late winter 2021.

None of these have to be greater than at a 5% deficit for it have substantial impact throughout the economy. Suppose there are 10 steps--and this is very conservative--from raw materials to goods on the shelf. Let's say on average each step is 95% reliable (full quantity, on time). This is simplified because if any one step is lower than that, say at 90% or 80%, then the whole supply chain is maxed at the level optimistically. The probability that a good will be at full quantity and on time at the final stage is...60%. Therefore, 40% of the time or 2 out of 5 days or 2 out of 5 goods will be short at the point of sale (POS).

Ignore the politicians. This was predictable a year ago without a global recovery from pandemic health effects.