Until late spring 2020, I don't think many of us realized just how much we have ceded our manufacturing to China. Since then, companies that import parts or products have been in a state of complete supply chain meltdown.

Uline is a large North American distributor of boxes that, fortunately, are made in the U.S. But we also sell a lot of material handling items in which parts or the whole product are imported. And we source from U.S. companies that are experiencing massive supply chain issues.

U.S. wages, healthcare and quality of living are higher than China's. We know this. What is startling is the better equipment for manufacturing is often in China.

As I write this, Uline containers have been stuck in the Port of Long Beach, CA, for over 30 days. We have air freighted products, as much as we can, at enormous costs.

We've tried diverting goods to our Los Angeles location and putting them in expedited trucks instead of rail. Managing this nightmare is unlike anything we've ever seen.

The U.S. has two big problems:

• Publicly-held companies are too concerned about their stock share price, and they are frozen when it comes time to reinvest in new equipment and update their plants. My opinion.