Panic Buying and Price Gouging

[Agema]

Shop shelves are looking pretty bare where I am right now. And it's interesting what people have panic-bought and stocked up on.

Among the obvious stuff like bathroom supplies and cleaning products, there was also severely low stock on breakfast cereals, and - to my surprise - pet foods. All the cat and dog food was almost completely sold out.
Apparently people get worried about not being able to feed their household pooch or feline. Who knew.

@OP Welcome back btw.

Yep - breakfast cereals have been hit hard where I am too (good luck enjoying that without notoriously short-lived milk). Also meat and fresh fruit / veg has disappeared from the shelves, and things like flavoured noodles

However, stuff like tinned tomatoes - which you'd expect as superb food to stock up on - is still around in large quantities. Go figure.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Yep - breakfast cereals have been hit hard where I am too (good luck enjoying that without notoriously short-lived milk). Also meat and fresh fruit / veg has disappeared from the shelves, and things like flavoured noodles

However, stuff like tinned tomatoes - which you'd expect as superb food to stock up on - is still around in large quantities. Go figure.

I stocked up before the panic buying started and still good for another week or so, but I also targeted non-perishables, dry goods, frozen foods, and ingredients, and started by eating perishables and older stuff in the pantry first. People's buying habits in all this really underscore how long it's been since a period of real scarcity, and this is absolutely going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I still stand by my assertion the economic and social impact of this pandemic are going to be more harmful in the long run than the pandemic itself.

 

[CM156_v1legacy]

I was at the local big box store to get toilet paper because I was running low. When they brought out the toilet paper, they didn't even bother to put in on the shelves. Within a few minutes, the entire stack was gone.

Also: How foolish is it to try to price gouge in a state where that's illegal?

I don't think this pandemic will reach that kind of level but to get somewhere where all your stock gets conficsated as emergency measure and you don't get compensated seems not unlikely.

I mean, the Fifth Amendment still exists, and states "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

However, during a crisis, the government could probably take your stuff and offer market value compensation after the fact. That, and if they didn't, you'd have to sue the government, and a jury might be less likely to be sympathetic that the government took away your TP and hand sanatizer throne.

I think you have this a bit backwards. The jury wants harsher penalties on price gougers because they endanger the health and safety of the general population resulting in illness, injuries and deaths that could have otherwise been prevented.

The AG sending his van to confiscate the hoarded product for charity and distribute to where it is needed was exactly what needed to be done. In some areas, they are arresting them instead of giving them the option though:

https://www.10news.com/news/local-news/eight-san-diego-county-residents-arrested-accused-of-price-gouging-during-emergency

The government doesn't need to offer market value, they can consider the donation of the confiscated goods to charity as the penalty for the crime. The hoarded goods could be confiscated as evidence anyhow, just like they often confiscate weapons, cars, stolen goods, drugs, because it was being used as part of the crime and then police departments often turn around and sell or destroy the confiscated goods if it is legal for them to do so. The goods in this case can be confiscated due to them being used as part of the crime of illegal price gouging.

People die from people doing this. There is no excuse for people sitting on stacks of PPE when we have our physicians, nurses, paramedics, police officers and firefighters contracting the very diseases we are trying to save people from because some jerk wants to make a buck off of human suffering. What happens when all the people fighting this get sick and we don't have anyone to help those who need it anymore?

If Trump hadn't made the series of mistakes he did, the situation would not be as bad as it is now. He doesn't know how to do his job, let alone even know what his job is supposed to be.

To be clear, I was talking about hoarding, which is different and distinct from price gouging.

 

[Catfood220]

Shop shelves are looking pretty bare where I am right now. And it's interesting what people have panic-bought and stocked up on.

Among the obvious stuff like bathroom supplies and cleaning products, there was also severely low stock on breakfast cereals, and - to my surprise - pet foods. All the cat and dog food was almost completely sold out.
Apparently people get worried about not being able to feed their household pooch or feline. Who knew.

@OP Welcome back btw.

A workmate last week was saying that she can't get hold of any cat food and was having to feed her cats what they were eating. The thought of mogs and dogs going hungry because of people hoarding makes me sad.

One tip I did discover last week, people seem to be intent on hitting the super markets and ignoring their local corner shops. When I realized that I couldn't get bread, I decided to have a look in my local. I managed to get bread and they even had toilet roll so I bought a couple of packs.

Shhhhhh!!!! Lets just keep this between us.

 

[Agema]

I stocked up before the panic buying started and still good for another week or so, but I also targeted non-perishables, dry goods, frozen foods, and ingredients, and started by eating perishables and older stuff in the pantry first. People's buying habits in all this really underscore how long it's been since a period of real scarcity, and this is absolutely going to get a lot worse before it gets better. I still stand by my assertion the economic and social impact of this pandemic are going to be more harmful in the long run than the pandemic itself.

At least your country is largely self-sufficient in food - choice might decline in the event of heavy disruption, but you won't starve. My country is not: it grows only about 50% of its own requirements. Major trade disruption is a significant threat.

The economic consequences will be huge. We're looking at a global recession, maybe a really big recession in some individual countries. We're also going to have to think very hard about how to pay off the national debts that we'll end up with. My feeling with the UK was that the government started with the idea "fuck it, let 'em die and save the economy". I mean, overwhelmingly economically unproductive over-60s dying, their wealth will be inherited. They belatedly changed their mind when they realised the casualties would be so high and the health service would collapse... and what that means, is they thought they'd look really bad and it would cost them votes.

All those tax cuts some administrations have been handing out when they should have been paying off the debt after the financial crash are looking pretty dumb. Someone's going to have to cough up to deal with it: it remains to be seen whether our notoriously tax-shy ultra-rich can be convinced maybe they've got a substantial part to play in helping pay off the debt. I suspect those sorts of appeals will slide off billionaiers like from Teflon because even a crisis won't overcome the habits of a lifetime. They'll clobber the middle classes, like they always do.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

At least your country is largely self-sufficient in food - choice might decline in the event of heavy disruption, but you won't starve. My country is not: it grows only about 50% of its own requirements. Major trade disruption is a significant threat.

That may be true from an international/comparative perspective, but intra-nationally that isn't the case at all. We're still a country starkly defined by the rural/urban divide and extensive urban sprawl, with a weak infrastructure and fragile supply chain. We already had a severe national CDL driver shortage before this crisis started, centralized warehouses and food processing facilities are outbreak nexus waiting to happen, and as the crisis continues that situation will continue to be exacerbated.

Out JIT delivery regime already snapped under the first, lightest wave of market pressure (anticipatory panic buying), and that's the model around which production is based; that does not bode well for additional, later stressors certain to arise over the coming months, like for example labor shortages as our utter lack of spread mitigation, and actively exposing our workforce to the disease thanks to lack of traffic control and PPE for workers, assert themselves. And the worst key indicator has yet to even be broached in the public: our lack of strategic food reserves.

I know I've sparred with you personally over this, and several other posters to this thread in the past...what, 6-9 months since I started posting here again. This is exactly why the lack of US strategic food reserves and food desertification/swampification (and Democratic party ignorance/hubris/obstinance on agriculture policy issues) are such a massive axes to grind for me. In the past I've been on about it with regards to climate change, but the same pressures, stressors, and failings are present here and now. The US is not equipped to handle a crisis of this magnitude, and that isn't merely the fault of a single Presidential administration -- however aggravating the current administration is.

The worst part is, you're absolutely correct in the rest of your summation -- countries that are net food importers are going to pay the heaviest price. Net food exporters, especially those like the US whose response has been so singularly incompetent, are going to collapse and be unable to sustain countries dependent upon our products. I fully expect that in a week's time, two at the most, we'll be unable to provide for our own because our supply chains will have collapsed. It's going to be the inverse of the dust bowl.

 

[Agema]

I know I've sparred with you personally over this, and several other posters to this thread in the past...what, 6-9 months since I started posting here again. This is exactly why the lack of US strategic food reserves and food desertification/swampification (and Democratic party ignorance/hubris/obstinance on agriculture policy issues) are such a massive axes to grind for me. In the past I've been on about it with regards to climate change, but the same pressures, stressors, and failings are present here and now. The US is not equipped to handle a crisis of this magnitude, and that isn't merely the fault of a single Presidential administration -- however aggravating the current administration is.

The worst part is, you're absolutely correct in the rest of your summation -- countries that are net food importers are going to pay the heaviest price. Net food exporters, especially those like the US whose response has been so singularly incompetent, are going to collapse and be unable to sustain countries dependent upon our products. I fully expect that in a week's time, two at the most, we'll be unable to provide for our own because our supply chains will have collapsed. It's going to be the inverse of the dust bowl.

Ever since the Brexit referendum, the issue of modern dependency on unrestricted transport has become a lot more obvious for me: supply chains that rely on next day delivery and so on. We've already been having to look at the possibility various foodstuffs (like tomatoes, pasta, loo rolls) would become scarce at the point we exited the EU.

You're absolutely right that we've developed systems that may be very efficient and flexible, but deficient in resilience. If that's fridges or bike parts, we can cope. If it's food, it's a threat. The same goes for a lot of the state in my country - things like the health and civil services. Efficiency and ideology to shrink the state have left a lot of public services incapable of coping with unexpected demand. Specifically, in terms of Brexit, there have already been doubts whether the government has the capacity and competence to carry it out effectively.

Apparently numerous people have been warning the British government about the fragility of the food supply for decades, but of course the government has not cared, under the belief that the market will magically make everything work.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

Apparently numerous people have been warning the British government about the fragility of the food supply for decades, but of course the government has not cared, under the belief that the market will magically make everything work.

It's not even a matter of efficiency, flexibility, and resilience -- it's that infrastructure itself can and may well become a vector for disease spread. The JIT model demands multiple workers "touch" (i.e. interact with, not merely the physical act of touching) inventory per day, before making its way into consumers' hands -- so what happens if and when sick workers handle that inventory?

I mentioned in the COVID-19 thread I used to work at Amazon, and in addition to the factors I mentioned there -- working conditions precluding social distancing, lack of proper sanitation and hygiene goods, high contact with other workers -- there's an additional facet to this which warrants immediate concern, the velocity of inventory through Amazon warehouses and the nature of its logistics chain. Amazon is heavily reliant on transshipment: goods stored in one warehouse will be picked and shipped to other warehouses for pending orders, to assemble customer orders, or anticipation of high order velocity to ensure those same-day and next-day deliveries meet CPT. Any given piece of inventory may be touched by 4-8 individual employees, and storage bins and totes may be touched dozens if not hundreds of times, per day; if any of those are contagious, there's then a non-zero chance of spreading that infection to others who may handle that inventory or equipment in the future.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I think people are looking at this the wrong way. Rather than hate panic buyers, why not realise there could have been efforts placed to deal with this back in December when the world leaders and supermarket CEOs knew covid was coming from China. I think the hoarders are exaggerated and really it's just the result of millions of people having the reasonable idea that preparing for two weeks self isolation and less trips out meant buying a little more. They could have been ready.

They teach us to blame hoarders so we don't blame them. Our prime minister Scott Morrison jumped up on his podium and called it 'unaustralian' to label the people naturally worried about their families and getting ready. He's the one with the power to have started getting us ready late last year.

 

[warmachine]

Why not blame both government and hoarders? I think supermarkets can be let off as enough about the disease wasn't known in December, they were already dealing with Christmas, and preemptive, post-Christmas stockpiling would be noticed and trigger panic hoarding. Supermarkets can be forgiven letting governments take the lead in public health politics. Besides, supply chains don't have huge spare capacity and are planned around holidays.

 

[Agema]

I think people are looking at this the wrong way. Rather than hate panic buyers, why not realise there could have been efforts placed to deal with this back in December when the world leaders and supermarket CEOs knew covid was coming from China.

They didn't know. Indeed, they had good reason to think it would probably be contained as SARS and MERS were.

What does seem clear is that the preparation in much of Europe and the USA was hopeless to non-existent. Part of this will be down to lack of experience, having avoided the worst of previous outbreaks. However, given all the time to see what China had to do, I don't think we can do anything but be highly critical of the complacency and apparent lack of work on contingencies before that time. Yes, there's been an heroic effort to make ventilators and put up temporary facilities from March, but really they could have had a lot of the prep done two months earlier: manufacturers could have been sent plans and told to plan potential production. I can't be anything short of savage about leaders like Trump and Johnson who not only did little but also spent weeks encouraging complacency in their population.

Concerns about the vulnerability of modern supply lines to disruption and shocks have been around for years. Many retailers don't stock much any more, they rely on procuring from suppliers at short order. The UK has spent three fucking years contemplating the nature of transport in modern economy due to Brexit, and even still the government seems to have put precious little thought about what covid-19 might do to it.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

I think people are looking at this the wrong way. Rather than hate panic buyers, why not realise there could have been efforts placed to deal with this back in December when the world leaders and supermarket CEOs knew covid was coming from China.

They didn't know. Indeed, they had good reason to think it would probably be contained as SARS and MERS were.

Maybe, maybe not. But It gets more damning the further forward you move like what about what they knew in January? I'd love to see all the reports that crossed their desks and what exactly doctors that understood the mechanisms of this virus(rather than evaluating the crisis on raw numbers of cases) were saying to them.

We've known for decades that viruses from Bats are particularly bad for humans for example, because to survive the bodyheat of a flying bat a virus that can survive that easily survives the less warm bodyheat of human fever.

We've had experts saying predicting all these things for a long time now in general if you stop talking about Covid in particular.

 

[Agema]

Maybe, maybe not. But It gets more damning the further forward you move like what about what they knew in January? I'd love to see all the reports that crossed their desks and what exactly doctors that understood the mechanisms of this virus(rather than evaluating the crisis on raw numbers of cases) were saying to them.

Firstly, I think this is well outside the scope of supermarket CEOs. It's beyond anything they or pretty much anyone in their company have had to think about or plan, they have no expert scientists in relevant areas, and to a large extent they're as dumb as the next guy and waiting to hear what the government tells them.

I would suspect the advice from science and medicine has been pretty good and consistent across most countries. But a politician has to weigh up all the other issues: should they spend billions on preparation they may never need? How bad is it going to be to justify a lockdown that blasts several percent off GDP? Honestly, your average politician couldn't do anything at all with the mechanisms of the virus, they don't do that sort of science and mathematics[footnote]In the late 19th century, Winston Churchill's father said he never could get his head round what a decimal point was. He was at one point Chancellor of the Exchequer, in charge of the Treasury...[/footnote]. All they'll understand is X many people catching it, Y many people needing hospital, Z many dying versus the expense of mitigating it.

I don't really have anything to add to my previous comment about lack of preparation. I don't think it would have cost anything significant for them to ramp up production and stockpile PPE and testing kits, increase ICU capacity, etc. as a precaution. It probably wasn't until early March and developments in Italy that finally made the fanciful notion they'd get away with it unsustainable: it was already in their countries, out of control and going to go rampant. But they really should have known enough and had their arses in gear about 6-8 weeks previously instead of scrambling frantically when they were already deep in trouble.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Firstly, I think this is well outside the scope of supermarket CEOs. It's beyond anything they or pretty much anyone in their company have had to think about or plan, they have no expert scientists in relevant areas, and to a large extent they're as dumb as the next guy and waiting to hear what the government tells them.

I would suspect the advice from science and medicine has been pretty good and consistent across most countries. But a politician has to weigh up all the other issues: should they spend billions on preparation they may never need? How bad is it going to be to justify a lockdown that blasts several percent off GDP? Honestly, your average politician couldn't do anything at all with the mechanisms of the virus, they don't do that sort of science and mathematics[footnote]In the late 19th century, Winston Churchill's father said he never could get his head round what a decimal point was. He was at one point Chancellor of the Exchequer, in charge of the Treasury...[/footnote]. All they'll understand is X many people catching it, Y many people needing hospital, Z many dying versus the expense of mitigating it.

Maybe you're right about the supermarket guys but the politicians? Well politicians make decisions effecting business outside their expertise all the time probably in virtually every issue. The solution to the problems of having to make decisions on things you don't understand has always been getting good consultancy from people who do, its not like we'd expect a politician to just take an uneducated guess right?(I mean maybe sadly that is hopeful in real life lol)

So the 'they aren't scientists so how can you expect them to understand it'argument? Not good enough and any politician that said that about their selves would disgust me as an excuse, not that I'm having a go at you since you aren't saying it on your own behalf.

 

[Satinavian]

Maybe you're right about the supermarket guys but the politicians? Well politicians make decisions effecting business outside their expertise all the time probably in virtually every issue. The solution to the problems of having to make decisions on things you don't understand has always been getting good consultancy from people who do, its not like we'd expect a politician to just take an uneducated guess right?(I mean maybe sadly that is hopeful in real life lol)

What i would expect politicians to do is to select a comittee or working group to make plans for that and provide a budget for precausions the group recommends and then shelve the plans. And to use them when needed.

Which has been done. As far as i can tell at least our scientists and medical personal in Germany don't complain about our political response.

 

[Agema]

Maybe you're right about the supermarket guys but the politicians? Well politicians make decisions effecting business outside their expertise all the time probably in virtually every issue. The solution to the problems of having to make decisions on things you don't understand has always been getting good consultancy from people who do, its not like we'd expect a politician to just take an uneducated guess right?(I mean maybe sadly that is hopeful in real life lol)

So the 'they aren't scientists so how can you expect them to understand it'argument? Not good enough and any politician that said that about their selves would disgust me as an excuse, not that I'm having a go at you since you aren't saying it on your own behalf.

Politicians, by their nature, are essentially dilettantes. They should know a bit of economics, a bit of law, a bit of military (etc.) perhaps loaded towards their experiences (e.g. ministries / committees) and interests and any prior professional background (which is usually business or law). In many cases they potentially know fuck all, but they need a good "sense" or "gut feeling" for the right thing to do on the advice they receive.

As a general rule, I think political systems are exceptionally poor at dealing with science and research - it tends to be well outside the normal realms of competence of politicians. Scientists are extremely poorly represented in politics, although medical doctors usually better. The media's not much of an improvement either: the average science correspondent has a BA in Journalism or similar, they just got saddled with the science remit along the way.

It is interesting how we have this narrative that the outbreak was totally unpredictable. Of course it wasn't: it's just Western politicians weren't paying attention to the experiences other countries, because the world has not actually been that short of dangerous disease outbreaks (Ebola, SARS, etc.). The same can be said of stock markets: I don't think anyone in the financial industry was pricing in the risk of a pandemic or other potential major disasters, which is why they take such a particularly massive battering when one inevitably arrives. I suspect it also represents the convenience of companies and shareholders: higher priced stocks make people feel richer, more asset value for leverage and loans, etc.

Which has been done. As far as i can tell at least our scientists and medical personal in Germany don't complain about our political response.

Probably because Germany had a well-resourced health service with plenty of capacity for both testing and critical care. The UK, by contrast, was caught with its pants thoroughly down. A decade of health service "efficiency" cuts have left the UK NHS seriously understaffed (exacerbated by EU citizens leaving due to Brexit), with ageing facilities, limited testing laboratories, and one of the worst ratios of critical care beds per head population in the developed world.

And that Germany had the sense to straight for lockdown, rather than waffle about "herd immunity" and "flattening the curve" with some patently inadequate half-measures for a couple of weeks, whilst the PM gave mixed messages telling everyone he was still shaking people's hands whilst his government was advising minimising contact.

Boris Johnson is such a terrifyingly lightweight fuckwit. A lazy, disorganised, superficial twat of the highest order who has no place in high office. Unfortunately, the right-wing British press would rather support a blustering oaf just because he's a Tory, even when his incompetence kills tens of thousands of their own countrymen, than ask serious questions about whether he's fit for office. Those unbelievable media scumbags write these puff pieces about how ace the NHS is and how great its staff are and how much we should appreciate them, whilst repeatedly backing a political party that hacks the service to shreds and makes life for its staff miserable.

 

[Fieldy409_v1legacy]

Politicians, by their nature, are essentially dilettantes. They should know a bit of economics, a bit of law, a bit of military (etc.) perhaps loaded towards their experiences (e.g. ministries / committees) and interests and any prior professional background (which is usually business or law). In many cases they potentially know fuck all, but they need a good "sense" or "gut feeling" for the right thing to do on the advice they receive.

See to me, the ideal leader is one who realises "I can't possibly know everything." and then deliberately surrounds themselves with experts in everything they need to know and asks them how this stuff works, either in direct face to face consulting or by reading their reports. No gut feelings please just get good information from reputable sources on what they recommend. Sort of like how an ancient king would surround himself with his councillors.

 

[SupahEwok]

Politicians, by their nature, are essentially dilettantes. They should know a bit of economics, a bit of law, a bit of military (etc.) perhaps loaded towards their experiences (e.g. ministries / committees) and interests and any prior professional background (which is usually business or law). In many cases they potentially know fuck all, but they need a good "sense" or "gut feeling" for the right thing to do on the advice they receive.

See to me, the ideal leader is one who realises "I can't possibly know everything." and then deliberately surrounds themselves with experts in everything they need to know and asks them how this stuff works, either in direct face to face consulting or by reading their reports. No gut feelings please just get good information from reputable sources on what they recommend. Sort of like how an ancient king would surround himself with his councillors.

The thing is, you still need to know the basics so that your chosen experts aren't bullshitting you. It's like getting work done on your car. If you know nothing about how your car works, the mechanic can tell you that you need all sorts of work done, and you have no idea how likely it is that is true or if the work is actually necessary/urgent for what you need.

You can always say "then get a better expert", but that's the thing, you can't judge who's going to bullshit you and who isn't by just a resume. And it's a lot harder to do so when they're talking to you if you know the basics and can ask intelligent, nuanced questions.

 

[Eacaraxe_v1legacy]

See to me, the ideal leader is one who realises "I can't possibly know everything." and then deliberately surrounds themselves with experts in everything they need to know and asks them how this stuff works, either in direct face to face consulting or by reading their reports. No gut feelings please just get good information from reputable sources on what they recommend. Sort of like how an ancient king would surround himself with his councillors.

Advisors are never without agendas of their own, and in the end the responsibility of separating wheat from chaff and deciding the course of action falls to the executive who still must have good judgment to effect good policy.

Take for example the lesson of the Bay of Pigs. Eisenhower's sticking points on any forthcoming plan from the CIA to oust Castro, was for the operation to be likely to succeed, and that Batista not be returned to power. Thus it was the idea to stage an amphibious assault of the island to return Batista to power, was neither solicited by the administration nor accepted when offered. Because Eisenhower knew the idea was fucking stupid and doomed to failure.

Kennedy was not so strategically-minded, experienced, or aware of the NSC's self-serving nature as his predecessor; thus, when Allen Dulles approached him with plans Eisenhower would have immediately recognized as not even in the same ZIP code as halfway intelligent, Kennedy agreed.

 

[Agema]

See to me, the ideal leader is one who realises "I can't possibly know everything." and then deliberately surrounds themselves with experts in everything they need to know and asks them how this stuff works, either in direct face to face consulting or by reading their reports. No gut feelings please just get good information from reputable sources on what they recommend. Sort of like how an ancient king would surround himself with his councillors.

I suspect I didn't express myself well. I was thinking of a sort of sense of wisdom of right and wrong things to do, an ability to assess a bigger picture in the absence of a lot of key information and intuit potential problems and consequences.

The thing is, you still need to know the basics so that your chosen experts aren't bullshitting you. It's like getting work done on your car. If you know nothing about how your car works, the mechanic can tell you that you need all sorts of work done, and you have no idea how likely it is that is true or if the work is actually necessary/urgent for what you need.

You can always say "then get a better expert", but that's the thing, you can't judge who's going to bullshit you and who isn't by just a resume. And it's a lot harder to do so when they're talking to you if you know the basics and can ask intelligent, nuanced questions.

I agree that politicians need to know sufficient basics. Although I would suggest if politicians have any specific skill, it's going to be working out other people, organisations, and their agendas: intuition about people and manipulating them. The skill of a leader is thus to put people they understand into position: the leader doesn't have to like or trust those people or their organisations, they just need to know how to interpret them or make them work to get best use out of their competencies and mitigate or compensate for their failings.

If I turn to my favourite punching bag of Donald Trump, I think he fails on numerous scores. I don't think he gets the basics: he doesn't really understand how government functions or much of the wider world government works on. I think he is good at reading and manipulating people at some level, but he's not good at making them work in government - in large part perhaps because of a mismatch between the objectives of government (running the country effectively) and the objectives of Donald Trump (self-aggrandisement). He wants loyalty and subservience, and the huge turnover of White House personnel reflects him not realising that many of his appointees wanted to do a good job, but that was often not compatible with Trump's demands. Loyal and subservient staff are running round doing things with little obvious signs of competence - what can we say Jared Kushner has ever achieved, despite his finger being in so many pies? Trump has ended up just attempting to brute force government into stricter hierarchical and authoritarian control through ever more slavish cronyism, because he lacks the will or skill to make government work for him.