. . . led to panic buying and temporary shortages, just like there were toilet paper shortages. But now everything except ammo seems to be available.
I touch a Supply Chain (only marginally political, >$100million/yr) and I suspect that you completely underestimate the fragility of "modern, efficient manufacturing practices".
If you needed to wash 10% more clothes in your house this week, you
might notice.
If my employer saw a 10% increase in demand for even a small slice if its products, it would take us
months to fill it, even though the excess demand might only be a week's worth of production. The supply of
everything, vertically, from the bearing grease we use on the machines, to the ink that prints the stickers that go on each item, has had every bit of breathing room squeezed out of it, with nearly no margin to spare.
This "saves" hundreds of thousands a year in "cost of inventory on hand" (a bit of balance sheet deception straight from hell), and works fine. . . until you get a 30% spike in demand for every product you make, and literally every supply contract you have goes belly up (light bulbs, temp labor, hand towels, forklift batteries. . .)
Don't like it? Own your own reserve inventory, because the MBAs running the manufacturers who make the stuff aren't going to do it for you.