Final Word from Wednesday, January 12, 2022

Another old Soviet joke makes fun of supply chains in the world's No. 2 superpower. "How do you manage to organize planned centralized supply of such a large country?" Richard Nixon asks Leonid Brezhnev. "We take everything to Moscow, and from there the people deliver it themselves." Soviet citizens often had to travel to Moscow to get what was available, but now the West is going increasingly to the other extreme. Many people expect even their bread and yoghurt to be delivered right to their door at a time of their convenience. Rohlík.cz is learning that it's not so easy to pay delivery drivers up to Kč 70,000 per month and still earn a profit. It's not difficult to see that if people used to go to the store and deliver the food to themselves, something must go up in price considerably if the store comes to them. In societies heavily burdened with debt, this isn't a viable business model over the long term. Rohlík's drivers have caught on to this sooner than many investors have. [ Czech Republic gig economy ]