The weird effects of a disrupted global economy would be funny, if the causes weren’t so horrifying. The tragedy in Japan still unfolds, yet one of the repercussions has already hit America, hard. Tape stock, particularly beta (yep, the large, archaic consumer format is still an industry standard) is now severely limited due to damage and shutdown of operations at Sony’s Japanese manufacturing plants. The plants won’t reopen for at least two years, and the delay has larger entertainment companies all over panicking, hoarding and recycling what tape stock they have.
This is a strange way to filter a tragedy, though perhaps the more immediate the inconvenience is, the easier it becomes for the average person to grasp the full scope of damage. Japan suffers greatly, a year from now you don’t get to see ’30 Rock’ webisodes. It’s also no small shakes- entertainment is one of America’s largest and most successful exports, and several major studios’ workflows grinding to a halt would severely impact the American economy.
Still, it’s a bizarre side effect, that the raw material we need to send episodes of ‘Entourage’ out into the world won’t be available due to a natural disaster. We’ve felt it before on a smaller scale; the price of orange juice rising after hurricanes ravaged Florida, for example. It just highlights how fragile our modern state of existence is, how unnatural, to assume the year-round availability of products made across the globe.
