Logo

American Security Council Foundation

Back to main site

Alan W. Dowd is a Senior Fellow with the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes on the full range of topics relating to national defense, foreign policy and international security. Dowd’s commentaries and essays have appeared in Policy Review, Parameters, Military Officer, The American Legion Magazine, The Journal of Diplomacy and International Relations, The Claremont Review of Books, World Politics Review, The Wall Street Journal Europe, The Jerusalem Post, The Financial Times Deutschland, The Washington Times, The Baltimore Sun, The Washington Examiner, The Detroit News, The Sacramento Bee, The Vancouver Sun, The National Post, The Landing Zone, Current, The World & I, The American Enterprise, Fraser Forum, American Outlook, The American and the online editions of Weekly Standard, National Review and American Interest. Beyond his work in opinion journalism, Dowd has served as an adjunct professor and university lecturer; congressional aide; and administrator, researcher and writer at leading think tanks, including the Hudson Institute, Sagamore Institute and Fraser Institute. An award-winning writer, Dowd has been interviewed by Fox News Channel, Cox News Service, The Washington Times, The National Post, the Australian Broadcasting Corporation and numerous radio programs across North America. In addition, his work has been quoted by and/or reprinted in The Guardian, CBS News, BBC News and the Council on Foreign Relations. Dowd holds degrees from Butler University and Indiana University. Follow him at twitter.com/alanwdowd.

ASCF News

Scott Tilley is a Senior Fellow at the American Security Council Foundation, where he writes the “Technical Power” column, focusing on the societal and national security implications of advanced technology in cybersecurity, space, and foreign relations.

He is an emeritus professor at the Florida Institute of Technology. Previously, he was with the University of California, Riverside, Carnegie Mellon University’s Software Engineering Institute, and IBM. His research and teaching were in the areas of computer science, software & systems engineering, educational technology, the design of communication, and business information systems.

He is president and founder of the Center for Technology & Society, president and co-founder of Big Data Florida, past president of INCOSE Space Coast, and a Space Coast Writers’ Guild Fellow.

He has authored over 150 academic papers and has published 28 books (technical and non-technical), most recently Systems Analysis & Design (Cengage, 2020), SPACE (Anthology Alliance, 2019), and Technical Justice (CTS Press, 2019). He wrote the “Technology Today” column for FLORIDA TODAY from 2010 to 2018.

He is a popular public speaker, having delivered numerous keynote presentations and “Tech Talks” for a general audience. Recent examples include the role of big data in the space program, a four-part series on machine learning, and a four-part series on fake news.

He holds a Ph.D. in computer science from the University of Victoria (1995).

Contact him at stilley@cts.today.

Supply Chain Woes Hitting American Families: ‘It Is Very Hard’

Monday, June 20, 2022

Categories: ASCF News Economic Security

Comments: 0

Source: https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/06/18/supply-chain-woes-hitting-american-families-very-hard/

Louise Beaumont/Getty

U.S. families are struggling to make ends meet as multiple supply chain issues continue to affect many aspects of their lives amid record high gas prices and 41-year-high inflation.

Online news outlet the 19th highlighted one such case this week as an Indianapolis mother, Diamond Cotton, has struggled to find basic products she needs for her family. She has been forced to go from store to store to find tampons for her daughters, “who have both started menstruating and would need tampons to go swimming this summer,” according to the outlet.

At the same time, she is 15 weeks pregnant, and has to think about where the baby formula crisis will be months down the road, as her youngest son, now 4, was a premature baby and needed infant formula because she “couldn’t produce enough breastmilk to feed him then.”

“It is very hard — I am going to need formula, and when I come out of the hospital, I’m going to need more menstrual products,” Cotton told the outlet, as she also is struggling to find help with child care, partially due to high demand and limited staff. This is a serious concern for Cotton, as if she cannot find child care, she said, she will lose her job and with it the ability to provide for her children.

According to the outlet:

She’s managing all of that as she’s watching gas prices shoot up and purchasing groceries for her family from a list that each week grows more limited. Women, particularly those who are sole heads of households, are affected more than men by food inflation. Last month, the cost of groceries rose nearly 12 percent since May 2021 — the largest increase since 1979.

The takeaway for Cotton is pretty clear: “For women and children, there is not enough support,” she said.

Cotton is not the only mother facing these issues, as many of these concerns jumped to the forefront at the height of the baby formula crisis earlier this year, as mothers swapped stories of going from store to store in a desperate search to find nourishment for their infants.

“I have enough formula for two babies for 14 days,” Kayla Zurenko, a mom of four, told Fox News Digital in May. “Where am I going to find formula after that?”

Zurenko’s worries came as the Abbott Nutritional plant in Sturgis, Michigan, remained shut down due to concerns over a bacterial outbreak, though reportedly no links were found between the formula and sick infants. As a result, the plant finally reopened in June, only to shut down again this week due to flooding in the area. As a result, it will “likely delay production and distribution” of new products, the plant announced.

But now other product shortages are hitting the shelves, as Procter & Gamble confirmed this week that it is facing issues as well.

“The Tampax team is producing tampons 24/7 to meet the increased demand for our products,” the company said in a statement, adding, “We are working with our retail partners to maximize availability, which has significantly increased over the last several months.”

All of this — Americans dealing with supply chain shortages, rising gas prices, and 41-year high inflation, with no relief in sight in President Biden’s America — comes as the midterm elections loom.

Comments RSS feed for comments on this page

There are no comments yet. Be the first to add a comment by using the form below.