Businesses can’t fill positions because many people have gotten used to not working, they like it and they have stimulus money. I know one guy who’s done it for 30 years, but he’s a pro at it. It’s not a systemic problem and it will work itself out.
But it’s great advertising for the today’s internet version of the guy wearing the sandwich board sign that reads “The End Is Near”.
> But instead, there are severe shortages everywhere around us. <
I frequent dollar stores for both fun and for shopping. I’m seeing lots of under-stocked shelves. So I await the next presidential news conference. Maybe Joe Biden can explain it all to me.
There are plenty of iPhones and flat screen TVs.
There is a palm oil ban out of Indonesia over allegations of forced labor/child labor. So anything made from or using palm oil is hard to get.
Ports are clogged. Dockworkers are still keeping social distance policies - trying to extract concessions, pay raise etc. We import so much stuff they are running out of containers in Asia. We produce too little to send back and the shippers don’t like to send empty containers across the ocean.
Oil prices of course.
New normal, and getting normaler.
Perhaps it’s the old “frog in the water” story - but practiced by leftists. They figure that if we are gradually “screwed” by shortages, we’ll not react until it’s too late. Of course they’ll not have the shortages...being in the ruling class.
This, ladies and gents (only two, sorry, leftists), is the real reason we have the 2nd Amendment. It’s to provide the ultimate attitude adjustment to idiots who really think they can rise to the top with no IQ, no abilities, no creativity, and no morals.
And it’s going to be tested in the not too distant future.
Companies laid off staff because of the lack of business, and now can't afford to compete with the Government handing out free money.
Better, I think, to buy property where you can ride out the storm, food, tools, boots, clothes, tires, essentials.
something about chocolate comes to mind...
I’m not saying there aren’t shortages, but if your blog is named the economic collapse blog, there will never not be shortages.
The global supply chain is a lot of the problem. There’s an equation that predicts a shortage. If an item requires three suppliers to produce and each supplier has a probability of not producing your item, then you can multiply them all together to come up with the probability that you will not be able to buy the finished good. The more suppliers the lower the probability you can buy the good. When the suppliers are in different countries and they are all experiencing supply, labor and cost difficulties, the probability of finding your items goes even lower. The end result of Covid is that companies that want to survive must bring in their supply chains to a manageable, and predictable base.
I recall reading about how a t-shirt got to market. The cotton was picked in Egypt, put on a 747 and sent to India where it was woven into raw cloth. That was sent to Vietnam where it was cut into a t-shirt and then some tiny island where the t-shirt had some process done. It was then sent to Italy where it was screen printed with some designer logos and design and then shipped to New York for distribution to Walmarts around America. By the time it was bought, it had probably spent more hours in the air than most frequent travelers would spend in a year. It was insane. And, it sold for about $15.
All of this was made possible because the United States maintained a security umbrella that kept all the trade routes open and the US facilitated trade with globalization agreements. Most of this was at the expense of the American workforce. The US used to be the world’s best source of underwear, t-shirts, socks, etc. All of that got exported to foreign suppliers because America’s political masters decided America was better at high end design and everyone else was better at grunt labor. Oh, and it’s great to have unemployed Americans on subsistence so they vote Democrat.
As for building materials, that’s because the US slapped a tariff on Canadian lumber. The Canadians wanted to negotiate to lower the tariff but they report no one in the Biden administration will even take their calls. The tariff has added somewhere north of $30k to the average price of a house.
The appliance shortage is because so many of them have parts, a motor or a bushing, say, sourced in areas that have been effected by Covid. Look for those to either come back to America or be produced in Mexico. America if Trump is president. Mexico if Biden is president.
In other news, the SharknadoAttack blog asks, if everything is going well, why do shark attacks keep getting worse?
Our oven went out in February and we ordered one from the factory in Michigan. Nowhere in site. The bearing just went out in the dryer. Repairman says it is on back order. Nowhere in site. Covid bums, one and all.
The ammo shortage is really ticking me off. Have a good amount on hand, but want to go shooting and not eat into the stash.
Very poor leadership by the current administration.
or just buy enough so they didn't have to go out for the lockdown.
People discovered that they could stampede the herd and say omg! there is a shortage... and then the panic buying and opportunistic buying would ensue (creating the predicted shortsge)!with people then selling things like toilet paper on ebay. Its literally like Christmas for scammers, its like finding the hot toy in “Jingle All The Way”
I think China made supply chain management easy before. Also I think our corporate overlords are probably trying to squeeze costs.
Canned cat food?!
I think the best thing we can do is to help our local farmers hang on through all the corporate globalist insanity. The more farmers can sell to their local consumer market (which tends to be lucrative), the more they will be able to ride out losses born through no fault of their own.
Remember that we now have activists trying to do economics.
Can’t you just feel the love?!!
These guys produce SO MUCH FOOD, so that could go tits up Russian loading docks type bad quite easily.
Prepper ping.
Small companies are quicker and more able to adjust to market condition. Sort of like the difference between a sail boat and ocean liner.
Yes, they sink more easily but if you have a flotilla it really does not matter if a few are lost.
You load everything on one or two big ships and you lose one and you have taken a major hit.
Bigger is not better.