Posted on 01/16/2022 9:56:53 AM PST by blam
Setting aside the ever-present issue of the global supply chain crunch presently gestating in the PROC, where factories and ports are struggling with the most restrictive lockdown measures since the (Fauci-funded) “China virus” first burst forth out of Wuhan, the US is still facing serious shortages of workers and critical goods like foodstuffs and medicine.
The US labor market disappointed once again in December, while November’s similarly disappointing number was revised up only slightly. Meanwhile, those who are working are struggling with the fact that inflationary price pressures are hammering real wages. And regardless of what the Fed does next, it appears kinks in the economy created by COVID and the federal government’s response to COVID will continue to push food prices higher for the foreseeable future, as Reuters reports.
Citing three critical factors, high demand for groceries, soaring freight costs and “omicron-related” labor shortages, Reuters projects that prices for “food and fresh produce” will continue to climb for the foreseeable future.
Already, growers across the West and Midwest are paying 3x the freight costs from before the pandemic – all to guarantee shipment of perishables like berries and lettuce before they spoil.
Some companies are even holding back on shipping certain goods (like long-lasting onions) to see if shipping costs might ease.
Shay Myers, CEO of Owyhee Produce, which grows onions, watermelons and asparagus along the border of Idaho and Oregon, said he has been holding off shipping onions to retail distributors until freight costs go down.
Myers said transportation disruptions in the last three weeks, caused by a lack of truck drivers and recent highway-blocking storms, have led to a doubling of freight costs for fruit and vegetable producers, on top of already-elevated pandemic prices. “We typically will ship, East Coast to West Coast – we used to do it for about $7,000,” he said. “Today it’s somewhere between $18,000 and $22,000.”
One CongAgra subsidiary blamed labor shortages for the bulk of their troubles.
Birds Eye frozen vegetables maker Conagra Brands’ CEO Sean Connolly told investors last week that supplies from its U.S. plants could be constrained for at least the next month due to Omicron-related absences.
Earlier this week, Albertsons CEO Vivek Sankaran said he expects the supermarket chain to confront more supply chain challenges over the next four to six weeks as Omicron has put a dent in its efforts to plug supply chain gaps.
The packaged goods industry is missing more than 100K workers. Participants filled measly 1,500 jobs last month, according to the BLS data.
The situation is not expected to abate for at least a few more weeks, Katie Denis, vice president of communications and research at the Consumer Brands Association said, blaming the shortages on a scarcity of labor. The consumer-packaged goods industry is missing around 120,000 workers out of which only 1,500 jobs were added last month, she said, while the National Grocer’s Association said that many of its grocery store members were operating with less than 50% of their workforce capacity.
Of course, labor shortages aren’t the only issue. Demand for groceries remains sky high as millions of Americans remain hunkered down, too scared to eat at a restaurant – or too tapped out from their financial difficulties to justify dining at one.
Ha! I had to be careful there, and use the word “widespread”. Because, yes, there were shortages when Trump was in office.
Agriculture and livestock consume HUGE amounts of oil and natural gas in ag machinery, fertilizers, drying, transportation, and refrigeration. If you artificially raise energy prices (as Biden did), you get huge price increases in food prices.
Democrats are child-like with their ignorance, lack of common sense and zero understanding of the economy. They ignorantly believe “If we just stop producing fossil fuels the world won’t heat up and we’ll be in heaven” while ignoring the real world results of such foolishness.
“Funny how all this happened, disasters in every direction, AFTER the election was stolen from Trump”
I believe the Dims have the hand of God AGAINST them right now. God doesn’t care about political parties, but he does care about sin and immortality. The platform of today’s Democrat party is built on every sort of sin and perversion imaginable. God will never honor that, nor will he honor cheating to win. Everything the Dims touch right now goes toxic. God won’t be mocked.
Absolutely, but Reuters (nor any other mainstream news outlet) will not mention China Joe's responsibility for rising oil prices.
You bet. How bad is it when their polices are mistaken for sabotage.
They’re going to be beat like a drum come the mid terms and in ‘24 when Trump takes a 3rd win.
Fixed it.
Agenda 21 was simmering on the back burner. What is surprising is how fast they were able to disable the greatest economy of all time.
Exactly.🙄
Plenty of empty shelves.
The biggest rise in cost of food items is the deep disruption in on time delivery brought about by lockdowns. This single cause has reverbrated from the end user all the way up the supply chain to the producer. It is a systems wide disruption that is not solved by delivery.
The only possible fix is to get Trump back in the white house and restart the economy. Nothing less will be effective. the alternative is the final and complete implosion of the entire economy. That is the Biden agenda.
This topic was posted , thanks blam.
As supply chain chaos causes shipping delays this holiday season, experts say Amazon’s logistics empire and predictive analytics will allow it to avoid the worst of it. Amazon leased long-haul planes to get goods from China to the U.S. faster, and its been making its own containers and chartering private cargo vessels for years. Now retailers like Walmart, Home Depot, Target, IKEA and Costco are trying out the tactic, chartering smaller vessels to bring goods to less congested ports.How Amazon Beat Supply Chain Chaos With Ships, Containers And Planes | December 4, 2021 | CNBC
This is the Carnival Imagination, a luxury cruise liner worth hundreds of millions of dollars, which just 10 short months ago was touring passengers in extreme comfort to exotic destinations all over the world.
This ship is sailing dead ahead to its final port of call, where it has been sold for scrap alongside dozens of other ships that have become the latest victims of the global pandemic.
The Chittagong ship breaking yard in Bangladesh is the largest of its kind in the world, and in the past few months even its abundant shores have become inundated with pleasure cruises and industrial cargo ships alike that all could have otherwise sailed the oceans for many more decades.
These are all very troubling signs for the unsung heroes of our modern global economy, the merchant marine fleet. Every year trillions of dollars worth of cargo is transported on ships like these and losing this fleet could turn into a huge barrier to global trade.
But what is really going on here?
Why would profit-motivated companies destroy billions of dollars worth of productive assets? Sure times are tough, tourism and trade have declined massively but this hardly looks like a reasonable response right?
I don’t burn down my house if a video gets less than 10,000 likes, so why would companies in such a competitive industry do something equally as self-destructive?
Well as always it has to do with economics (go figure) and to understand this bizarre behavior we need to understand a few key areas.
What are the economics behind the merchant marine fleet?
How do these factors make it financially viable to destroy ships?
what does this mean for the future of international trade?
And what does this all have to do with Chinese bridge building?Why are Billions of Dollars Worth of Ships Being Intentionally Destroyed? | December 3, 2020 | Economics Explained
Conagra Brands Sean Connolly needs to call Pete TrueDope in Canada and tell him to make a deal with Canadian truckers before the protest comes to the US...
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