This just keeps getting better...



https://www.thv11.com/article/news/nation-world/teen-drivers-semi-trucks/507-3bf54b81-e83d-4dac-9feb-d7b4d0d78a76?fbclid=IwAR0bOE-9zNfJXwChO34h43Vy5Gfxa1yIHt-1aqR7Dn3zmv-Ai1vcwihTpnI

Oil products and hydraulic fluids are disappearing and going up in cost FAST.
Demand is outpacing supply.

This was today.

better buy up that blu def. I don't see any on the shelf some days.

It's all Russia's fault...

If that’s Wally World it doesn’t mean much

That’s what the shelves at the Tacoma and Lakewood WWs have looked like for the past 5 years

Butt tonnes of saltines at WinCo.

https://www.nasdaq.com/market-activity/commodities/lbs

lumber prices are again nearing records.... I bet the trucker strike in canada is having some influence

https://www.bls.gov/news.release/pdf/cpi.pdf

CPI is up 7.5% over the last 12 months

https://www.reuters.com/business/us-pro ... 022-02-15/

PPI is up 9.7% over the last 12 monchs

Raw iron and steel prices are going thru the roof

https://data.nasdaq.com/data/FRED/WPU10 ... -and-steel

Shit is going real sideways, real fast.

I'm speculating here.... but i'm seeing unskilled labor prices catching up to skilled labor rates in local classifieds. I kinda speculate there is a whip in wages, where the people closest to the grind stone demand higher wages and it works it's way up which fuels inflation.(like how the PPI is getting eaten by most companies but when they decide inflation isnt transitory they will dramatically raise prices) I'm a 25 year machinist, now toolmaker, but i'm making 1/3 more than many entry level service industry jobs are. I just left a shop where i had my hands on the books and we couldnt pay entry level machinists more than box-throwers for amazon....

I should add both of the machine shops i have worked for recently are having the same issues, staffing problems, wage problems, supply problems and all of the employees are overworked and burned out. For most guys they dont feel like they are getting ahead with this overtime, they are only treading water.

Hold on because shit is going real f'ing sideways, i'm just not sure how long we can push it out.

18 years here. Granted, I've taken a considerable paycut since the start of Covid in 2020, but where I work I am well paid as it really is a skilled trade. Shitty to think they are bringing laborers in at just $14/hr less than me. Crazy!

We all knew this would happen with the loose federal spending. The terrible thing this type of supply tightening inflation is - I doubt it can be controlled with rate hikes as a proxy to controlling money supply.

Used to be called stagflation. But this time most people who want to work are working.

The key will be is pumping up the supply of goods.But can that happen fast enough? And will rate hikes do more harm than good?

Sorry i typo'd, it should be 20 years as a machinist but yes it's crazy. Im doing okayish, but i bought my house in the 2008 crash(thanks obama!) so i only paid $97k for it, almost everything liveable in my town is $400k now, so that takes the monthly payment from my $590(okay i refinanced for 115,000 so i could build a huge shop) and it's now everything is $2k a month??? also this math is minus taxes and insurance.



We cant correct the supply of goods... we have 2% less labor participation rate since the pandemic started, plus the shutdown in china, and the shipping crisis(If goods sit in a container too long they get moldy)

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-sta ... ation-rate

We should have gone to interest rates back in 2013, but nobody wanted to right the ship, they just wanted to steal as much cutlery as they could. Nothing to see here.....

Every time we raise interest rates the economy creaks we should have been doing it all along but everyone wants to push off disaster past their watch

No, it can't, and it won't, because COVID. Production of the vast majority of physical goods is not being allowed to return to full capacity/efficiency/output (so that it can meet demand), because of "worker safety". We (I refer to producers & regulators across the globe) have added so much inefficiency and counter-productive "safety" measures (and the real expenses that go along with those) in workplaces that there is simply no way that supply is ever going to catch up, until those COVID precautions are lifted. And, because our economy has become so much more global, the decisions made by foreign governments for industries in their countries (my personal favorite is the mandatory testing & lengthy quarantine of container ship workers before entry into the country) are wreaking havoc on our domestic economy, because we produce so little here anymore, and everything is taking 2-3x as long to get here as it used to - at a time when supply is already insufficient. Great combo!

Remember when COVID first hit, and everything shut down (2 weeks to flatten the curve, anyone?), and companies starting furloughing and laying off employees left and right? Well, that set us on a trajectory of supply falling short of demand (because demand for most physical goods never really changed, or if it did, it was short-lived), and we've done nothing little (not enough) to get back onto a trajectory of catching back up with demand. To top things off, we pumped the economy full of funny-money, which inflated consumption and further deepened the divide between supply and demand. And, as we all know from Econ 101, when supply is tight and demand is high, prices go up. High prices are here to stay, too, because of that sustained supply/demand gap. But the funny-money is drying up, and now people are coming to the realization that their household budgets have been blown wide open (food, rent, gas, utilities, entertainment, etc.). Watch for consumption of certain things (luxuries/"wants") to drop (I think it has already started - just look at guns & ammo market prices) as people adjust their priorities and begin to trim back spending. But the real story is production output still not being allowed to catch back up.

We've spent the better part of 2 years slitting our own throats economically, over a virus with a low mortality rate and multiple cheap (and abundant) treatment options. The fallout is going to be painful for many (most?), and lasting.

Covid is used as an excuse for cutting hours and reducing costs in many businesses.
People now are used to it.
Amazon Prime used to be next day, now it takes a few days.
Which sucks, because there is a huge Amazon warehouse less than a mile from my house. My GF worked there.
They have it there, just wait a couple days to ship it and won't let me just drive (walk) down there and pick it up.
I look at tracking and it was there all the time.

Kaiser pharmacy and customer service used to be 2-3 minute hold. Now it can take an hour. I asked the pharmacist and she said their hours were all cut. Because covid. Sheeple buy it.

Cause Biden. In the middle of supply side problems he instituted "vaccine" mandates laying off hundreds of thousands of people involved in distribution. So now it takes forever to offload containers and drive them to market. Stupid senile asshole.

If Covid is so contagious, how come nobody at my church has it? You would think that 1,000 people not wearing masks all singing and praising the Lord, hugging each other, a foot apart every week everyone would have it. Superspreader event!!!!!
Think there have been 3 known cases in the past 2 years. Out of 1,000 people. Because covid of course.

I know a couple people that have died from it(supposedly) and a bunch of people at my new shop had it including 2 close coworkers, i caught a "cold" at the same time according to a home test. Worked thru it because i couldnt afford time off. I also have a lot of friends that have had it, most say it was pretty basic except for the loss of taste, although one friend who is 35ish, semi-inshape, but immune compromised had it feb of 2020, then again in nov 2021 when she was hospitalized and she still says the lockdowns are bullshit

Israel is getting in on the trucking protests. They are on their 2nd wave of required boosters country wide.

In this article and others I've read recently, rising warehouse inventory stats are cited.
How does this square with empty shelves and supply chain troubles?

https://www.breitbart.com/economy/2022/ ... qus_thread