The world continues apace.
It’s hard to know whats ‘real’ and what’s just clickbait-generating hype these days in regards to to ‘shortages’ and ‘supply chain disruptions’. Oh, there’s no doubt that there’s shortages going on with factories unable to get their materials, store shelves with big gaps in them, and that sort of thing. I’m just not 100% sure why we have them. We had Wuhan Flu and it’s restrictions for all of 2020 and we didn’t see this sort of thing. I suppose you could argue that there were already plenty of things ‘in the pipeline’ and that it’s only now that it’s catching up to us. Or perhaps it took this long for the disruption in Chinese manufacturing to take hold. Or maybe longshoreman and dockworker unions have decided this is the perfect time to hold up management for more money. Or…or…or…
The reasons, to me, are somewhat irrelevant. I don’t care which iceberg hit the Titanic, all I care about is getting my lifejacket on. I suppose the smart thing to do would be to go and buy an extra set of ..well…everything. Thus far my experiences in “whaddya mean you’re out of [XXXX]” have been limited to canning lids, ammo, certain guns, and satisfactory postal service. But I suppose its only a matter of time before a bearing in power turbine somewhere craps out and, surprise, the German company that made it can’t get parts…or a ship to carry it…or someone to unload that ship…or a truck driver to haul it from the docks. It doesn’t take a lot to throw a wrench into things…there’s plenty of potential failure points along the way.
Me, I’ve been kinda sorta preparing for this thing for a long time. Longer than some of you have been around, actually. I’m expecting, for me, some direct inconveniences but nothing too dramatic. What I’m worried about is people who should know better clamoring for .gov to “do something” and, Crom help us, thos idiots actually do something.
At the moment, the current plan to ‘fix’ things involves spending more money than actually physically exists and creating a debt that is mathematically impossible to payoff unless you go Zimbabwe, have World War III, or literally just renounce the thing like a $50 credit card bill that’s followed you since college. It seems like for all intents and purposes the notion of national debt has become meaningless except as a scorecard to see what country is in the lead for the race to the bottom.
What to do? Same as always, man: keep cash, metals, land, food, guns, meds, fuel, and that sort of thing. The same thing you’ve been doing to get ready for the boogaloo, the Rapture, the UN invasion, Xenu’s arrival, or Great Depression Mk II. From a disaster preparedness standpoint, having precious metals, money, food, fuel, and guns never goes out of style. Being outta debt helps too.
I wish I had a good track record of predicting the future but, alas, I do not…that’s why I have a basement full of food and ammo. But, I think it doesn’t take a lot of foresight to figure that as society starts to fray around the edges there’s going to be more occasions of violence that come into our lives. Whether its increasing amounts of deranged homeless wretches wandering the street aggressively panhandling and doing opportunistic burglaries, or it’s mob violence as some disaffected-group-of-the-moment decides that your ‘privilege’ is an affront to their dignity, it seems reasonable to see things getting a good bit more dangerous out there.
Price increases, ridiculous taxes, consumer goods shortages, racial violence, a renewed push towards socialism, and who knows what else is on the horizon. Is it any wonder we’re buying canned goods and 9mm?
Glad I followed yours and Rawles advice on these scenarios when “supplies” were plentiful and affordable. Trying to accomplish those goals now would be near impossible.
Commander you are asking the same questions I have been asking myself. We have watched as our once mighty supply chain has shriveled up to a mere supply thread. As you rightly point out what happens when XYZ power plant or water treatment plant can’t get a spare part. I have watched several videos of Dr Joesph Tainter on the research he has done on the collapse of complex societies. Guess the supply fizzling out could be a new chapter in his book. I’m sure we are only about 8 weeks away from being bombarded with news stories about fights breaking out over some stupid toy. But when will we see the stories about food shortages. To me at the beginning of the virus we seemed to have a lot of stories about supply shortages. Now, not so many, almost as if the powers to be have put the kibosh on them. But like you, all this drama is a sideshow until the fights aren’t over toys but the last can of spam.
Look for the water problem in the Chicago suburb of Dixmoor. This was a non-diverse enclave until a few years ago,now in rapid decline.
Parts man at work just bought every truck battery possible as he was told they were the last until a “national backorder” could be resolved. A part we priced for a job 30 days ago has more than doubled in price($525 to $1100),we can not honor our quotes on truck repairs for more than a week and our wait times on work can be up to a month. How long til we can’t fix the truck to bring the parts to fix the truck-Atlas just shrugged
Even though it’s a serious topic, I had to laugh at your line “The same thing you’ve been doing to get ready for the boogaloo, the Rapture, the UN invasion, Xenu’s arrival, or Great Depression Mk II.” Maybe add “when just-in-time shipping/warehousing hits a bump.”
This supply chain thing became very real for me tonight at a monthly gathering with some longtime friends. We always gather at the same Roosters wing restaurant in Southern Indiana. I always order the same thing. But tonight when I said “Sweet Thai Chili” for the sauce on my wings, the waitress said, “Nope, we’re out of that.” I made a fuss, chose another sauce, then she said, “What about fries?” I ordered my usual, potato wedges “and burn ’em.” She said, “Uh, we’re out of potato wedges.” I laughed, but inside I was thinking, “Holy crap, this shit is getting real.” Big deal? No, but for each of us there’s a moment of awakening. I will be adding Sweet Thai Chili sauce to my inventory list. Potato wedges? Well, I’ll just have to get creative and find a substitute.
I was a private contractor in Moscow in 1993, 2 years after the CW ended. In those preceding 2 years, the exchange rate exploded from 1$/1ruble to 1$/250 rubles.
Over the following 10 months, it then fell to 1$/7,500 rubles.
That’s pretty bad inflation.
Then one summer day, the government announced that all physical currency would expire at the end of the month. If you turned it in, they would give you 1 ‘new ruble’ for every 1,000 ‘old rubles’.
That’s how they “fixed inflation”, my friends. It’s called “fiat” for a reason.
I have read some where were most countries that have coins don’t mess with collecting them in these money exchanges. So if you have a paper dollar those get replaced but if you have four quarters they just keep those in circulation. Crap is that why there’s a national coin shortage??? They are taking coins out of circulation to prevent people from retaining value of their money in coinage?? Hmmmmm?!?!
I work for a world wide chemical company that processes certain chemicals into other chemicals. Our raw materials have more than doubled in the last 6 weeks. Replacement parts are almost always unavailable, backordered for months. A simple thing as a replacement dock plate for our warehouse was ordered in early June and is supposed to be here by December. We are at a point that we are not accepting orders to be filled before next year. What used to be a 4 – 6 week boat trip across the ocean is now 10 – 12 if you can get it on a boat at all. If we need something and its available we air freight it at an ungodly cost.
We do R&D at work and so just about everything we purchase is oddball items to make prototypes. We’re in big trouble because we just can’t get things – all kinds of things. The most common 40 cent transistors that have been around for 25 years have a year’s backlog. Springs, wire, extruded aluminum bars – you name it. The auto parts store says that brake rotors for most cars are 3-6 months out on backorder. How do you get to work if it takes that long to get your brakes fixed?
It’s going to get a LOT worse.
My wife works in the supply side of the construction industry. For a year, projects continued and some even moved earlier to take advantage of school buildings being empty or offices being empty.
Now though, and for the last month or two, they are scrambling to find alternative products when their normal suppliers can’t make whatever widget needs to be made. Their main supplier manufactures in Wisconsin and does as much in house as possible, but they can’t get chips either. Schedules are starting to slip, projects are starting to be delayed because products aren’t available.
She’s apologized to project managers, and they’ve waved it off saying it’s all their suppliers. So far, they’ve been able to push schedules out, or find alternative products that are ready to ship. Everyone expects that to change soon to the point that projects, big buildings, complexes, campuses, are going to be put on hold. That will ripple through the trades and out into the economy in general.
Bad times are coming.
nick
I had a conversation with a contact at American Electric Power (AEP) last week and they advised us that they are seeing parts pressure on new transformers and wire for new developments in the Mid West. This has a trickle down into their repair cache of parts since developers are anxious to get their projects finished parts can be “borrowed” from the repair side. He plainly said to expect longer outages in the event of damage to do to future storms. Plan accordingly.
I’m less concerned about the shortages themselves than I am the response to them by other people and the government to them, particularly the expectation that they will vilifiy and attack those who did prepare.
In some places, the problem is those attacks will turn physical…
Of course, the bad guys will have to know who to attack.
One of the major mistakes that newbie preppers make is to enthusiastically gush to their friends and relatives about what they are doing and to encourage them to do likewise.
The problem with this neophyte optimism and enthusiasm is that perhaps only 1 in every 15 people might heed the encouragement. The other 14 will do nothing and, when hard times arrive, remember their friend or brother-in-law, who is well-prepared. They will then show up at the prepper’s door when things get sporty with a knife, fork, and empty stomach.
Of course, some of those people will be just the sort of people a prepper might be inclined to help in hard times. Even though they are woefully unprepared, they can be depended on to have the prepper’s back. Others will be simple parasites who will, literally, bring nothing to the table.
For each one turned away, he will likely tell others that his “friend” has plenty of stored food, and that his friend is an evil hoarder. Other unprepared people will then show up chanting, “Hoarder! Hoarder!”
That entire situation will be classified as an unforced error by the newbie prepper.
“The first rule of Prep Club is do not talk about Prep Club.”
Remember that old analogy about how a butterfly flapping its wings in Japan can cause a hurricane in the USA?
Power supply shortage in China causes worldwide shortages.
https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/28/chinas-power-cuts-may-foreshadow-shortages-of-global-goods.html
The Chicom govt. controls wages and the price of electricity, they don’t control the price of imported coal (a lot if it high quality from Australia) which results in the generating plants losing money. Their solution is to shut them off. So now Apple, Tesla, Auto Zone, Costco and others have factories shut down.
Batteries, tires, auto parts, wire, transformers, solar panels, cans, bottles, paper, jar lids etc. production was moved to China because the starving and enslaved people there will work for 30 cents an hour just to survive on rice and rat meat, most of the rest of the world won’t. The Corporate elite raked in record compensation and stock options.
And if they don’t like working for 30 cents an hour they will become prison labor working for zero cents per hour.
People bad mouth Unions all the time but Forbes reported our company had the highest profit margin per employee than any other corporation in the USA, and we are union. We make good money/benefits, we have high productivity and the customers, executives, shareholders are satisfied.
Chinese stopped importing coal in a attempt to force australia to lower prices and bow to Chinese hegemony. The loaded ships sat in Chinese ports for many months until blackouts forced unloading-payment may not have been made. The plant shutdowns started with the Panicdemic(Ft. Detrick bioweapon).
tptb are likely behind the shortages. they hope to engineer food shortages so they have an excuse to take govt control of the food supply. now you can see why the irs wants to watch your 600 dollars, to look for food “hoarding”. control the food, control the people. they thought control the meds would work but it was only a partial success. most revolts fail after the first winter. survive that and you have a chance of success. almost our entire state’s national guard force is being deployed overseas by january. anyone else think that’s odd?
Perhaps the NG soldiers are all the Vaxx Protestors and are being sent overseas to die ingloriously?
*
The elite are killing us off, slowly at first and then increasing. First the senior citizens, then the Clot Shot’ed, next grid down in winter and food shortages. They have to depopulate to stretch out the failing oil production supply. And they want revolution, to deny all Red areas supplies. That will be the excuse. Running out of transformers? As soon as your area rebels, real or False Flag, they save any resources sent there and they can foray into the triaged area for supplies China won’t send. Like electric infrastructure supplies. We won’t have power, so we don’t need them ( locals will strip and ship, for pay in supplies, the Blues won’t be invading to disassemble, unless in border areas ). Things are not GETTING Spicy, they are already there. Enjoy your collapse
Just because these bastards were able to steel the election and usurp power…
why should we stand by and allow them to derail Our Republic. It’s obvious to even a blind man what they’re up to to…and no one does anything to deny them their goal…they’re allowed to stay their course of destruction.
This CANNOT BE BORNE !
Commander:
I find it AMAZING how many businesses refuse to admit the truth –
This is their fault!
They decided to buy their bits from China, because they were cheap. I wonder if they realised that once the factories in the States that could make these parts closed, the Chinese prices would rise…
Or is it that they wouldn’t look that far ahead – because China did.