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The "Official Shortage Thread"......

Sportsman's Warehouse, Missoula, MT... 10/ 2/21..... Ammo shelves, both black power and loaded ammo as well as reloading components. Looked like I got the last Honda generator other than the floor display model.
 

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I'm going to bite the bullet (literally) and buy another 2000 rounds of 9mm 147gr jhp tomorrow once I get back from dialysis tomorrow. I just want to call and make sure they have it in stock and not have me on back order for 6 months.

I'm also going to buy 200 rounds of 350gr jhp for the 50 Beowulf.

I can't see ammo prices getting much lower than they are now. I'm tired of waiting.

Change my mind.....
 
I'm going to bite the bullet (literally) and buy another 2000 rounds of 9mm 147gr jhp tomorrow once I get back from dialysis tomorrow. I just want to call and make sure they have it in stock and not have me on back order for 6 months.

I'm also going to buy 200 rounds of 350gr jhp for the 50 Beowulf.

I can't see ammo prices getting much lower than they are now. I'm tired of waiting.

Change my mind.....
Everything related to surviving is in short supply... New or used, it does not matter. Weapons and ammo are a given. With winter coming on, small generators are short on supply. Used small generators are simply junk.. Things people could use to cook out in the back yard like cast iron cook pots and stove top coffee percolators have gotten expensive. I won't try to change your mind.
 
A lot of people can't cook. I see an increase in home fire deaths by sliders during any shortage.


slid·er
/ˈslīdər/

noun
noun: slider; plural noun: sliders; noun: life slider; plural noun: life sliders

1. a mass of non thinking protein and carbon that just exists.
  • I am a slider and I like my president Joe Biden.
2. a small hamburger or other hot sandwich made with a soft bun.

BugIn
 
A lot of people can't cook. I see an increase in home fire deaths by sliders during any shortage.


slid·er
/ˈslīdər/

noun
noun: slider; plural noun: sliders; noun: life slider; plural noun: life sliders

1. a mass of non thinking protein and carbon that just exists.
  • I am a slider and I like my president Joe Biden.
2. a small hamburger or other hot sandwich made with a soft bun.

BugIn
For those that can't cook there is Top Ramen®.... Watching them stock up at Walmart
 
Media is reporting there's going to be a Christmas Tree shortage.

I've got plenty, you cut, you haul. $200-each.
 
Don't worry about the Christmas tree shortage, we won't have any TP or bread on the shelves, so a Christmas tree will be a luxury most can't afford.

A Balsum Hill Christmas tree will last for 10-15 years. Buy once, cry once. We have 2, one for the formal living room and another for the family room. Great trees!
 
Don't worry about the Christmas tree shortage, we won't have any TP or bread on the shelves, so a Christmas tree will be a luxury most can't afford.

A Balsum Hill Christmas tree will last for 10-15 years. Buy once, cry once. We have 2, one for the formal living room and another for the family room. Great trees!
Yea with the shortages we may see coming I am kind of wondering about people's priorities and common sense. If the prepped come up short they keep plugging. If the ostriches are wrong they may be screwed.
 
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Yea with the shortages we may see coming I am kind of wondering about people's priorities and common sense. If the prepped come up short they keep plugging. If the ostriches are wrong they may be screwed.

Yes, we've got enough, but I'm thinking it's probably time to reevaluate the situation and add another rack to the supply room.

Canning has taken a back seat this year, but we are going to get our butts in gear and start canning this weekend. BTW, canned Chili is delicious.
 
My favorites are salsa, chili, and spaghetti sauce. My wife has gone canning crazy. All those years helping my grandma in the kitchen have paid off lately. I had no idea why she was big on it, but I now understand I think.
 
If plans go as expected, I'll have about 200 canning jars filled with something or another. This weekend will be vegetables. I shooting for at least 48 jars to be filled. Next week will be chili and spaghetti sauce. I will also do some dry canning of rice, pinto/cranberry beans, salt, sugar and flour. We use 1/2 gallon jars for that.

I'm thinking of doing a few batches of jelly too.
 
(Natural News) Storable food mega-supplier Augason Farms has ceased operations for 90 days, citing, “global raw-material shortages” and “substantial delays” in procurement and production.


“Regrettably, BCG [the parent company owner of Augason Farms] cannot fulfill your orders on time; therefore, this letter communicates our decision to suspend business for the next 90 days, effective immediately,” says an October 7th, 2021 letter issued by Mark Augason, President of Augason Farms, to Augason Farms distributors and retailers (see letter below).


“During these 90 days, we will secure and stockpile raw materials and take measures to accelerate our round-the-clock production output,” the letter continues. “We are confident that this reset period will help us better serve you with on-time, complete shipments in the future,” the letter adds.

 
At times I chuckle at comments from leaders in world commerce:

“We need lower [consumer demand] growth to give the supply chain time to catch up, or differently spread out growth”, said Morten Engelstoft, chief executive of Maersk-owned APM Terminals

Perhaps inflation is the answer to lowering consumer demand. It's certainly working on my fixed income homestead. My wish list is getting longer by the day.
 

Idaho sees 40 percent reduction in 2021-2022 onion crop​


Idaho onions have finished with harvest and one grower says there’s a 40 percent reduction in the crop over last year.
“I attribute it to five different things,” says Shay Myers of Parma, ID-based Owyhee Produce. “There was record dry weather, record windy weather, record high temperatures, record smoke-filled skies and a record labor shortage.

 
Becoming a common phrase = Force-majeure clauses

Alcoa Corp., the largest U.S. maker of raw aluminum, also voiced concerns about magnesium scarcity and has been seeing so-called force majeure declarations by some suppliers. Force-majeure clauses are embedded in sales contracts to allow suppliers to suspend deliveries owing to circumstances outside of their control.

 
While American's will be paying record high prices for natural gas we will be selling it to China under long term contracts. I think we should sell it to them on the spot market. Turn about is fair play....
__________
SINGAPORE/NEW YORK, Oct 15 (Reuters) - Major Chinese energy companies are in advanced talks with U.S. exporters to secure long-term liquefied natural gas (LNG)supplies, as soaring gas prices and domestic power shortages heighten concerns about the country's fuel security, several sources said.

 

Not looking like "Transitory Inflation"......​

CopperCommodity​

4.70-10,547.80
01:58:53 PM
MI Indication


Freeport-McMoRan (NYSE: FCX) shares were on fire this week, popping 14.3%, according to data from S&P Global Market Intelligence. A torrid run in metal prices has sparked strong investor interest in the copper stock ahead of the company's quarterly earnings release.As metals and mining markets are cyclical and volatile, prices of base metals can remain stagnant for long periods of time. That's what's happened with copper prices -- they've languished since the beginning of the decade. This year, though, the price of copper started to rally alongside other metals, but no one could have predicted the kind of dramatic rally we're witnessing right now: Copper just hit a record high of $4.78 per pound, or roughly $10,518 per metric ton on the Commodities Exchange, or COMEX.The biggest trigger for this stunning price surge is tight global supply, with copper inventories at the London Metal Exchange (LME) tumbling to levels last seen in 1974. Yes, you read that right. As last reported, the LME had only around 14,150 metric tons of copper not earmarked for delivery. For perspective, nearly 25 million metric tons of copper are consumed globally every year.

 
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Supply chain SNAFU


Posted on October 24, 2021 by Mike 1 Comment

An industry insider outlines the multifarious problem.
Yesterday I rented a boat and took the leader of one of Flexport’s partners in Long Beach on a 3 hour of the port complex. Here’s a thread about what I learned.
First off, the boat captain said we were the first company to ever rent his boat to tour the port to see how everything was working up close. His usual business is doing memorial services at sea. He said we were a lot more fun than his regular customers.
The ports of LA/Long Beach are at a standstill. In a full 3 hour loop through the port complex, passing every single terminal, we saw less than a dozen containers get unloaded.
There are hundreds of cranes. I counted only ~7 that were even operating and those that were seemed to be going pretty slow.
It seems that everyone now agrees that the bottleneck is yard space at the container terminals. The terminals are simply overflowing with containers, which means they no longer have space to take in new containers either from ships or land. It’s a true traffic jam.
Right now if you have a chassis with no empty container on it, you can go pick up containers at any port terminal. However, if you have an empty container on that chassis, they’re not allowing you to return it except on highly restricted basis.
If you can’t get the empty off the chassis, you don’t have a chassis to go pick up the next container. And if nobody goes to pick up the next container, the port remains jammed.
WIth the yards so full, carriers / terminals are being highly restrictive in where and when they will accept empties.
Also containers are not fungible between carriers, so the truckers have to drop their empty off at the right terminal. This is causing empty containers to pile up. This one trucking partner alone has 450 containers sitting on chassis right now (as of 10/21) at his yards.
This is a trucking company with 6 yards that represents 153 owner operator drivers, so he has almost 3 containers sitting on chassis at his yard for every driver on the team.
He can’t take the containers off the chassis because he’s not allowed by the city of Long Beach zoning code to store empty containers more than 2 high in his truck yard. If he violates this code they’ll shut down his yard altogether.
With the chassis all tied up storing empties that can’t be returned to the port, there are no chassis available to pick up containers at the port.
And with all the containers piling up in the terminal yard, the longshoremen can’t unload the ships. And so the queue grows longer, with now over 70 ships containing 500,000 containers are waiting off shore. This line is going to get longer not shorter.
This is a negative feedback loop that is rapidly cycling out of control that if it continues unabated will destroy the global economy.
Alright how do we fix this, you ask? Simple. And we can do it fast now,
When you’re designing an operation you must choose your bottleneck. If the bottleneck appears somewhere that you didn’t choose it, you aren’t running an operation. It’s running you.
You should always choose the most capital intensive part of the line to be your bottleneck. In a port that’s the ship to shore cranes. The cranes should never be unable to run because they’re waiting for another part of the operation to catch up.
The bottleneck right now is not the cranes. It’s yard space at the container terminals. And it’s empty chassis to come clear those containers out.
In operations when a bottleneck appears somewhere that you didn’t design for it to appear, you must OVERWHELM THE BOTTLENECK!
 
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Go dump the containers in the desert somewhere and pick up new loads.
I bet Trump could solve this.
Difficult to understand why shipping containers are not being loaded on the ships and being sent back to China... If you watch the freight trains, locomotives pull cars owned by many companies... and somehow they get returned (empty) so they can be refilled with oil, coal, cars, etc.......
Not rocket science.
 
I saw a news report saying that they will not allow empty containers back into the port, which I don't understand, as there are commodities and goods that need to be shipped out to other countries.

But on the other hand, they have ships stacked up waiting to get into port, and off loaded, so they probably don't want to waste time with empty containers, and finding a place to store them.
 
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It isn’t the trucks, the drivers, the containers, the ships, or the port. It is California. California is the problem!

 
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It isn’t the trucks, the drivers, the containers, the ships, or the port. It is California. California is the problem!

I did hear we were down 80,000 truckers from the same time 2 years prior. Not sure how much of an impact it makes, but I would think every little bit helps/hurts.
 
I did hear we were down 80,000 truckers from the same time 2 years prior. Not sure how much of an impact it makes, but I would think every little bit helps/hurts.
It's a huge hurt. You don't have to lose much on the margins in order to see real shortages in places. A one percent drop in capacity, even, isn't going to be one percent across the board, it is going to be 80-100% of some goods and smooth flow in others, but only the drop will be noticeable. Bigger losses are going to be exponentially worse. Not sure how to fix it, though...
 
And its a total coincidence this is happening as a multi-trillion build back better bill is in the works…

You know, the one with a lot of infrastructure spending and the clogged ports in the state of the Speaker of the House.

I agree there are a lot of factors but I opine some were strategically put in motion well in advance with predictable outcome (CARB, etc) will full knowledge some form this Bill was coming after the election.

Its always follow the $$$…..and don’t let a good crisis go to waste.

ZY.
 
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The L.A. Harbor Commission voted to implement a "Container Excess Dwell Fee" directed at ocean carriers in an effort to improve cargo movement on container terminals amid record volume.

Supply glut is worsening at the Port of Los Angeles despite Joe Biden’s attempts to ensure 24/7 operations at the port. According to new reports, around 169 cargo ships are anchored off the coast of Los Angeles and are trying to unload. This is up from 100 ships two weeks ago.

 
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Worldwide

BEIJING, Nov 3 (Reuters) - Beijing shoppers stocked up on cabbage, rice and flour for the winter on Wednesday, after the government urged people to keep stores of basic goods in case of emergencies, though it assured them there were sufficient supplies after some panic-buying.

 
Best know where you food will come from for 2022.


The fertilizer shortage is an especially serious problem because it threatens to starve out much of the world if it is not remedied, and soon.


With industrial food production having become the norm throughout much of the planet, the entire food supply system now relies on a steady stream of this fertilizer to continue growing crops using conventional methods.

 
Best know where you food will come from for 2022.


The fertilizer shortage is an especially serious problem because it threatens to starve out much of the world if it is not remedied, and soon.


With industrial food production having become the norm throughout much of the planet, the entire food supply system now relies on a steady stream of this fertilizer to continue growing crops using conventional methods.

A lot of that also comes from oil, so it isnt coming down either.

And its not just food, its also meat. Much of the hay produced is fertilized. Hay and silage are major agricultural crops to feed your meat while it is still alive.
 
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Everything in the food industry excluding boxes have become incredibly difficult to procure.

Order an entire truck load of sanitation chemicals, and maybe receive 1/2 of it if you're lucky. Cost of which has almost doubled.
Cryovac Bags/Plastics have doubled and are hit and miss just like the sanitation chems.
Fiberboard for boxes, doubled in price but can be reliably supplied.

Those issues are only magnified by the labor shortages.
 
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As the supply chain crisis worsens, a new record number of cargo ships are stranded off the coast of California, with no method for offloading their cargo, according to the Washington Free Beacon.


On Tuesday, there were a total of 111 ships anchored just off the coast of Los Angeles and Long Beach, surpassing the previous total of 108 ships on October 21st. Prior to the supply chain crisis, there would usually be either zero or just one ship waiting at sea, as the Port of Los Angeles would always process and ship out its cargo in a timely fashion.

 
Omarova received her education in the Soviet Union and has endorsed Soviet-style command economics in the past.
Omarova has refused to disclose the contents of her thesis, written at the Moscow State University, for which she was awarded the Lenin Prize.

 
Tractor Shortage :oops:

 
Ever watch a car race where the leader runs out of fuel about the time the white flag is dropped and falls to the back of the pack ?
Ever read about a battle where one group ran out of ammo long before the other group ?

(Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer urged President Joe Biden to tap the U.S. government’s reserves of emergency fuel to help lower gasoline prices.

Hmmmm ...... I have not read one head line where there has been a gas station running out of gas or diesel. Agreed, the price for fuel (and everything else) is going up. Biden has curtailed the oil drilling, pipelines and refining...

Now here comes Schumer wanting to drain the Strategic Oil Reserves....

At our current consumption rate of about 20 million barrels a day, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would last only 36 days if we were faced with a situation where the oil had to be released all at once....

America can not move oil fast enough right now... And the bottle necks, labor shortages and approaching winter will all add to the slow down...

Those of us who are shooters are conserving resources..... Schumer would encourage us to go out and shoot up our reserves because replacement components are expensive... Where is the logic ?

All part of the plan.... Restrict flow of commodities and force American's to use up their reserves... How is that going to pan out ?

Hobo

 
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Ever watch a car race where the leader runs out of fuel about the time the white flag is dropped and falls to the back of the pack ?
Ever read about a battle where one group ran out of ammo long before the other group ?

(Bloomberg) -- Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer urged President Joe Biden to tap the U.S. government’s reserves of emergency fuel to help lower gasoline prices.

Hmmmm ...... I have not read one head line where there has been a gas station running out of gas or diesel. Agreed, the price for fuel (and everything else) is going up. Biden has curtailed the oil drilling, pipelines and refining...

Now here comes Schumer wanting to drain the Strategic Oil Reserves....

At our current consumption rate of about 20 million barrels a day, the Strategic Petroleum Reserve would last only 36 days if we were faced with a situation where the oil had to be released all at once....

America can not move oil fast enough right now... And the bottle necks, labor shortages and approaching winter will all add to the slow down...

Those of us who are shooters are conserving resources..... Schumer would encourage us to go out and shoot up our reserves because replacement components are expensive... Where is the logic ?

All part of the plan.... Restrict flow of commodities and force American's to use up their reserves... How is that going to pan out ?

Hobo


Didn't Trump do that at the beginning of his term?