Tag Archives: shortages

How Our East-Germany-like Widespread Shortages can be Fixed, by Walter Block

Posted on July 30, 2022 | Leave a comment

Here’s news to the government and media: markets, when allowed to operate, fix shortages. From Walter Block at thesavvystreet.com:

All sorts of shortages are now popping up in our economy. At the head of the list is undoubtedly infant formula, but there are literally dozens of other items in short supply. There are so many of them that I feel constrained to mention them in alphabetical order, lest I inadvertently miss one or engage in double counting.

Here they are, as best I can list them: aluminum, avocado, bicycles, blood collection tubes, blood for transfusions, canned vegetables, cat food, chlorine, Christmas trees, coal, coins, commercial air tickets, computer chips, cream cheese, dye used in CT scans, eggs, fuel oil, garage doors, gasoline, girl scout cookies, hand sanitizer, home covid tests, infant formula, juice boxes, liquor, lithium, lumber, maple syrup, meat, motorcycles, natural gas, paper towels, pet food, potatoes, semiconductors, soap, soda, sunflower oil, toilet paper, tomato paste and wine. Peanut butter has not yet been mentioned in this regard but will soon, undoubtedly, be added prominently to this list.

I’m not kidding: each and every one of these items has been mentioned in this regard in the major media. What is going on here? Has the economy gone crazy, or what? According to several headlines, that is just about what is occurring. Here are a few of them: “The world is still short of everything; get used to it.” “America is running out of everything.” “Product shortages and soaring prices reveal fragility of U.S. supply chain.”

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Farm equipment is scarce and pricey. The John Deere strike has farmers worried. By Phil McCausland

Posted on June 29, 2022 | Leave a comment

This is a representative instance of what’s going on out there in the real economy. From Phil McCausland at nbcnews.com, h/t Hardscrabble Farmer at The Burning Platform:

Farmers say they sympathize with the desire for better wages, but they face equipment and parts shortages. A long strike could affect the food supply chain and their bottom lines.

Joel Everett said he was astounded when a lightly used 2009 John Deere tractor sold at his last auction in Strawberry Point, Iowa, for tens of thousands of dollars more than it had cost fresh off the production line more than a decade ago.

Bought new for $109,000, the tractor sold for $143,000 at auction, he said. It’s not an isolated incident, said Everett, who has run Joel’s Tractor and Auction since 1992. A lot of farm equipment, particularly used tractors, is selling for 30 percent to 50 percent more than it was two years ago at his auction house.

“It’s been unreal,” Everett said. “Our last sale was the biggest dollar sale we ever had, and we’re fixing to have another in three to four weeks that’s going to blow that one away.”

Quality farm equipment is getting hard to find amid the supply chain shortage, many farmers and experts said, and its scarcity is driving up prices and raising questions about whether farmers’ harvests and next year’s planting season could be affected.

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A Permanent Shortage of Everything, by Daniel Greenfield

Posted on June 21, 2022 | Leave a comment

The only things that are not in short supply are governments, NGOs, and bureaucrats. From Daniel Greenfield at gatestoneinstitute.org:

Globalists were wrong. The world isn’t flat.

  • The world isn’t flat, it’s all too round…. That’s why Islam is once again at war with Europe, Russia is invading Ukraine, China is relaunching its empire, and the ‘flatland’ is experiencing a dimensional shift.
  • Globalization advocates had just recreated Marxist central planning with a somewhat more flexible global model in which massive corporations bridged global barriers to create the most efficient possible means of moving goods and services around the planet. Borders would come down and cultural exchanges would make us all one ushering in the great union of humanity.
  • Market consolidation due to government regulations has left a handful of companies sitting atop the market. When one of them, like Abbott for baby formula, has a hiccup, the results are catastrophic; others like Procter & Gamble, which controls about half the menstrual products market, don’t have to worry about losing market share to competition. Similar consolidation in food, paper products and supermarkets have replaced a dynamic economy with cartels.
  • Behind all the brands on the product shelves is a creaky Soviet system in which a handful of massive enterprises interconnected with the state lazily crank out low-quality products from vast supply chains that they no longer control and feel little competitive pressure to perform better. The only thing that is still American about the supermarket experience is the advertising.

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“Not Going To Happen To Me Again” – Prepping Goes Mainstream In Post-COVID Era, by Tyler Durden

Posted on February 13, 2022 | Leave a comment

You start stocking up in a hurry when you see a lot of empty shelves at the grocery store. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Consumer psychology radically changed during the early days of the virus pandemic as shortages at supermarkets emerged. Bulk-buying habits were never a thing with the modern consumer in a pre-COVID world, but now ‘prepping’ has gone mainstream two years since the beginning of the virus pandemic as supply chains remain snarled and food inflation is out-of-control. Many have discovered: be prepared or be hungry. 

The pandemic was an eye-opener for tens of millions of consumers who learned the government and big corporations wouldn’t take care of them when things go south. Even our elected officials were nowhere to be found in the early days of the pandemic when people panic hoarded food at supermarkets and fought over toilet paper in a ‘free for all battle royale’.

WSJ interviewed consumers across the country who’ve expressed their purchasing habits have changed.

“Bulk-buying habit is expected to stick as people eat more at home, supply remains uncertain and inflation rears up. Retailers and producers are shifting operations as a result,” WSJ said. 

Alexis Abell, a 41yo mother of five, buys in bulk out of fear of economic uncertainty.

“I don’t want to be in a position again where I can’t get something,” Abell said, who was laid off in 2020 and decided not to return to work. Her household spends about 25% more a week on food and staples versus a couple of years ago. 

“The stimulus money is gone, but we’ve gotten used to having more on hand and I’m cooking more at home, so I expect this to continue,” she said. 

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Finally, Bloomberg Admits Renewables Mania Caused Energy Shortages, by Michael Shellenberger

Posted on January 6, 2022 | Leave a comment

Sometimes the hardest thing for people to admit is the obvious. From Michael Shellenberger at michaelshellenberger.substack.com:

Plus, new Environmental Progress Analysis finds German emissions rose in 2021 and in will rise again in 2022
Michael Bloomberg is directly invested in natural gas and renewables and is the owner and publisher of Bloomberg Media

Between 2017 and 2021, Environmental Progress and I researched and published dozens of articles, testified before Congress, and authored a book, Apocalypse Never, arguing that weather-dependent renewables were making electricity increasingly unreliable and expensive, and making the United States, Europe, and Asia, dangerously dependent on natural gas. In response, there was an organized and somewhat successful effort by progressive climate-renewables activists to cut off our funding, censor us on Facebook, and prevent me from testifying before Congress.

But now, one of the biggest boosters of natural gas and renewables, media giant Bloomberg, whose owner, Michael Bloomberg, is directly invested in natural gas and renewables, has published an article conceding and substantiating almost every single point we have made over the years. “Europe Sleepwalked Into an Energy Crisis That Could Last Years,” screams the headline. The article concludes that the crisis was “years in the making” because Europe is “shutting down coal-fired electricity plants and increasing its reliance on renewables.”

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Retailers Lining Store Shelves With Props To “Hide Supply Shortage”, by Tyler Durden

Posted on October 23, 2021 | Leave a comment

The pictures would be hilarious if they weren’t so disturbing. From Tyler Durden at zerohedge.com:

Americans are waking up to the fact that shortages of everyday products such as ice cream, frozen food, soda, chicken, spices, coffee, fish sticks, snacks, and toilet paper are popping up all over the country as supply chains remain heavily congested 19 months after the virus pandemic first began. Instead of leaving some store shelves bare, which might insight fear and buying panic among consumers, some stores are lining their empty shelves with meaningless items to appear as full as possible.

A little more than a week ago, hashtag #EmptyShelvesJoe was one of the hottest trends across Twitter but was quickly squashed by Twitter police. People from all over the country went to their local supermarkets and big-box outlets to point out how supply chain snarls have left some store shelves bare.

Retailers have since panicked, and social media users are now pointing out that some store shelves are lined with single items to “hide the supply shortage.”

A user tweeted a picture of what appears to be single boxes of Kraft Macaroni & Cheese lining multiple shelves.

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Empty Christmas stockings? Don’t blame COVID; blame California, by Andrea Widburg

Posted on October 15, 2021 | Leave a comment

Behind every shortage worthy of the name lurks government. From Andrea Widburg at americanthinker.com:

The conventional wisdom from the left is that COVID is the reason that shipping containers are in the waters off California with no stevedores or truckers available to take care of them.  The implication is that if people would stop being selfish and take the vaccines, the whole problem would magically vanish.  That’s nonsense.  As a couple of astute articles explain, the problem is that California has passed two laws — one for “climate change” and the other as a sop to the unions — that destroyed much of California’s trucking industry.  Add in woes unique to the industry and COVID payments that discourage people from working and…voilà!…empty Christmas stockings.

Stephen Green, at PJ Media, explains some of what’s going on.  As a preliminary matter, truckers are aging out of the job, and new ones aren’t coming along.  Because federal law requires that truckers be at least 21, kids who leave school at 17 or 18 get involved in other careers, leaving trucker shortfalls.  Women don’t offset this problem because, as is typical for most physically difficult jobs, it’s not their thing.  Those are long-term problems.

The short-term problem, though, is that California has passed laws taking trucks off the road:

Twitter user Jerry Oakley reminds us that “Carriers domiciled in California with trucks older than 2011 model, or using engines manufactured before 2010, will need to meet the Board’s new Truck and Bus Regulation beginning in 2020.” Otherwise, “Their vehicles will be blocked from registration with the state’s DMV,” according to California law.

“The requirement is to purchase electric trucks which do not exist.”

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The Everything Shortage & Price Hikes Plastered All Over Fed’s “Beige Book,” by Wolf Richter

Posted on September 9, 2021 | Leave a comment

How long does transitory inflation have to last before it becomes non-transitory inflation? From Wolf Richter at wolfstreet.com:

“We need lower consumer demand to give supply chains time to catch up… recover efficiency… and break this vicious circle”: CEO of Maersk’s APM Terminals, one of the largest container port operators.

Today’s release of the Fed’s “Beige Book“ – an informal narrative of the economy as told by small and large companies in the 12 Federal Reserve districts – listed “shortage” 77 times, up from 19 times in January.

Shortages of nearly everything, with labor-related shortages being the most prominent. These shortages “restrained” growth, and companies were “unable to meet demand” because of these shortages. Here are some standouts:

  • “Extensive,” “widespread,” “intense,” “acute,” “persistent,” “broad,” and “ongoing” “labor shortages.”
  • “Worker shortages”
  • “Workforce shortages”
  • “Shortages of drivers”
  • “Truck driver shortage”
  • “Chassis” shortage
  • “Ongoing microchip shortage”
  • “Pervasive resource shortages”
  • “Material shortages”
  • “Inventory shortages” from retailers to housing.
  • “Supply chain shortages”
  • “Supply shortages”
  • “Shortages of parts”
  • “Shortages of inputs and labor”
  • “Increasingly severe shortage of auto inventories”
  • “Shortages of parts for farm equipment”
  • “Restaurants reported severe supply and staffing shortages”
  • “Nursing shortages”
  • “Raw material shortages”
  • “Shortages of labor and other raw materials” that delayed construction
  • “Persistent materials shortages”
  • “Shortages and higher costs for both labor and non-labor inputs”
  • “Retailers noted shortages of and increased lead times for merchandise, particularly on foreign-made goods”

The labor shortages came with “turnover,” and employees leaving their jobs to work somewhere else, which confirms the data in the report on job openings and quits in the most distorted labor market ever.

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If Everything Is Going To Be Just Fine, Why Do The Shortages Just Keep Getting Worse? by Michael Snyder

Posted on May 21, 2021 | 4 comments

Let honest money and markets work and shortages are transient, soon addressed by the price mechanism and greedy suppliers. However, we’ve got dishonest money and a government that despises markets. From Michael Snyder at theeconomiccollapseblog.com:

They keep telling us that economic conditions are improving, but if that is true why are the shortages worse than ever?  For a moment, I would like to take you all the way back to 2019.  Before the pandemic came along, we didn’t have any shortages.  If you wanted something, you just went to the store and got it or you ordered it online.  Prices were low, global supply chains were functioning smoothly, and to most people it seemed like it would stay that way for the foreseeable future.  But then the pandemic hit, and “panic buying” caused short-term shortages of certain items such as toilet paper and hand sanitizer.  It was understandable that people would want to hoard those things, because there was a lot of fear in the air.  But we also knew that those shortages were only going to be temporary.

Now here we are in 2021, and we were told that things would be getting back to normal by now.

But instead, there are severe shortages everywhere around us.

In fact, the shortages are far worse than anything that we experienced in 2020.

For example, did you know that dozens of important drugs are in short supply?  According to the official FDA website, there are shortages of more than 100 drugs in the United States right now…

If you found yourself in a situation like this, you can check the FDA’s drug shortage tracking system.

Right now there are currently about 120 drugs listed as having a shortage.

On the website, if you type in a drug name in the database search field you can see if and why it’s in short supply. You can also see whether it is scheduled to be discontinued, and when the supply may start flowing again.

This wasn’t supposed to happen.

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Posted in Banking, Business, Currencies, Debt, Economics, Economy, Government

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She Said That? 11/14/14

Posted on November 14, 2014 | Leave a comment

From family physician Dr. Holly Abernethy, who owns a private practice in Farmington, New Mexico, with three other doctors. She is turning away all newly eligible Medicaid beneficiaries because she cannot pay her practice’s expenses and maintain her income if the proportion of Medicaid patients grows beyond the current 13 percent. Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Medicaid became the vehicle for covering about a third of nation’s uninsured, and reimbursements are capped.

“I would love to see every Medicaid patient that comes through my door,” Dr. Abernethy says. “If  you give people coverage, they should be able to utilize it.” But making it work would extend her workday, and “I have three small children and I miss them.” The Wall Street Journal, “More Join Medicaid, Straining Health Systems,” 11/14/14

Economics 101: if the demand for a good or service is increased (Obamacare and the increase in Medicaid patients), while the number of suppliers of that good or service stays the same or decreases (there are only so many hours in a doctor’s day, and many of them are planning on taking early retirement or have already done so), the price of that good or service must rise if supply is to equal demand. But of course, the first word of the ACA is “Affordable,” which means price controls and limited reimbursements, which means shortages. So yes, millions have received some sort of medical insurance under Obamacare, and perhaps its even affordable. Whether they receive any medical care is another question. Economics 101 suggests that many of them will suffer the same fate as patients in other nations, including Canada and Great Britain, that have nationalized or semi-nationalized health services: long waits for substandard medical care.

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