The Viral Economy

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Holman
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Holman »

Oil is $1/barrel and falling. Presumably it’s very temporary, but how is this even possible?

What does it do to entirely oil-dependent countries like Saudi Arabia or Russia?
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Image
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Holman wrote: Mon Apr 20, 2020 2:03 pm Oil is $1/barrel and falling. Presumably it’s very temporary, but how is this even possible?
At $1/barrel, if it actually came in barrels, you could buy it and sell the barrel itself without oil for profit.

Tanker prices meanwhile are jumping on contango. I wonder if it's feasible to store oil in abandoned malls. Malltango!

What does it do to entirely oil-dependent countries like Saudi Arabia or Russia?
I reckon they get desperate. Demand will go back up but it probably won't reach pre-covid levels for years, if ever.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Daehawk »

Its now $0.01 cent a barrel.

Oh wait spoke too soon..its now $1.49 negative value...so they are paying people to take it :P
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Ralph-Wiggum »

Ok - time to buy one million barrels and become a millionaire!
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Daehawk »

Stessier quote from the gas thread...
Make that -$35.20. That's actually impressive.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Max Peck »

Right up until you need to pay the storage bill for your new supply of oil. From what I gather, the main reason that the price is going negative is that nobody wants to be holding the bag when the contracts come due and they become responsible for an actual oil delivery when there is no place to store it.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by LawBeefaroni »

Max Peck wrote: Mon Apr 20, 2020 4:06 pm Right up until you need to pay the storage bill for your new supply of oil. From what I gather, the main reason that the price is going negative is that nobody wants to be holding the bag when the contracts come due and they become responsible for an actual oil delivery when there is no place to store it.
Yes, part of the contract includes mandatory delivery. That price is the May futures contract, BTW, not market price. If you have 7Mbbl via a May future, they will drop 7Mbbl on your head (or your storage location of choice) in May if you don't pass the buck
sell the contract
pay someone to take the contract.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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My car only holds so much.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Holman »

Didn't Trump applaud himself just the other day for a deal with Putin and MBS that would protect the oil industry from crashing?
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Kraken »

Trump has spoken privately with Putin 4 times in the past two weeks. Nobody knows that they're talking about, but I'm sure they're perfect phone calls. "Official readouts of their conversations indicate the leaders discussed the coronavirus pandemic and a price war that destabilized the oil markets."
"Reaching out to the United States ... is part of part of Putin's long-term plan to basically undermine the credibility of the United States as an important stalwart player in the global system, to undermine our alliances, and then to create as many lasting sources of tension between Donald Trump and his own national security team," Weiss told CNN. "The more that Russia succeeds in doing that, the less pressure Russia itself is likely to face from a unified western camp."

Putin's appeal to Trump is meant to be an "end run around the US national security bureaucracy, the State Department, the Pentagon, the intelligence community," which are far more distrustful of Moscow than the President is, Weiss said.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by LawBeefaroni »

A company that agreed two weeks ago to pay a $6.5 million fine for overcharging the Department of Veterans Affairs for wound-care products was approved for a loan under the government’s small-business rescue package.
MiMedx? Are you kidding me?


I have to get on this fucking gravy train.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Smoove_B »

Lobbying for small business loans to go to payday lenders feels totally normal:
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressing the Trump administration to let payday lenders gain access to small business rescue money, going to bat for companies that have been accused of engaging in predatory behavior toward lower-income people.

The move comes as officials try to quell public criticism by stopping hedge funds and publicly traded companies from benefiting from the program, which is designed to avert massive job losses and resumes on Monday after running out of funds because of high demand.
Instead of giving small business loans to major corporations, we're going to pivot to making sure payday loan predators can remain solvent. Our system is rotten to the core.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Smoove_B wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 1:12 pm Lobbying for small business loans to go to payday lenders feels totally normal:
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressing the Trump administration to let payday lenders gain access to small business rescue money, going to bat for companies that have been accused of engaging in predatory behavior toward lower-income people.

The move comes as officials try to quell public criticism by stopping hedge funds and publicly traded companies from benefiting from the program, which is designed to avert massive job losses and resumes on Monday after running out of funds because of high demand.
Instead of giving small business loans to major corporations, we're going to pivot to making sure payday loan predators can remain solvent. Our system is rotten to the core.
I'm beyond disgusted with the system. If it wouldn't hurt so many people I wouldn't mind seeing it collapse upon itself. There seems to be no way to reform it without a major crisis...and we are honestly barreling inexorably towards one. At the long view, prominent members of the GOP are so bent on punishing the blue states that they are risking a depression. So far the message to local/state governments who get their revenues furthest downstream from all this and are among the most impacted entities in this crisis...is go fuck yourselves. They are so bent on their hardball bullshit they don't realize or don't care that they are finally playing with actual fire. If blue state governments' fall into the abyss it hurts everyone. They are dependent on our economies. It's insane that they can't even see their eventual self-interest.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Smoove_B wrote: Sat Apr 25, 2020 1:12 pm Lobbying for small business loans to go to payday lenders feels totally normal:
A bipartisan group of lawmakers is pressing the Trump administration to let payday lenders gain access to small business rescue money, going to bat for companies that have been accused of engaging in predatory behavior toward lower-income people.

The move comes as officials try to quell public criticism by stopping hedge funds and publicly traded companies from benefiting from the program, which is designed to avert massive job losses and resumes on Monday after running out of funds because of high demand.
Instead of giving small business loans to major corporations, we're going to pivot to making sure payday loan predators can remain solvent. Our system is rotten to the core.
Banks have been bad actors by using these loans as rewards for existing customers and/or marketing to try to land new "good" customers. All the while taking processing fees for doing so and with absolutely zero risk to themselves. However, Congress and regulators dare not demand that banks process these loans fairly so they're turning to payday loaners who are in a place of weakness, who are mostly hated, and most importantly, who aren't nearly as powerful a lobby as banks. They can bully these entities around all they want. Shit rolls downhill and banks are at the top of the hill.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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From the Atlantic, how the pandemic will change American retail forever:
The year 2020 may bring the death of the department store, bringing an end to that 200-year-old retail innovation after decades of decline. Macy’s has furloughed more than 100,000 workers. Neiman Marcus has filed for Chapter 11. More legacy department stores and apparel retailers will almost certainly follow them to bankruptcy court or the corporate graveyard. As these anchor stores shutter, hundreds of malls that were already wobbling in 2019 will be knocked out in 2020.

The pandemic will also likely accelerate the big-business takeover of the economy. In the early innings of this crisis, the most resilient companies include blue-chip retailers like Amazon, Walmart, Dollar General, Costco, and Home Depot, all of whose stock prices are at or near record highs. Meanwhile, most small retailers—like hair salons, cafés, flower shops, and gyms—have less than one month’s cash on hand. One survey of several thousand small businesses, including hotels, theaters, and bars, found that just 30 percent of them expect to survive a lockdown that lasts four months.
...
As e-commerce grows, it will pull more stores out of ground-floor retail locations. Many of these spaces will stay empty for months, removing the bright awnings, cheeky signs, and crowded windows that were the face of their neighborhood. Long stretches of cities will feel facelessly anonymous. With fewer independent stores and more Americans working from home, the streets will be quieter, too. Some urban residents might enjoy the feeling of a half-filled city; it will carry the eerie vibe of an awkward, permanent holiday. But even those cheered by the ample sidewalk room will find, in the darkened windows to their left and right, a shadow of the city they knew before the plague.
...
Things may get even worse this summer when restaurants are open for business but customers are scared—or local laws require dining establishments to operate at 50 percent capacity. “A lot of restaurants might come back in June and realize they can’t make a profit all summer, during their peak season,” said H. G. Parsa, a restaurant consultant and professor at the University of Denver. Most people I spoke with expected cities to enact social-distancing rules that will limit restaurant capacity to discourage large crowds. Several chains are saying they plan to stagger seating and reduce the number of tables in their establishments. Others are talking about installing dividers between booths or adding temperature checks at the door.

Empty space is bad enough for downtown restaurants, where thin margins require filling every square inch with paying customers. But at a deeper level, these adaptations will create a whole new ambience, making restaurants more awkward, more expensive, and less fun. One of the joys of getting a drink in a crowded space is the soundtrack of a hundred strangers’ conversations humming underneath the intimacy of a private exchange. Social-distance dining prohibits the thrum of a full house. “Until there’s a vaccine, I don’t think dine-in restaurants and bars will get anything back to normal in this country,” Steve Salis, a Washington, D.C.–based entrepreneur who owns several restaurants, told me.
...
This all-delivery economy will require either a quantum leap in autonomous vehicles and drone technology or a significant increase in delivery workers. In the short run, I’m betting on the latter. Instacart is currently seeking to add 300,000 contract workers in the next three months—more than the total anticipated new hires by Amazon, CVS, Walmart, and Walgreens combined. The delivery industry, including not only Instacart but also Uber Eats and DoorDash, has received substantial criticism for its treatment of workers, who are typically denied benefits like health care and paid leave. If social distancing accelerates the delivery economy, it will also expedite policy conversations over how to adequately compensate the essential workers who are allowing Americans to remain safely distanced.

By obliterating the face-to-face economy, the coronavirus will return Americans to a blend of virtual commerce and home prep that is reminiscent of the late 19th century. In the 1890s, Sears, Roebuck and Company delivered a bible of goods to the doorsteps of families who cooked at home. In the spring of 2020, Amazon and its ilk deliver an infinitude of stuff to the front steps and mailrooms of families who couldn’t dine out even if they wanted to.
Overall a very interesting read.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by malchior »

I read that piece earlier. It feels like it is in the right direction. This pandemic exposed the inequality imbalances of the gig economy but there seems to be no way to hold back these forces. Even if Biden wins he isn't a force for change here. He'll go along with it to fix the economy. Our nation will continue on its path of inequality and injustice. Power will continue to concentrate in the hands of the wealthy. Beyond that it becomes more murky but there is no reason to think we are trending towards social or economic justice at the moment.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Smoove_B wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:30 pm From the Atlantic, how the pandemic will change American retail forever:
The year 2020 may bring the death of the department store, bringing an end to that 200-year-old retail innovation after decades of decline. Macy’s has furloughed more than 100,000 workers. Neiman Marcus has filed for Chapter 11. More legacy department stores and apparel retailers will almost certainly follow them to bankruptcy court or the corporate graveyard. As these anchor stores shutter, hundreds of malls that were already wobbling in 2019 will be knocked out in 2020..
Like I said, all the dead malls can be used to store crude oil. It's win/win. And the sprawling parking lots can be used as homeless camps. Win/win/win!
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by coopasonic »

Man, the halloween stores are going to have a lot of options this fall.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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coopasonic wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:52 pm Man, the halloween stores are going to have a lot of options this fall.
What Halloween?
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Re: The Viral Economy

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:55 pm
coopasonic wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:52 pm Man, the halloween stores are going to have a lot of options this fall.
What Halloween?
The sexy coronavirus costumes won't sell themselves!
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Isgrimnur »

pr0ner wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 5:09 pm
LawBeefaroni wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:55 pm
coopasonic wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:52 pm Man, the halloween stores are going to have a lot of options this fall.
What Halloween?
The sexy coronavirus costumes won't sell themselves!
Minimum 6 ft radius.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Largest US meat company warns food supply chain is breaking
Financial Times wrote:The largest US meat company has warned of shortages for consumers, saying the country’s complex food chain was “breaking” as Covid-19 spreads to refrigerated packing plants.

Tyson Foods has shut down three slaughterhouses and partially reopened a fourth in the past week as it tests workers for coronavirus. Almost a third of US pork processing capacity and 14 per cent of beef capacity is now offline as the disease sweeps through the densely staffed cutting floors of packing plants, agricultural economists say.

John Tyson, Tyson’s chairman, said American grocery stores would have sparse meat selections until its plants came back. “As pork, beef and chicken plants are forced to close, even for short periods of time, millions of pounds of meat will disappear from the supply chain,” he wrote in a letter published in three US Sunday newspapers.

Supermarket meat cases were sometimes depleted as consumers stocked up in advance of government-decreed lockdowns in March, but meat supplies remained steady. The US produced 5bn lbs of red meat last month, up 13 per cent from a year before, according to the US Department of Agriculture.

Slaughter totals have since plummeted as plants close down or slow their line speeds to account for Covid-19 tests and sick workers. On Friday, US packing plants killed 83,000 cattle, down by more than a quarter from 114,000 a year before, and 361,000 pigs, down almost 20 per cent from 449,000 a year ago the USDA reported.

Tyson last week closed two pork plants in Logansport, Indiana, and in Waterloo, Iowa, that together can slaughter almost 35,000 pigs a day, according to estimates by Steve Meyer of Kerns & Associates. It also closed a beef plant in Pasco, Washington, as it tested more than 1,400 employees there.

Poultry plants, centred in the southern “broiler belt” stretching between Arkansas and the Carolinas, have not been hit as hard by the coronavirus, said Terrence O’Keefe of Watt Global Media, a poultry trade publisher. Some chicken plants whose restaurant sales have dried up have sold cuts at bargain prices outside their plant gates, he said.

In the Midwest, some farmers unable to sell their pigs to closed packing plants had begun to euthanise them, executives said.

“Millions of animals — chickens, pigs and cattle — will be depopulated because of the closure of our processing facilities. The food supply chain is breaking,” Mr Tyson wrote.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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"We will have to kill these animals because we have no place to kill these animals."

JFC, what a timeline.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Re: The Viral Economy

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Smoove_B wrote: Mon Apr 27, 2020 4:30 pmOverall a very interesting read.
Everything about the illness itself is so uncertain that it's easy to lose sight of how very weird times are going to be before the end of the year. Right now I'm just buckled in and gripping the armrests, white-knuckled and eyes closed. The only thing I'm certain of is that I need to get out and vote for any shade of Blue that shows up on any ballot I can legally touch. Everything else is pants-shitting insanity.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Jaymon »

Store shelves are starting to get really weird man. This is way beyond empty TP aisle.

I want a bag of frozen stir fry veggies. Haven't seen them for 3 weeks. We have been getting different bread every trip, because they don't seem to have the same selection two weeks in a row. Can't find pepsi zero cherry flavor. Plenty of other flavors.

A little while back, they had gallon of whole milk, 29 cents. only the gallon size, and only the whole milk. And it wasn't close to expiring or anything, they just had so many, they needed to clear it out. all other types and sizes were regular price.

I saw those articles from tyson about a meat crisis, so I expect the meat aisle is about to be emptied out.



But all in all, I am still glad every single day that I didn't get laid off or furloughed.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Jaymon wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:55 amI am still glad every single day that I didn't get laid off or furloughed.
I sort of second that. I was out for two weeks - and while it was nice to be with my family for those 14 days, it was an eternity of anxiety. Being back at work for the last couple of weeks has made me feel more normal - and it's nice knowing the clock on unemployment benefits was paused, so if I need it again later, it's there.

I worry about all the folks out there who just don't have anything. Living in apartments, hand-to-mouth jobs, no savings, bills piling up.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Ralph-Wiggum »

Jaymon wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:55 am Store shelves are starting to get really weird man. This is way beyond empty TP aisle.

I want a bag of frozen stir fry veggies. Haven't seen them for 3 weeks. We have been getting different bread every trip, because they don't seem to have the same selection two weeks in a row. Can't find pepsi zero cherry flavor. Plenty of other flavors.
Do they have plenty of Dasani water?

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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by LawBeefaroni »

US Q1 GDP down 4.8%.


Q2 is going to be a disaster.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:14 am US Q1 GDP down 4.8%.


Q2 is going to be a disaster.
Of course, the DOW is set to open up almost 2%, so once again, proof the stock market and the economy at large are less linked than usual.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by malchior »

Jaymon wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:55 am Store shelves are starting to get really weird man. This is way beyond empty TP aisle.

I want a bag of frozen stir fry veggies. Haven't seen them for 3 weeks. We have been getting different bread every trip, because they don't seem to have the same selection two weeks in a row. Can't find pepsi zero cherry flavor. Plenty of other flavors.

A little while back, they had gallon of whole milk, 29 cents. only the gallon size, and only the whole milk. And it wasn't close to expiring or anything, they just had so many, they needed to clear it out. all other types and sizes were regular price.

I saw those articles from tyson about a meat crisis, so I expect the meat aisle is about to be emptied out.



But all in all, I am still glad every single day that I didn't get laid off or furloughed.
I've remarked about this in random places but I'm in a heavily affected area and the stores here are beyond weird. It is hard to get staples/basic items here. I have stores for different things that are near reliable. Meat = random Mexican market. If I want pasta/certain vegetables I need to go to a Foodtown in a Hispanic area. Butter. Well I randomly can get that if I'm lucky. Milk and eggs are everywhere here. Decent supply. Because this is America junk food is in steady supply which is really fucking annoying. Frozen vegetables. I rarely see them. For me what I saw was panic shopping that was absurd, then continuing supply shortage since then here. My friend's wife lost her nanny job and picked up a supermarket job and says the supply issues are truckers/stockers.

That said, it has been getting better over the last couple of weeks. I've never been even close to short 'food' but fresh foods were very hard to get. 30 miles West? My friends say it is pretty ok except for TP. 30 mile East (the shore) is very similar to me. This is local to us but still I've seen people break down over the issues. I'm healthy, risk tolerant to a dangerous degree, and relatively wealthy and it is a little unnerving. I can't imagine what a lot of people in tough situations are dealing with.

I talked about this in EBG but another weird thing is that Amazon is flat out broken for us. I have an open order from mid-march that just got pushed again a week and a half. That is for finish dishwasher tabs. Not critical but just an oddity. My wife's subscribe and save for April got pushed into mid-may. My subscribe and save for April got delayed 2 weeks. Not end of the world but its crazy to me that even Amazon is sagging in my area.
Last edited by malchior on Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:45 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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malchior wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:42 am
Jaymon wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:55 am Store shelves are starting to get really weird man. This is way beyond empty TP aisle.

I want a bag of frozen stir fry veggies. Haven't seen them for 3 weeks. We have been getting different bread every trip, because they don't seem to have the same selection two weeks in a row. Can't find pepsi zero cherry flavor. Plenty of other flavors.

A little while back, they had gallon of whole milk, 29 cents. only the gallon size, and only the whole milk. And it wasn't close to expiring or anything, they just had so many, they needed to clear it out. all other types and sizes were regular price.

I saw those articles from tyson about a meat crisis, so I expect the meat aisle is about to be emptied out.



But all in all, I am still glad every single day that I didn't get laid off or furloughed.
I've remarked about this in random places but I'm in a heavily affected area and the stores here are beyond weird. It is hard to get staples/basic items here. I have stores for different things that are near reliable. Meat = random Mexican market. If I want pasta/certain vegetables I need to go to a Foodtown in a Hispanic area. Butter. Well I randomly can get that if I'm lucky. Milk and eggs are everywhere here. Decent supply. Because this is America junk food is in steady supply which is really fucking annoying. Frozen vegetables. I rarely see them. For me what I saw was panic shopping that was absurd, then continuing supply shortage since then here. My friend's wife lost her nanny job and picked up a supermarket job and says the supply issues are truckers/stockers. That said, it has been getting better over the last couple of weeks. I've never been even close to short 'food' but fresh foods were very hard to get.

I talked about this in EBG but another weird thing is that Amazon is flat out broken for us. I have an open order from mid-march that just got pushed again a week and a half. That is for finish dishwasher tabs. Not critical but just an oddity. My wife's subscribe and save for April got pushed into mid-may. My subscribe and save for April got delayed 2 weeks. Not end of the world but its crazy to me that even Amazon is sagging in my area.
You're in NJ, right? I'm curious why the experience there is so different from mine in Boston. Guessing it's due to the greater population of NY / NJ? Plus maybe some supply chain vagaries / random chance?
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malchior
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by malchior »

El Guapo wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:44 am
malchior wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:42 am
Jaymon wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:55 am Store shelves are starting to get really weird man. This is way beyond empty TP aisle.

I want a bag of frozen stir fry veggies. Haven't seen them for 3 weeks. We have been getting different bread every trip, because they don't seem to have the same selection two weeks in a row. Can't find pepsi zero cherry flavor. Plenty of other flavors.

A little while back, they had gallon of whole milk, 29 cents. only the gallon size, and only the whole milk. And it wasn't close to expiring or anything, they just had so many, they needed to clear it out. all other types and sizes were regular price.

I saw those articles from tyson about a meat crisis, so I expect the meat aisle is about to be emptied out.



But all in all, I am still glad every single day that I didn't get laid off or furloughed.
I've remarked about this in random places but I'm in a heavily affected area and the stores here are beyond weird. It is hard to get staples/basic items here. I have stores for different things that are near reliable. Meat = random Mexican market. If I want pasta/certain vegetables I need to go to a Foodtown in a Hispanic area. Butter. Well I randomly can get that if I'm lucky. Milk and eggs are everywhere here. Decent supply. Because this is America junk food is in steady supply which is really fucking annoying. Frozen vegetables. I rarely see them. For me what I saw was panic shopping that was absurd, then continuing supply shortage since then here. My friend's wife lost her nanny job and picked up a supermarket job and says the supply issues are truckers/stockers. That said, it has been getting better over the last couple of weeks. I've never been even close to short 'food' but fresh foods were very hard to get.

I talked about this in EBG but another weird thing is that Amazon is flat out broken for us. I have an open order from mid-march that just got pushed again a week and a half. That is for finish dishwasher tabs. Not critical but just an oddity. My wife's subscribe and save for April got pushed into mid-may. My subscribe and save for April got delayed 2 weeks. Not end of the world but its crazy to me that even Amazon is sagging in my area.
You're in NJ, right? I'm curious why the experience there is so different from mine in Boston. Guessing it's due to the greater population of NY / NJ? Plus maybe some supply chain vagaries / random chance?
Correct. Specifically near New Brunswick, NJ. When I say Mexican/hispanic it means New Brunswick proper. For us, it's the supply chain. The stores can't hire people to work. I think it's similar to my wife's factory. 80% of the workforce has turned over in the last month. They either quit or got (secretly) sick.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by noxiousdog »

pr0ner wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:28 am
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:14 am US Q1 GDP down 4.8%.


Q2 is going to be a disaster.
Of course, the DOW is set to open up almost 2%, so once again, proof the stock market and the economy at large are less linked than usual.
I'm not sure that follows. The stock market is off 20% it's peak, no?
Black Lives Matter

"To wield Grond, the mighty hammer of the Federal Government, is to be intoxicated with power beyond what you and I can reckon (though I figure we can ball park it pretty good with computers and maths). Need to tunnel through a mountain? Grond. Kill a mighty ogre? Grond. Hangnail? Grond. Spider? Grond (actually, that's a legit use, moreso than the rest)." - Peacedog
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by El Guapo »

malchior wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:46 am
El Guapo wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:44 am
malchior wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:42 am
Jaymon wrote: Tue Apr 28, 2020 11:55 am Store shelves are starting to get really weird man. This is way beyond empty TP aisle.

I want a bag of frozen stir fry veggies. Haven't seen them for 3 weeks. We have been getting different bread every trip, because they don't seem to have the same selection two weeks in a row. Can't find pepsi zero cherry flavor. Plenty of other flavors.

A little while back, they had gallon of whole milk, 29 cents. only the gallon size, and only the whole milk. And it wasn't close to expiring or anything, they just had so many, they needed to clear it out. all other types and sizes were regular price.

I saw those articles from tyson about a meat crisis, so I expect the meat aisle is about to be emptied out.



But all in all, I am still glad every single day that I didn't get laid off or furloughed.
I've remarked about this in random places but I'm in a heavily affected area and the stores here are beyond weird. It is hard to get staples/basic items here. I have stores for different things that are near reliable. Meat = random Mexican market. If I want pasta/certain vegetables I need to go to a Foodtown in a Hispanic area. Butter. Well I randomly can get that if I'm lucky. Milk and eggs are everywhere here. Decent supply. Because this is America junk food is in steady supply which is really fucking annoying. Frozen vegetables. I rarely see them. For me what I saw was panic shopping that was absurd, then continuing supply shortage since then here. My friend's wife lost her nanny job and picked up a supermarket job and says the supply issues are truckers/stockers. That said, it has been getting better over the last couple of weeks. I've never been even close to short 'food' but fresh foods were very hard to get.

I talked about this in EBG but another weird thing is that Amazon is flat out broken for us. I have an open order from mid-march that just got pushed again a week and a half. That is for finish dishwasher tabs. Not critical but just an oddity. My wife's subscribe and save for April got pushed into mid-may. My subscribe and save for April got delayed 2 weeks. Not end of the world but its crazy to me that even Amazon is sagging in my area.
You're in NJ, right? I'm curious why the experience there is so different from mine in Boston. Guessing it's due to the greater population of NY / NJ? Plus maybe some supply chain vagaries / random chance?
Correct. Specifically near New Brunswick, NJ. When I say Mexican/hispanic it means New Brunswick proper. For us, it's the supply chain. The stores can't hire people to work. I think it's similar to my wife's factory. 80% of the workforce has turned over in the last month. They either quit or got (secretly) sick.
That must be it. Because the epidemic has been so much worse in NY / NJ, supply chain workers are much less able and willing to work, so the supply chain doesn't work as well.

What's interesting is that the supply chain effects seem much more localized than I would have expected.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by malchior »

El Guapo wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:27 amThat must be it. Because the epidemic has been so much worse in NY / NJ, supply chain workers are much less able and willing to work, so the supply chain doesn't work as well.

What's interesting is that the supply chain effects seem much more localized than I would have expected.
This is my working theory because I'll pull a random town out -- Bridgewater, NJ is much, much better. If you pulled out a map, the further west you got the better it is. Bridgewater, NJ is probably 15 miles from New Brunswick but the stores are much better in Bridgewater. Go 15 miles north east towards Woodbridge, NJ and its just as bad if not worse. It is very local which is why no one has heard about it. It is a "last mile" issue for sure. The supplies clearly exist. What is interesting to me is Amazon. I can't explain it but it clearly is a problem here. I've long suspected we were in some distribution donut hole. It has been getting worse as this progresses which sucks on top of the whole grocery store angle. I'm going to start traveling further afield to get supplies but that sort of violates the spirit of the whole thing.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by pr0ner »

noxiousdog wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:25 am
pr0ner wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:28 am
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:14 am US Q1 GDP down 4.8%.


Q2 is going to be a disaster.
Of course, the DOW is set to open up almost 2%, so once again, proof the stock market and the economy at large are less linked than usual.
I'm not sure that follows. The stock market is off 20% it's peak, no?
You would think an announcement of hard numbers relating the economy shrinking would send the stock market tumbling immediately instead of going up 2-3%.

But, I guess potential Covid treatment news trumps (heh) the shrinking economic figures.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Kraken »

pr0ner wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:56 am
noxiousdog wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 10:25 am
pr0ner wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:28 am
LawBeefaroni wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 9:14 am US Q1 GDP down 4.8%.


Q2 is going to be a disaster.
Of course, the DOW is set to open up almost 2%, so once again, proof the stock market and the economy at large are less linked than usual.
I'm not sure that follows. The stock market is off 20% it's peak, no?
You would think an announcement of hard numbers relating the economy shrinking would send the stock market tumbling immediately instead of going up 2-3%.

But, I guess potential Covid treatment news trumps (heh) the shrinking economic figures.
Stocks try to anticipate the future rather than react to the past. Ordinarily, sure, a reading like that would portend grim times ahead. And we already know that the April stats will be much, much worse than March. BUT, investors see Congress and the Fed spraying around trillions of dollars while economic activity is starting to flutter back to life in May. Banks and blue-chip companies will be fine. Probably.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by noxiousdog »

Kraken wrote: Wed Apr 29, 2020 11:05 am
Stocks try to anticipate the future rather than react to the past. Ordinarily, sure, a reading like that would portend grim times ahead. And we already know that the April stats will be much, much worse than March. BUT, investors see Congress and the Fed spraying around trillions of dollars while economic activity is starting to flutter back to life in May. Banks and blue-chip companies will be fine. Probably.
Assuming it's a direct correlation, I suspect they were happy it was only 4.8%.
Black Lives Matter

"To wield Grond, the mighty hammer of the Federal Government, is to be intoxicated with power beyond what you and I can reckon (though I figure we can ball park it pretty good with computers and maths). Need to tunnel through a mountain? Grond. Kill a mighty ogre? Grond. Hangnail? Grond. Spider? Grond (actually, that's a legit use, moreso than the rest)." - Peacedog
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