The Viral Economy

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Re: The Viral Economy

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Isgrimnur wrote: Sun Sep 19, 2021 4:40 pm Childcare facilities don’t have restaurant food costs.
Yeah. I immediately thought that was a really odd comparison.

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Re: The Viral Economy

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So Warren went off on Powell today and is not in favor of him remaining the chair of the Fed. All things considered, I think he's done a reasonable job in a horrible time, facing scrutiny from "both side" to score political points. Maybe, I'm growing further away from the beat of the progressive drum.

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/09/28/sen-war ... ation.html

(While I'm not smart enough to know, I do fear tapering hasn't come quick enough and rates have been too low for long and that inflation will get "unnecessarily" worse and it won't be transitory)
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Re: The Viral Economy

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LordMortis wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:38 pm
(While I'm not smart enough to know, I do fear tapering hasn't come quick enough and rates have been too low for long and that inflation will get "unnecessarily" worse and it won't be transitory)
"Inflation will be characterized by transitory persistence for an indefinite period if time..."
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Re: The Viral Economy

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It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by malchior »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 2:53 pm
LordMortis wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 1:38 pm
(While I'm not smart enough to know, I do fear tapering hasn't come quick enough and rates have been too low for long and that inflation will get "unnecessarily" worse and it won't be transitory)
"Inflation will be characterized by transitory persistence for an indefinite period if time..."
The problem is that people look at headline inflation and never look under the hood to see what is actually going on. When you look at the components it is all over the map. There isn't uniform inflation and there isn't one problem. It isn't monetary for sure. Treasury rates are still super low. It is somewhat energy based but that's not that abnormal because supply and demand matching are sloppy there in good times. So call that some months its energy. In other months its raw materials. Some months it is due to supply shortages and logistical issues. The wood price problem everyone freaked out about? It came down sharply within months of the peak. This isn't normal by any means but it also is more like a symptom that we have an somewhat unhealthy economy overall. There is a lot of change/churn happening but a good indicator is that corporate profits are still healthy.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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malchior wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 7:06 pm There is a lot of change/churn happening but a good indicator is that corporate profits are still healthy.
Some corporate profits are healthy. Some aren't.


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Re: The Viral Economy

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Updates on the supply chain and grocery stores:
Many of the country's biggest food makers are telling grocers that they will have limited quantities of a number of their products, including items such as Rice Krispies Treats, Sour Patch Kids, some Ben & Jerry's ice cream flavors, McCormick gourmet spices and Marie Callender's pot pies because of labor, commodity and transportation constraints throttling supply chains, according to emails viewed by CNN and interviews with grocers. Some suppliers are also telling grocers to cancel their promotions of these items and more over the holidays so products won't disappear from store shelves as quickly.

...

Suppliers are warning the company of "potential shortages" of foods, glass jars and packaging containers. In response, Bristol Farms is working to bring in inventory "earlier than any other holiday ever," Howard said.

...

Some food brands are imposing allocations, or purchase caps, for certain products on grocery stores and distributors, while other vendors are warning more generally of limited availability. Suppliers typically put products on allocation when there are supply shortfalls.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Smoove_B wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 2:52 pm limited quantities of a number of their products, including items such as ...
Sugar, sugar, sugar, spices, and saturated fat/sodium.

What are we trying to push here, CNN Business?
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:29 pm
Smoove_B wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 2:52 pm limited quantities of a number of their products, including items such as ...
Sugar, sugar, sugar, spices, and saturated fat/sodium.

What are we trying to push here, CNN Business?
Just giving the people what they want! (No shade either - while I don't like any of those specific products, I'm all about sugar, saturated fat, and sodium)
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:29 pm What are we trying to push here, CNN Business?
:D

Meat prices are up to, but you're right, they didn't mention that.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Marie Callender's pot pies
Which have noticeably gotten smaller in size while concurrently getting more expensive in price... Or so I'm told... :oops:

Anyone who hasn't been noticing food supply disruptions and pricing variances going generally up isn't paying attention. Interesting they mention promotions, as Costco has really cut down on the promotions they run and has moved them from monthly refresh to bi monthly. I'm begninning to regret renewing my membership. I haven't even gone since July or early August. Marie Callendar's is one of those promotions that comes up a lot less. Miejer, OtOH have pretty much raised prices across the board and while making their sales kinda 'meh' are putting out more and more general incentives to shop. Every time I turn around their offering $5 or $8 or $12 to shop according to some guideline. $2 off a $100 over a month. $12 off $80 in a single receipt. $7 to try "scan and shop". They'd be a bit expensive to just shop there but if you play their incentives games, you can get by pretty cheap. Oddly enough they just did "$5 of $20 in Marie Callendars" but their pricing is so much higher than Costco, especially by volume. The pot pies are smaller but even on 25% if worked properly discount the smaller pot pies are more than their larger Costco counterparts.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Smoove_B wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:37 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:29 pm What are we trying to push here, CNN Business?
:D

Meat prices are up to, but you're right, they didn't mention that.
Last week I bought a couple of steaks for the first time in ages and was shocked at the price. A pound or so of steak tips was ~$20, and they weren't even very good tips.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Kraken wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:16 pm Last week I bought a couple of steaks for the first time in ages and was shocked at the price. A pound or so of steak tips was ~$20, and they weren't even very good tips.
I can't remember the last time I had red meat that wasn't burger and that was like $3.99 a pound for next to bottom tier. You can still get 75/25 for $2.99 a pound on sale but even I don't tend to get that cheap. 75/25 is just not good for much of anything.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by malchior »

Kraken wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:16 pm
Smoove_B wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:37 pm
Isgrimnur wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 3:29 pm What are we trying to push here, CNN Business?
:D

Meat prices are up to, but you're right, they didn't mention that.
Last week I bought a couple of steaks for the first time in ages and was shocked at the price. A pound or so of steak tips was ~$20, and they weren't even very good tips.
That's crazy. Here in "expensive" NJ I just bought a rib eye for a $6.99 for a 9 ounce cut at Lidl. Chicken is particularly cheap right now. For us dairy products are scarce and expensive in my neck of the woods. Still YoY with all this fretting prices are up 3.7%. This is above target but food prices usually are volatile. That is often the problem in this field. People tend to latch onto certain goods and think their price changes reflect the whole market. They don't.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Yeah, red meat seems to have ‘spiked’ with a 10% increase over last year, but 3% averaged out for groceries doesn’t excite me much (though I DO think we are headed for inflationary or even stagflationary months (years?) ahead)

Considering what we went through with lumber, and are currently going through with many sectors (cars, for one)…the grocery bill is tame.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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malchior wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:25 pm
Kraken wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:16 pm Last week I bought a couple of steaks for the first time in ages and was shocked at the price. A pound or so of steak tips was ~$20, and they weren't even very good tips.
That's crazy. Here in "expensive" NJ I just bought a rib eye for a $6.99 for a 9 ounce cut at Lidl. Chicken is particularly cheap right now. For us dairy products are scarce and expensive in my neck of the woods. Still YoY with all this fretting prices are up 3.7%. This is above target but food prices usually are volatile. That is often the problem in this field. People tend to latch onto certain goods and think their price changes reflect the whole market. They don't.
I also bought a 1-lb NY strip for about $16. They were both the bottom-tier "Beef" variety (as opposed to Angus Beef or Organic Angus Beef).

Fortunately (?) I only ever buy steaks when Wife is away, and she stopped going away when the pandemic hit. Last weekend was my first Wife-free weekend in close to two years -- hence the splurge. Most of my grocery budget goes to produce, grains, seafood, and dairy, with a smattering of canned and processed foods plus the obligatory nonfood items like pet food and paper goods. I've been consistently going over budget for the past couple of months, but not dramatically so. The days when going $10 over budget meant that I had to cut somewhere else are behind us, thankfully.
LordMortis wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 4:24 pm I can't remember the last time I had red meat that wasn't burger and that was like $3.99 a pound for next to bottom tier. You can still get 75/25 for $2.99 a pound on sale but even I don't tend to get that cheap. 75/25 is just not good for much of anything.
Wife discovered that she likes Beyond "beef" and I've discovered that it's a decent substitute for most uses where the meat isn't front and center -- it works just fine in chili, for example, where its job is to provide texture and umami. It sells for $10/lb. The last time I bought real ground beef it was $7/lb for 80/20. We don't live in cow country.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Kraken wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:36 pm The last time I bought real ground beef it was $7/lb for 80/20. We don't live in cow country.
I just bought some for $6 a pound out here. Not much cheaper than the NY steaks I got this weekend for $7.99 a pound.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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https://www.nytimes.com/2021/10/10/upsh ... lysis.html
But quality changes involving customer service can be ambiguous and hard to measure. The Bureau of Labor Statistics, which generates the Consumer Price Index, does not incorporate quality adjustment on 237 out of 273 components that go into the index, including the vast majority of services.

Alan Cole, a former staffer for Congress’ Joint Economic Committee who writes the newsletter Full Stack Economics, noticed these sorts of annoyances during a long drive through the Northeast this summer — fast food that took an awfully long time to come, poorly stocked condiment stations, soda machines that were out of stock. The dynamic became even more clear to him when he stayed in a hotel that had a large area designated for offering hot breakfast to guests — it was mostly empty, with a few sad mini-boxes of cereal.

For years, he had argued that official inflation measures actually overstated inflation, because there were many below-the-radar product improvements not captured by the data, like software that was becoming less buggy. Now, he concluded, the reverse seemed to be happening.

When there are shortages of labor or supplies, some businesses adjust mostly or entirely by raising their prices. Others find less obvious, less easily measurable ways to adapt. Consider, for example, rental cars versus hotels. Both were dealing with shortages. But they showed up in different ways.

“The car company just had to charge higher prices, while the hotel could take the hit through service quality instead,” Cole said in an email exchange. “We measure them in different ways. The car company’s problem gets measured as inflation, while the hotel’s problem is mostly relayed by anecdote.”

It is not unusual for businesses to deal with supply shortages through mechanisms other than price increases. Retailers don’t want to attract accusations of price gouging when goods are in short supply, especially in times of natural disaster. So they end up with empty shelves, a backdoor form of rationing. In the 1970s, gasoline prices skyrocketed — but not enough to prevent long lines and rules around which cars could fill up on which days.

This particular economic crisis has had far-reaching consequences that have made economic data harder to interpret than usual.

“Usually when there is a disaster, if you’re a macroeconomist it’s a blip on the radar screen,” said Carol Corrado, a distinguished principal research fellow at The Conference Board who has researched inflation measurements. “But we’re talking a different kettle of fish with the COVID shock, and the economic implications and costs have become much more challenging to measure than in the past.”

Customer service preferences — particularly how much good service is worth — varies highly among individuals and is hard to quantify. How much extra would you pay for a fast-food hamburger from a restaurant that cleans its restroom more frequently than the place across the street?
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Empty shelves and bad customer service very well might be attempts to hide inflation but they also could just be shortages and workers who haven't been able to return to the workforce. The unemployment rate is approaching "full employment" right now (currently at 4.8%) but the participation rate is also down about 3 percent from pre-pandemic. 3 percent is approximately 4-5 million of workers out of the workforce compared to pre-pandemic.

The interesting thing happening is that we are hearing everyone outside economics trying to sell an inflation case when the more likely problem in the economy is dispersed supply chain disruption. Lots of it is lack of worker driven. Some of that is pandemic cyclical but some is structural. On the structural side we are short longshoremen and tons of truck drivers. We are seeing a sharp worker shortage despite pay increases. Hopefully young adult men will be pulled off the sidelines which will be a medium-term process. They'll need various levels of vocational training potentially.

FWIW this is starting to really put an emphasis on a trend economists have been debating for the last couple of years. The question is why have adult men been shrinking out of the work force. You had people who thought educated women were replacing them (they are to an extent), you had automation evaporating the jobs (true to an extent), young adult men have health issues with obesity and addiction (including video games), etc.

Anyway the long story short is that all this is causing price increases that are tantamount to inflation but is a problem you can't treat it with the same medicine. For inflation, you have a variety of tools to use. For example, they can try to drain excess cash out of the machine by raising interest rates. In this case, that wouldn't help and probably would hurt because you'd end up draining money out that is being used to repair supply chain disruptions.

In a functioning nation we could try to diagnose and address the causes but it seems pretty clear we aren't even going to make anything approaching a coordinated attempt. It'll just have to work itself out through a combination of misery and failure. Side note - parts of Biden's agenda including the pre-K / child care stuff in particular would unlock hundreds of thousands if not millions of workers. Also of note is the story that people are living off assistance and cutting them off would force them back into the workforce? That didn't work out either. It just increased the misery levels. GOP bad ideas don't just extend to the way they respond to the coronavirus.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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I have no idea what the going rate for 80/20 is. I only ever buy unless it is on sale. It currently goes on sale for $3.99 which can be had somewhere on any given week. The last dip in beef price after the last spike, it had returned to $1.99 a pound on sale for a while. I doubt we'll ever see that again. I assume we will eventually see "transitory" pricing bring us back to $2.99 but that's an assumption and it may be a year or more away at that.
but 3% averaged out for groceries
Good for you. I'm not sure what my averaged out price is. Some things have doubled. Some things can still be found at the same price. I tend build my diet along sale pricing, and I'm guessing 50-70% increases with occasional "you can't this at all" going on. Again this bears in mind that it was not uncommon for me to get my groceries at 50% off retail based on sales and incentivized shopping. (I stopped cutting coupons when paid off my house) So in essence sale shopping now has me paying about what I would have been paying MSRP in 2019.

Also, for diet and cost sake, I'm debating making chili with no meat. I'm wondering how much of a difference that will make to the flavor. On the bright side beans are still cheap, so even if it's crap, without meat, I'll only be throwing away about $5 for crockpot of chili sans burger.
Kraken wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:36 pm umami.
That has become the food buzzword in the last three of four years. Is umami that important to chili? If it is would buying a broth and adding it be an adequate substitute to meat? I usually do about 3 pounds of cooked and drained meat to about 10 cups beans/tomatoes for my chili and for my next batch I was just going to make more of a bean soup than a chili by just doing the 10 cups of beans/tomatoes and no meat and see how it tasted after cooking for about 8 hours.
Last edited by LordMortis on Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:27 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Carpet_pissr »

The 3% is not my number. That’s from quite a few online data sources that track such things (should have included sources when I looked it up, but they are credible…FDA for one IIRC). They were all within the ballpark, +/- .5%
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Carpet_pissr wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:56 am The 3% is not my number. That’s from quite a few online data sources that track such things (should have included sources when I looked it up, but they are credible…FDA for one IIRC). They were all within the ballpark, +/- .5%
That is inline with the number that the Bureau of Labor Statistics computes. Still that is the average of millions of products. Some are going to be worse than others and in this economy, the supply/demand curves are a bit peakier than normal. There are more products being disrupted but there is good supply on others. People have been able to generally move to substitutes. Otherwise the headline 'Food at Home' number would be higher. That's the loose signal. That means price are evening out over time. It doesn't mean people aren't seeing different but it also indicates there isn't some huge systemic problem behind it.

These are fairly normal numbers. This whole thing is exactly why economics is the dismal science. No one believes them because they are trusting their lying eyes. :)
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Re: The Viral Economy

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gbasden wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 11:25 pm
Kraken wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:36 pm The last time I bought real ground beef it was $7/lb for 80/20. We don't live in cow country.
I just bought some for $6 a pound out here. Not much cheaper than the NY steaks I got this weekend for $7.99 a pound.
We just got some from CostCo. It was about $4.20/lb for the 80/20 or $4.90/lb for the 85/15 Organic. We opted to try out the latter for a change. Since the price isn't much different any more. Also, it's already pre-packaged into smaller amounts, so I don't have to mess with the vacuum sealer. I did not realize that Colorado was that much cheaper than the the northeast.

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Re: The Viral Economy

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LordMortis wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:32 am
Kraken wrote: Mon Oct 11, 2021 10:36 pm umami.
That has become the food buzzword in the last three of four years. Is umami that important to chili? If it is would buying a broth and adding it be an adequate substitute to meat? I usually do about 3 pounds of cooked and drained meat to about 10 cups beans/tomatoes for my chili and for my next batch I was just going to make more of a bean soup than a chili by just doing the 10 cups of beans/tomatoes and no meat and see how it tasted after cooking for about 8 hours.
I've made many different versions of vegetarian chili over the years, and the challenge is always replacing the texture and taste of meat if you want it to resemble traditional chili. Various grains can give you the chewy mouthfeel and thicken the broth -- farro is especially good for that. But the meat flavor (umami) is harder to emulate. Portobello mushrooms come close. A few weeks ago I discovered that Beyond meat works fine in chili. I can finally go back to making chili the way I used to, without having to resort to vegetarian trickery. Wife loved it, and while I'd still rather have real ground beef, the fake stuff is perfectly adequate (and better than farro!). If you didn't know you weren't getting real hamburger, you wouldn't notice the difference.

One can make perfectly good vegetable/grain-based chili-like soups/stews without umami, but it's a stretch to call them chili.

Also, crumbling a few tortilla chips into a bowl of chili is the bomb.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Carpet_pissr wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 8:56 am The 3% is not my number. That’s from quite a few online data sources that track such things (should have included sources when I looked it up, but they are credible…FDA for one IIRC). They were all within the ballpark, +/- .5%
It's a baseline standard but the effective hit to a consumer's bottom line can vary significantly. Household demographics: with kids vs a retiree vs DINK. Geography: urban, rural, grocery desert. Economic strata: Whole Foods, Kroger, bodega. Habits: vegetarian, non-drinker. Etc.


Effectively for us it's easily been 10+% on the typical grocery trip.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Kraken wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:41 am Also, crumbling a few tortilla chips into a bowl of chili is the bomb.
Tortilla is my usual go to but I also accept oyster or butter crackers and then sprinkle with a grated cheese blend. What's really the bomb is a dollop of the spinach artichoke dip at Costco. It totally transforms my chili into something I can't stop eating. For that reason, I no longer buy it when I am making chili. :oops:
LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:45 am Effectively for us it's easily been 10+% on the typical grocery trip.
For me it's considerably more but I was used to to feeding myself on $30 - $40 a week when food costs were trending low or $70-$100 when I splurgey. Now, $70 a week is the bottom. A splurgey week with :shock: receipts might come in at $150. That's when I am outside of my saleshop cycles and buy meat and more than usual fresh produce and a bakery treat or two. The good part is I only feed one, so I don't have to consider the desires of others and cater my shopping to coincide with low price trends. The bad is I buy in quantities that only feed one and often have way too much processed crap because it holds when I buy it on the cheap.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Jaymon »

Pricing and shortages also seem to depend on where you live in the country, and what major chains you shop at.
For example, Starbucks in my town has been out of raspberry syrup for at least 6 months. How do I know? I have 1 drink of choice, and its basically all I drink. But, Dutch Bros has the syrup, and so does the smaller shops.
If Fred Meyer is out of something, its a crap shoot if Safeway or Winco is also out or not. Somewhere up the chain of suppliers and distributors, somebody ran out of stock or delivery drivers, or went out of business. And somebody else didn't.


But I can tell you this, we have refreshed our pantry prepping for empty shelves this winter. And all the Christmas shopping will be done before Halloween.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Carpet_pissr »

I should also state that the numbers I saw were mostly YOY. I suspect things will be a bit uglier when the comparison starts to get into the fall and late 2020.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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Kraken wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:41 am I've made many different versions of vegetarian chili over the years, and the challenge is always replacing the texture and taste of meat if you want it to resemble traditional chili. Various grains can give you the chewy mouthfeel and thicken the broth -- farro is especially good for that.
Bulgur is good for that, too. I used to make a chili with that, but it's wheat and the wife can't eat it so it's off the menu for now.

Unrelated to food, The equipment for the wheelchair lift we're having installed got delayed a few weeks and the contractor is blaming it on "supply chain" generally. Not sure if that's the case or it's just typical contractor delays with an easy excuse.
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Re: The Viral Economy

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If you want more umami, go for the champion, MSG.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Drazzil »

LawBeefaroni wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 8:23 pm
malchior wrote: Tue Sep 28, 2021 7:06 pm There is a lot of change/churn happening but a good indicator is that corporate profits are still healthy.
Some corporate profits are healthy. Some aren't.


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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by stessier »

Drazzil wrote: Tue Oct 12, 2021 10:09 pm Forgive me if I don't believe the rosy picture from the biggest zombie firm of all, the Federal Reserve.
That comment is nonsensical.
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stessier
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by stessier »


Spoiler:
President Biden @POTUS · 14m United States government official
Today I’m announcing that the Port of LA will begin operating around the clock 24/7 to make sure Americans can get the goods they need.

My Administration is working around the clock to move more goods faster and strengthen the resiliency of our supply chains.
Wait - it wasn't???
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Kraken »

I thought the bottleneck was trucks to haul it all away.
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stessier
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by stessier »

Kraken wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:27 am I thought the bottleneck was trucks to haul it all away.
I thought so too - but the tweet makes it seem like at least part of the problem was the hours being worked at the port. Maybe they will get it operating 24/7 by fixing the truck supply (as well as extending work hours)?
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malchior
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by malchior »

It's good to see someone stepping in. I'd love to hear the details as I don't think they are doing this by expanding hours. Ports typically run 24/7 (in good times). At least they do here in NJ. My FIL is a longshoreman supervisor at Port Newark. They are tying up and unloading ships at all times. The reference to the 24/7 might be that they are smoothing out problems that were preventing regular operations but it isn't clear.

I talked to my FIL about this...two weeks or so ago...he had heard through the grapevine that they were having trouble getting full crews of longshoremen and trouble getting containers out of the port in both directions (in from the sea / out from land). That was partially trucking and partially other supply chain disruptions. I suspect the union constraints aren't as -- ahem colorful -- as the ones here so this isn't about guys no showing. Still even with cranes/automation you need some folks to do all that work. So I'm curious how they are dealing with the longshoreman angle. I doubt they are staffing the docks being it is probably going to be heavily unionized.

I also wonder if they are using US government resources to fill the trucking gap. The other angle to consider is perhaps customs was slowing down the work. They don't scan / inspect every container but heavy volumes could be challenging. They use a risk-based system but still that is something the Biden administration can work with.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Carpet_pissr »

stessier wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 10:17 am Wait - it wasn't???
My first reaction as well. WTF

Was there a specific issue with that port? I thought all ports have been backed up (ships waiting in line for days and weeks) for a while. Also, why not the East Coast? I get that LA is the biggest port, but Newark/NY is just as big (or very close) as LA in terms of import volume IIRC from my previous life's career 5ish years ago.

Too bad I don't have access to the data platforms and satellite feeds I had back then or I could furiously look it up and see what's what. :D

Also, isn't this sooooo American?! :P The only thing (ok, that's an exagerration, but not much I think) we can work together on and accomplish is making DAMN sure our Christmas shit from China is not delayed. Yeah, yeah, our democracry is crumbling all around us, as are our roads and bridges, and we are riddled with internal strife that is likely to tear the country apart, but DON'T. FUCK. WITH. OUR. SHIT. THAT is a bridge too far, buddy. Brendon's just GOT to have his Xbox under the tree this year!
Last edited by Carpet_pissr on Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:51 pm, edited 1 time in total.
malchior
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by malchior »

Carpet_pissr wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:14 pmI thought all ports have been backed up (ships waiting in line for days and weeks) for a while. Also, why not the East Coast? I get that LA is the biggest port, but Newark/NY is just as big (or very close) as LA in terms of import volume IIRC from my previous life's career 5ish years ago.
Port of Elizabeth, Port of Newark, and Port of Brooklyn are pretty much close to capacity at the moment. I can jump in my car right now and head up to the Ikea in Elizabeth and I'd be greeted with a parking lot of trucks waiting to get into the port to pick up or unload containers. It's grueling for them. My FIL is probably going to be retiring soon. I've been with my wife 15 years all-in and he is always working: tying up ships, knocking heads together to get guys to show up, dealing with problems, etc.
Also, isn't this sooooo American?! :P The only thing (ok, that's an exageration, but not much I think) we can work together on and accomplish is making DAMN sure our Christmas shit from China is not delayed. Yeah, yeah, our democracry is crumbling all around us, as are our roads and bridges, and we are riddled with internal strife that is likely to tear the country apart, but DON'T. FUCK. WITH. OUR. SHIT*. THAT is a bridge too far, buddy. Brendon's just GOT to have his Xbox under the tree this year!
Honestly this is important. Biden is dealing with sagging performance ratings. Anything he can take credit for and make strides on is crucial now. If that means presents under the tree, so be it. As long as they make sure everyone knows who should get the credit.
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by Carpet_pissr »

malchior wrote: Wed Oct 13, 2021 12:48 pmHonestly this is important. Biden is dealing with sagging performance ratings. Anything he can take credit for and make strides on is crucial now. If that means presents under the tree, so be it. As long as they make sure everyone knows who should get the credit.
Oh, I totally get it, but I thought it needed to be mocked. (finger pointing directed at myself as well, FWIW).
malchior
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Re: The Viral Economy

Post by malchior »

By the way - a bit of a premature declaration of victory yet but gives you a sense of things. Notice the first spike is inverse to the big dip when the pandemic hit. It basically cancels out. If prices bounce around a bit, this will indeed look transitory. Also, that big spike was mostly energy/car prices/airline tickets. All real components but it wasn't very broad or uniform like we saw in the 70s event.

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