Other Shortages...

[ihaveaquestion]

Besides gas, there are other shortages happening according to my husband, who works in an auto parts store...

Metal shelving
Diesel exhaust fluid
Latex gloves
Oil filters
Metal items in general
Microprocessors (for new Ford trucks)

Also, he says scrap metal prices are up because of the metal shortage.

Is anyone else noticing anything?

[rickford66]

1. The main reason for shortages is the broken supply chains.

They are the product of many years of fine tuning and many corporations use the just in time supply scheme. Having no inventory on site saves money until there are interruptions. It'll take time to rebuild this system. Imagine if all the computers were destroyed by a solar flare. How do you build new computers, since we depend upon computers to build computers ?

[VarryOn]

2. I work in logistics and supply chain management...

There aren't enough truck drivers (a problem for 30+ years), railroad workers, port employees, and dock workers.

It's not easy getting freight moved nowadays.

[sarcasmo]

9. Self Delete

[Claire Oh Nette]

3. Tariffs and Pandemic

The previous administration's mistaken notion that tariffs were a winning strategy in a trade war with China triggered a 25% price hike over a year ago. No one commented on the price hikes as they were drowned out by Coronavirus news.

The slowdown reduced demand, but price hikes offset supply glut. Now that the economy is opening up and demand outstrips supply, price increases, or quality falls to maintain price. When Tariff pass throughs to the consumer meet increased demand without increased supply, we get increased costs across the board.

Shutdown affected everything. Bringing manufacturing and supplies up to pre pandemic levels takes more time than laying workers off does. Biden's four months in to an administration cleaning up the messes left by a rudderless ship of state running aground over and over again.

[Ron Green]

4. The fragility of these supply lines is starting to show.

The “just in time” model was developed not by supply people, jobbers and warehousemen, but by financiers, bankers and lawyers.

If we don’t start to shift our paradigm away from innovation and development to maintenance and repair, we are screwed.

[Lisa0825]

6. This. nt

[happybird]

5. Our big jugs of oil for the deep fryers at work have nearly tripled in price this week

It’s soy bean oil. We’ve been dealing with the glove shortage for months. The price skyrocketed on the latex-free ones we used to use. They fit nice and snugly like a latex glove. The ones we have been using the past few months are a weird, stretchy plastic-type material. They fit too loosely and are a pain in the butt when trying to chop stuff.

[Raine]

7. I had trouble finding my cat's favorite food

I knew there'd be trouble if I came home without it. 😾 I went to three stores and finally found it. 🐱 🐈

[NBachers]

8. My hardware/lumber store is experiencing bad supply & delivery problems; prices are going up & up.

Ace is one of our suppliers. They've been out of pipes & plumbing fittings and hardware. Other vendors are weeks behind in their deliveries; some essential items are months out. Prices go up on all our inventory; as soon as we change the tags, we have to raise prices again. We've taken to printing tags with no prices on them.

It's a bit shameful and embarrassing to keep apologizing to our loyal customers that we're out of things they need.

Meanwhile, Home Depot, which had been working out "exclusive" deals with manufacturers, had already reduced available supply; they're using their purchase and bully power to siphon up whatever they can get, making it difficult or expensive for other stores to get merchandise. They're rapaciously trying to restrict supply to their competitors and become a monopoly.

[Captain Zero]

10. Chicken Salad, for about 6 weeks now at both Kroger and WalMart groceries. I kid you not.

I've been in Kroger twice this week. Two different Kroger stores.
WalMart on Monday had none.
This has been happening for about six weeks.

So my bread is overstocked because we are not eating any chicken salad sandwiches.
Oh, and Kroger and Walmart are the chicken salads we like. Not chancing another place's.

Especially Meijer's. Theirs sucks.