Topic: Inflation & Supply Chain Issues-How bad is it going to get?! - page 2. (Read 394 times)

The pandemic brought in lots of economic instability and cause a a heavy inflation in the price of local food stuffs. We used to have food stuffs and it's ingredients at a very cheap rate but after the outbreak of the pandemic everything went abnormal. Now an average man lives like below the standard meal. This also affected the raw materials for some local production of different commodities which had cause a reduction in both quantity and quality

That's called Shrinkflation, and it's been happening for as long as I can remember. Once in a while there's a promo with bigger packaging, but overall sizes shrink.

Example: Mars went from 62.5 to 58 to 51 grams. It's amazing how marketing works:
Lol. Now I eat 2 of them.

I was looking to order one Raspberry Pi Zero for one of my DIY projects, and this device usually cost around $5, but I couldn't find it anywhere, it is either out of stock or it is 5 or 6 time more expensive.
More information and reports are showing that many microchips are also out of stock, and this is no affecting smartphones, computers, hardware wallets, mining hardware and every other electronic devices.
If you need any electronics parts my suggestion is to purchase them now and don't wait because I am hearing some news that it's going to get much worse in next few months.
We can live without microchips for sure, but now I am seeing that some postal service fees are going up almost 100% as well as essential food prices.

On Raspberry website they say this is all temporary but I am not so sure about that:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/supply-chain-shortages-and-our-first-ever-price-increase/

I noticed that Trezor hardware wallet increased the price for Trezor Model T and they also wrote about global chip shortage and how that affect hardware wallets:
https://blog.trezor.io/how-the-global-chip-shortage-affects-crypto-hardware-d391f0c90ff0

I'd also like to note, despite not seeing any shortages or supply issues on most daily goods, I've faced multiple shortage issues when it comes to bicycle parts. I'm not sure what's exactly the case, my best guess would be the current supply can't keep up with the increased demand. However, this situation has been going on since the pandemic started.

Hasn't the increased demand pushed to a larger production, or is there a wider supply chain issue causing it?

This is quite similar to what we’re facing in my country as well, there have been an increase in the price of almost everything you can get in the market these days. And as for not finding things I need in the market, well I can find them but the problem that I’m having with most of them these days is that companies are beginning to reduce the number of items that were usually in their products they sell: take for example let’s say that you can buy a biscuit of $5 and see about four pieces of biscuits inside it, this time around if you buy that same biscuit you are going to see only three pieces inside it.

And the worst part of it is that even after they have decreased the number of items in that product, they will also increase the price as well which is really annoying. I just hope that things get better and not continue like this.

There is a huge backlog of work in the industry and most corporate client end organisations are pushing hard to get ahead in the current queue of delivery from suppliers, contractors and raw materials producers. The strain on the supply chain and the original producers is also funnelled into a clog of transportation by sea and, in many countries, by land.

My take, this will hurt the economy and last at least most 2022.

I'll just focus on the supply chains at macro level from personal experience:
Some are broken beyond repair at this moment, some are doing just fine.

So, at least in my country or rather than that my region, the things that worked almost flawless:
The whole chain of logistics between my family farm and the meat processing and the superstores, we had zero hiccups with this from the start of April. The guys that run the trucks say that's the same for most of the other businesses in the region, so that's the good part.

Worse than worse is everything that's related to importing heavy equipment and spare parts, we're waiting for some to be shipped out of the US for months and for some from the Netherlands about the same time but at least for the last, there is the hope of actually being processed. Complete disaster with everything that is construction material, from PVC to steel wire.

What could turn worse?
Rumors from our suppliers that fertilizer will go through the roof, and then when it comes to food you're going to see all of them skyrocketing. It's simple, you use fertilizer at 300% and gas at 200% the price you must at 25% or you won't get even, you don't use them your production is cut by 4 or 5 times, and then the law of demand and offer kicks in.
Prepare for a food shock new year, if farmers can't get cheap fertilizer/gas/seed in the spring in autumn you'll see twice the price for everything.


Hihi, just because you don't see them talking about it doesn't mean that there isn't one. Besides, if some ports are congested then it means all the ships are standing by rather than delivering stuff so some ports that are free are just because they aren't receiving anything or exporting anything, which is also damn bad.


Most ports are not designed to deal with huge cargo ships, they lack the equipment and even if they would try and deal with it what takes 1-3 days in a big port will take weeks in a small one. And there is the problem of manpower the problem of cargo that needs to be loaded which would have to get moved to the next port also to be loaded and so on and on, you can't train crane operators in a few months nor can you install them that easy, let's not even talk about the depth of the port.

On the surface yeah, it's easy, do it but when you start crunching the numbers you will see how difficult it is.

This is an important thing for the country to always maintain inflation and the supply chain, in my country, commodity prices can vary by hundreds of percent, this is because the country's infrastructure is still lagging, and maintaining a balanced supply is something that the state must do.

Here is an interesting piece on inflation published back in 2011.


....

A debate could be had over where current day inflation would legitimately be tallied. Governments around the world normally sugar coat and polish statistics to paint a prettier picture of current events.

The real question is: do people want inflation and supply chain disruptions to improve. Enough to be informed and support the right steps necessary to fix them. Delegating the decision making process to complete strangers can sometimes be a forfeiture of all decisions affecting ones future.

It is pretty bad as you may guess and this is happening all over the world, I just made a purchase for an item and the expected time for its arrival is two months and quite honestly I think that is too optimistic, it will probably take 3 months at the earliest.

However I think we are bound to see an improvement on this situation as businesses will try to do everything they can to have their supply chain working and they will pay extra for it and this will bring more people and companies to the field and solve the issue eventually.

Unfortunately that happens all the time. We end up with companies getting richer thanks to our money, and then we end up with not really pay them anymore, or at least not be able to pay them. Which causes us to have debt, and which causes them to not have any new buyers. So, what happens? Companies start to suck since they can't sell stuff, and people are already in big debt because they bought back in the day but can't now, and the market crashes.

This happens all the time, it is expected to happen again, it will never stop happening, it will keep on happening all the time. So all in all I would say that we are going to end up with something like a system change eventually, maybe not now, not this decade, but one day in the future it will be forced to happen.

Neither do I, it's not like I've seen a shortage of anything, it's mostly that all prices have gone up, for most goods you can find in the supermarket. I don't believe that we'll face an issue with shortages anytime soon, but prices are expected to rise significantly in the near future.

The supply chain issues are definitely going to be big for the countries like the US where they import most of the stuff and the factories are not really sufficient enough to handle everything. For the developing countries, the supply chain issues are a bit better but the inflation is worse since their economy is going down due to lack of international exchange.

Plus you should be aware that it's going to affect the upcoming festivals as well. People are going to pay a lot more than the MRP or what it should have been. Therefore what we are seeing right now is not even that bad, one should wait for the Christmas.

i'm not feeling the supply chain issue in my country but the prices is going to the moon particularly the gas so it could still be a supply chain issue causing more demands. but there isn't so much news about it in my country compared to US news which they see port congestion while the delivery ships are docking nearby.

they couldn't just move to another port to unload what they have. it may take days but i suppose it's better than just waiting for weeks in the middle of the sea.
they are saying that if you have something to order for Christmas, this October might be the best time to order for it may be able to reach your doorstep right on time for xmas.

In the EU, inflation is between 2-4% according to official figures, but some economic experts warn that these figures are much higher, because the biggest feature of politicians is that they serve nicely packaged lies.
 

I'm sorry about the toilet paper, it's my least concern - but it's quite noticeable that everything has become more expensive, not only because of the disrupted supply chain, but also because of the increase in fuel prices, which logically caused a chain reaction. Since this development was expected, I created some supplies of basic necessities sufficient for at least 6 months, in addition to producing some food in my garden, which will allow me to be somewhat self-sustaining.

I have long since developed various survival tactics and I am not afraid of inflation or supply disruptions, I have survived much worse than that - but I understand that people are afraid when they see what is happening. Unfortunately, this is due to the fact that we have become a consumer society that depends on big producers, and when they get into trouble, those at the bottom of the food chain can really find themselves in big trouble.

It's pretty high/bad in my country at the moment, I do not know the official percentage, but from my personal daily experiences, inflation seems to be skyrocketing over here as things stands now, another thing is, my country was In a pretty bad state before the pandemic and quite as expected the pandemic has made things a whole lot worse. This is another thing to point out, I believe countries that were struggling perviously are in more mess and things will get bad and even worse for them quicker than countries that could boast of a stable economy before the pandemic.
I'm yet to experience any issues with supply chain, the only thing that's happening is that the contents and quality of products produced are gradually reducing/declining, and I think it's as a result of a hike in the cost of production, well, if things continue in this way then sooner or later they'll outrightly stop the production of some items/products.

when I'm going through everything feels difficult.. I'm optimistic that there's still something I can eat during a pandemic like this.. it shouldn't be the time to just prepare everything.. the impact of the pandemic is very bad.. the country is in crisis with the economic process paralyzed. .. staying at home is not the solution.. The inflation rate for the calendar year (January–August) 2021 is 0.84 percent and the year-on-year inflation rate.. this is sad.. making the prices of products and services increase.. online buying and selling also experienced delays due to lockdown.. hopefully my story is not too painful to imagine

Great topic and I think what's worse is the fact that the insane crisis was there way before the pandemic began. I came across an article and couldn't believe it, but then reached out to a friend who has an IT company in the heart of San Francisco, and what I am going to post does not even only apply to those living right in the center. Check this article headline out from CNBC:

"In San Francisco, households earning $117,000 qualify as ‘low income’"

That is quite insane to say the least and my friend said that this is not just a relative figure because there are so many rich people, it is just the fact that you pay 5k per months for a shoe box as your apartment.

Now during the pandemic even many people from the middle class ended up living in tents on the streets in SF well known for those masses of homeless.

That's painful.

It's going to get very bad, and all this inflation and chain supply issues looks like a manufactured and designed global reset economy crash ready to happen in next year 2022 I think.
I don't trust any of the numbers they are showing us for inflation because they are 100% rigged to be low, everyone can see that prices for everything went sky high, and cargo ships are staying stuck for weeks.
Anyone who thinks that this in temporary and transitory thing is delusional and lives in some fairytale, and I am not sure we can avoid it because people are blindly listening their governments, that is like a blind man leading everyone into abyss.
Owning Bitcoin, land and other hard assets is now crucial, but I would also get ready for hunger games and bigger electricity restrictions soon.

Current predictions are inflation will continue on to 2023 at high rates, but the US economy is going to grow slow too, so it's not just an inflation problem. High money supply and labor shortages, less products on the shelve. To some extent, the supply chain issues were inevitable due to Covid, but the US seems to be unique in that they pay people to stay home and do nothing, therefor lower skilled jobs are empty for months on end. From what I understand, most of the importing happens on the coast of California, and of course, California has basically turned into a welfare state during the course of the pandemic, so not like this was not expected.