Tractor Shortages

   / Tractor Shortages #121  
Like I said before, bean counters are evil.

Charts over time are national averages and are often tilted to make a point. They usually can't be trusted entirely.

Gas is up because people are driving more. Supplies are down because people are buying more than the supply chain can deliver. Prices and supplies are affected worldwide.

Production and transportation are down because of irresponsible cuts and lack of planning to ramp up again.

I could go to a store this morning and come home with a refrigerator before noon.
Id be willing to bet there is a tv in your garage thats tuned in to your favorite news channel 24/7.
 
   / Tractor Shortages #122  
As the worlds biggest economy, by GDP, the US has a pretty big impact on world inflation. In addition, inflationary fiscal policy is not the sole purview of the US or any particular political group. Rather than reposting things written by 'professionals' who all have implicit and explicit biases, I would highly recommend more people take the time to learn how the economy actually works.
LOL! (and you know why)
 
   / Tractor Shortages #123  
LOL! (and you know why)
Sorry, I should have clarified, media 'professionals'. Unfortunately, Economics courses are not required to be a journalist at most colleges and those that have an Econ requirement only require one course. Even Priciples of Economics is broken into two courses. At a bare minimum they would need those two to even understand what words they are reading off of the teleprompter.
 
   / Tractor Shortages #124  
We have more independent truckers. Truckers that get paid by the haul. With backlogs at ports they have to sit for a long time, time which drastically cuts into their over-all trip times: COSTLY!

The pandemic applied the brakes to spending, consumer and corporate. Factories had to scale back. It's not easy to ramp everything back up, and businesses really should be cautious about doing so as the longer-term trend will be lower demand. That said, however, I'd think that replacement parts production will come back up fairly well as new equipment demand will be lower as folks look to stretch out existing equipment.

Toyota, following Fukushima, learned that JIT (Just In Time) had its downsides. They made exceptions to their stocking regime by bumping up inventory for critical parts. I have no idea how they fared with this pandemic. It would be interesting to see the numbers (compared to other manufacturers).

US "economy" has been totally financialized. This shift was essentially started in the early 70s, just after US oil exports peaked and the USD was taken off the gold standard. The big "marketing" push of the finance "economy" began in the early 80s and mostly completed in the late 90s (elimination of Glass-Steagall). The 2008 banking crash propped up a failing system and that system has been on life-support since: even before the crash the Feds were pumping in money- they haven't stopped.

US can never return to its manufacturing heyday. Well, not unless US citizens are able to work for as low of wages as folks in other countries. But even then there's the issue of foreign markets in which to sell in to: would have to increase the purchasing power of a lot of poorer countries' peoples, which would most likely require a substantially weakened USD (another big hit to US workers).

Demographics (CIA has great data that helps in seeing trends) and resource depletion is setting in. Legislative changes, either increasing regulations OR decreasing them, won't change the fundamental path: only difference will be in timing.

So, to answer rScotty's query: there will be a significant lull in the short-term due to the disturbance from the pandemic; in the longer-term we can expect things to ease up a bit but then flatten and likely slowly drift downward (as long as the US doesn't start a shooting war; if this happens then the bottom drops out and authoritarianism takes a hold of our throats [be it from a Blue or a Red glove- party politics have nothing to do with The Game, they're but a distraction and a divisive mechanism to keep the masses from seeing that the empire has no clothes]). "Parts" supply, as noted above, is likely going to rebound as it's one market that is going to have more demand supporting it.

And remember: "cost" is not the same as "affordability." (I care about "affordability".)

NOTE: I place "economics" in quotes because we are in no way economizing our world (it's been a case of continual ramping up of exploitation and extraction).
 
   / Tractor Shortages #125  
Sorry, I should have clarified, media 'professionals'. Unfortunately, Economics courses are not required to be a journalist at most colleges and those that have an Econ requirement only require one course. Even Priciples of Economics is broken into two courses. At a bare minimum they would need those two to even understand what words they are reading off of the teleprompter.
And professional/"properly educated" "economists" are to be trusted sources because why? (top-level US " economics professionals" have trashed many a South American country [refer to Milton Freedman / Chicago School of Economics and Chile et al])

I believe I've already demonstrated that our economic "professionals" work from an improbable premise/paradigm. ANYTHING can be made to look good/credible if you can whip the premise past people. US money is debt. "Interest," which is the actual motivating force (the thing garnering "returns"), doesn't exist in the equation; that is, there is more debt and interest than there is money- our supposed "in balance" system has pretty much never been able to balance- it's a fraud, a Ponzi that requires perpetual expansion in order to [try to] outrun the real imbalance*. To cover this expansion the US has used force, force via its currency as world's reserve currency (this position is waning and will ,eventually, collapse) AND wars (with 800+ military installations spread around the globe everyone else is under threat of immediate violence - and then there are sanctions [applied to the hapless socialist countries, which, if believed by our overlords, are horrible systems- if horrible then why not step aside and let them collapse? - quite spending MY money to screw around in other countries!])*.

*This is not something unique to the US. ALL empires have gone this path. Didn't matter what ideology, what leader or economic system, they ALL collapsed.
 
   / Tractor Shortages #126  
Well, since the Federal Government is ultimately in charge of international and interstate commerce, the only viable solutions we could discuss are not permitted in this forum.
You sound like you think that this is just a US situation. It’s a worldwide situation and much larger than the US government.
 
   / Tractor Shortages #127  
We have more independent truckers. Truckers that get paid by the haul. With backlogs at ports they have to sit for a long time, time which drastically cuts into their over-all trip times: COSTLY!

The pandemic applied the brakes to spending, consumer and corporate. Factories had to scale back. It's not easy to ramp everything back up, and businesses really should be cautious about doing so as the longer-term trend will be lower demand. That said, however, I'd think that replacement parts production will come back up fairly well as new equipment demand will be lower as folks look to stretch out existing equipment.

Toyota, following Fukushima, learned that JIT (Just In Time) had its downsides. They made exceptions to their stocking regime by bumping up inventory for critical parts. I have no idea how they fared with this pandemic. It would be interesting to see the numbers (compared to other manufacturers).

US "economy" has been totally financialized. This shift was essentially started in the early 70s, just after US oil exports peaked and the USD was taken off the gold standard. The big "marketing" push of the finance "economy" began in the early 80s and mostly completed in the late 90s (elimination of Glass-Steagall). The 2008 banking crash propped up a failing system and that system has been on life-support since: even before the crash the Feds were pumping in money- they haven't stopped.

US can never return to its manufacturing heyday. Well, not unless US citizens are able to work for as low of wages as folks in other countries. But even then there's the issue of foreign markets in which to sell in to: would have to increase the purchasing power of a lot of poorer countries' peoples, which would most likely require a substantially weakened USD (another big hit to US workers).

Demographics (CIA has great data that helps in seeing trends) and resource depletion is setting in. Legislative changes, either increasing regulations OR decreasing them, won't change the fundamental path: only difference will be in timing.

So, to answer rScotty's query: there will be a significant lull in the short-term due to the disturbance from the pandemic; in the longer-term we can expect things to ease up a bit but then flatten and likely slowly drift downward (as long as the US doesn't start a shooting war; if this happens then the bottom drops out and authoritarianism takes a hold of our throats [be it from a Blue or a Red glove- party politics have nothing to do with The Game, they're but a distraction and a divisive mechanism to keep the masses from seeing that the empire has no clothes]). "Parts" supply, as noted above, is likely going to rebound as it's one market that is going to have more demand supporting it.

And remember: "cost" is not the same as "affordability." (I care about "affordability".)

NOTE: I place "economics" in quotes because we are in no way economizing our world (it's been a case of continual ramping up of exploitation and extraction).
I recently attended a conference that had a couple presentations about futuristic scenarios in US freight transportation. The presenters argued that we will see big changes in the next 5 years that will see a large shift in US transcontinental freight. The infrastructure bill provides significant funding for rail systems. Costs will likely result in west/east transportation moving more towards rail instead of trucks. One train can transport the same amount of freight as 280 trucks and can move that from the west coast to Chicago in 2 days. That train will use 1/4 to 1/2 the diesel fuel as 280 trucks. The cost of building parallel rail lines to increase capacity is 25% of the cost of interstate highways per mile, and they can last up to 50 years. One truck creates the same amount of wear on interstate highways as 6000 cars. All of these factors make transcontinental transport by rail a much better solution for the future, with trucks doing local deliveries from the rail siding warehouses to the final destination.
 
   / Tractor Shortages #128  
Can't really give an honest opinion without getting a "timeout". Yes, the world has always had diverse politics but things have changed dramatically in the past 5 years or so. People are no longer allowed to have frank and open discussions anymore. If you say something that is not part of the official narrative you lose your speaking privileges. This is what America has become and even this simple, honest statement will likely be removed and my account locked. But yes, I agree with you that the pandemic has been used to create a whole new world.
The first amendment says that the government cannot restrict your speech. It doesn’t give anyone the right to use a private forum and not abide by the rules of the forum owner. It’s the same thing when you enter a privately owned business. They have the right to say “ no shirt, no shoes, no mask, no service.” Private ownership and the ability for private owners to establish rules are an essential and long standing part of our democracy.
 
   / Tractor Shortages #129  
The first amendment says that the government cannot restrict your speech. It doesn’t give anyone the right to use a private forum and not abide by the rules of the forum owner. It’s the same thing when you enter a privately owned business. They have the right to say “ no shirt, no shoes, no mask, no service.” Private ownership and the ability for private owners to establish rules are an essential and long standing part of our democracy.
I keep hearing that flawed argument from people who seem to support censorship of opposing viewpoints.
 
   / Tractor Shortages #130  
I keep hearing that flawed argument from people who seem to support censorship of opposing viewpoints.
It’s US law, not flawed. None of us have a right to impose on private property without the owners permission. You have every right to start your own platform and opine about any of your viewpoints or stand on the street to tell everyone what you think.
 
 
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