Shipping Delays and Supply Chain Malfunctions

So I get on to order my new sawmill and BAM there is the supply chain Demon once again. It does not help that Hud-Son has been growing in popularity A LOT over the last 5-6 years. so throw high demand into the supply chain problem and it is going to take probably a year for my new mill to arrive.



The supply chain issues from my perspective seem to be getting worse NOT better. Maybe it is just the categories of stuff I order and had gotten used to arriving at the freight dock 3-7 days after ordering. The cost of freight shipping also annoys me. LOL it used just be SNAFU, then it was TARFU, now days I am wondering if we are moving into FUBAR. I can't blame the companies that assemble and manufacture the things I want and need because they have the same frustrations that I have in getting the components to manufacture the end product and companies that manufacture the components can't get the materials....... and on down the chain.

The average person is doing OK in this environment because the powers that be are working overtime to maintain the illusion of everything is OK just more expensive now. I mean lets be for real the vast majority of people are content to go to the store and get the food they want, have gas to get to the store and back, the toilet flush when the handle is pushed and hot water to come out of the faucet for the bubble bath and the light in the refrigerator come on and the microwave to ding when their hot pocket is hot...... So they can take selfies and make Tik Tok videos of their hot pocket.

A lot of energy and effort is being spent making sure people are getting their hot pockets and feeling a whole lot more secure than they really are!

The bigger picture under the surface that most people don't want to see is looking pretty bleak from where I am sitting. We keep hearing garbage like the inflation is transitory, the supply chain has some kinks in it that are getting worked out.

Our Government is getting more stacked with the most incompetent but politically correct activist types with each appointment. Two of the stand outs and in two of the most important positions to deal with two of the biggest problems we are facing........ The Sec of Transportation and the Sec of Energy are in no way competent or qualified to even be in those positions. Virtually every appointment from this administration is Big Central Government, Big Regulation , Huge spender type, with a firm belief that Only the Government knows what is best you and everyone else and well they are the Government.

There are more major malfunctions Nationally and Globally than I ever thought I would see in my lifetime. The sad thing all of these things are not even the disease they are just the symptoms of a disease that has been growing and festering for a good long while now.

 

I also believe the worst is yet to come.

 

Still waiting on parts for my Husqvarna lawnmower --only been 6 months. Been considering a Hudson saw mill good to know there is a long wait

 

Wait until the truckers and logistic companies exit the business. Fuel price are making it impossible to turn a profit. If they hadn't saved for a rainy day ... well they will fold or close up shop.
Throw in the chinese lockdowns .. nothing coming out of the far east.
warehouse and distribution fires.

Yeah, it could go bad fast. But never fear, the US Military has a great group of logisticians that will keep america moving.

 

Husqvarna parts used to readily available and easy to get and then one day they were NOT I bought the last 2 air filters for the 120 saw at TSC 13 Months ago and the hanger for them has not been restocked since.

 

Had this discussion with my doctor. I indicated my strong aversion to long-term drugs vice using natural means (diet/exercise) or medicinal plants where possible.

He asked me why...a legit question.

I replied with "What happens when the medicine is no longer available?" I asked him how many drugs he scripted for wee made in China - he had no idea.

As a logistician by training and a technical writer by profession, supply chain issues have always been a bugaboo for years. It has only gotten worse.

If you take meds daily - where is your drug made?

Odds are - not in the US. Eye opener article linked below.

Report details where top 100 brand-name Rx drugs are made | CIDRAP (umn.edu)

"PharmacyChecker was launched in 2003 to guide US patients to the most affordable drugs from licensed pharmacies around the world.

The report's author, PharmacyChecker President Gabriel Levitt, with cowriter Lucia Mueller, vice president of operations and communications, identify country of manufacture and source of APIs for the top 100 brand-name prescription drugs by 2018 Medicare Part D expenditure. An analysis of the source of generic drugs was not included in the report" Genrics are almost all made in Asia.

 

Yep the meds I take for the Diabetes are made in India. Love it or hate it I can't keep my blood sugar even close to normal with diet and exercise, If I had to give up the meds I am screwed.

 

You guys are more farm based than I am. To me it sounds like the wheat crop from the Ukraine war leaves a 20-25% lack in world supply. Europe is willing to pay higher prices for US grain, so US farmers sell a chunk of their grain for higher prices overseas, which raises US prices, a lot. This administration only has one setting: crazy authoritarian pushes people around. This administration figures they understand farming because they go to organic farmers markets, so they figure they can tell farmers what to do. They try their hand at price setting. Farmers try their middle finger with the government. Evil ensues. Am I guessing this wrong?
The last time I guessed at one of these, someone set me straight on where my logic was broken.

 

Unless the farmer's production is going straight to a retail consumer, the American, (don't know about other countries), farmer is the only producer that does not get to set the prices for his products. The farmer sells wheat to a corporation that then sells it to where- ever the prices are most profitable for it. Don't blame the farmer for high prices.

 

Big problem with supply chain is that we no longer have either the production base, trained workers, nor control of the jigs, fixtures, special tooling, dies, molds, etc. 50 years ago I was a machinist making high quality bearings, plant in New Hampshire, machines I used made in Conneticuit and New Hampshire, metal and cutting tools made in USA, bearings going into subs, airplanes, computers, automobiles and trucks, farm equipment and machinery, all made in USA. Quit when the company was sold out to the Japanese, now all machines, gauges, etc, are made in Japan and a lot of stuff is roughed in overseas and finished here, so it qualifies as made in USA. The companies, Brown and Sharp, Warner Swazey, etc, that made the machinery are long gone and so is the design, engineering, skilled workmen etc, who could produce equipment that produced parts with a rough tolerance of - 0 and plus 1\10,000 of an inch and then ground into the millionth of an inch. Biggest bearing I ever made had an OD of 10 inches, used on turbines, and smallest had an OD of 1/10 of an inch, used in missile seeker heads.

When the product was made in the USA, we had not only the production facility, but the job shops that made the dies, molds, patterns used to cast parts, the factories to cast the parts, the factory to make the boxes, the plant to print the boxes, etc, and a lot of backups. If one factory couldn't make the parts, all the pieces needed to make and test the product were in a warehouse down the road, not in a warehouse in China, Vietnam, etc, and in a few days could be moved to a different factory, often owned by the company that made the product. Wasn't all that unusual for companies to own steel mills, paint factories, foundries, etc, so that they had total control of production. All of the infrastructure that developed over a 100 year period was destroyed in less than 25 and we no longer have the worlds best iron ore deposits, oil fields, the greens won't let us mine coal or a lot of rare earths, etc.

I may be wrong, but I don't see it coming back, the best we can hope for is a different lifestyle that doesn't suck too badly and I don't think that can occur with the number of drones we now have in our society. They insist on eating the seed corn as they are hungry and have a right to eat. That doesn't leave much room for growth.

 

Much like the new car market, right now. Last year, I chose the model the dealership was expecting, and put down my earnest money.....and then ONLY had to wait 3 weeks for it to be delivered to the dealership!
A friend at work is trying to buy a new Toyota Rav 4 hybrid, and she's waited over a month now, with no idea when hers might show up at the dealership.
And if you don't think you'll be paying anything less than full retail price, on any new vehicle right now....well, you'd better guess again!

 

Have you ordered a ton of extra from suppliers in india just so you have a good amount just in case?

 

In Canada @mysterymet
Were not allowed , they destroy your purchases as they hit customs .
Sloth

 

The stupid republican senators can't wait to lift tariffs on Chinese dog shit.

 

USA food is actually very low cost compared to most of the rest of the world it is a very complex system of trading ceilings and floors, subsidies and incentives and penalties that artificially keep food prices low and stable in the USA. Commodity can only go up or down to the floor or ceiling before trading is stopped for the day for a cool down. So it takes a trend of days-weeks-Months to get to where we are with the prices we see now. Gets muddy though when futures and contract buying selling are figured in. At the farm level we are the only industry that I am aware of that buys our inputs at retail to sell our products at wholesale. The grain price you see on the evening news is the buy price not the sell price that the farmer gets....... Think spot price of gold or silver.

The grain I keep in my grain bank at the elevator I can sell at spot price on the commodity market, but usually contract sell it for well above spot price and avoid the commodity trading floor all together and for a much better price. Future I tend to avoid like a STD they are the rich persons rigged game, you can make a lot of money fast or lose everything fast. Right now I am taking a wait and see with my pile of corn. We have two things at play that may shoot corn contract prices and spot prices for that matter through the roof. We have roughly 26 million to 30 million acres that were going to be corn this year that are now going to be beans this year due to the extreme cost of fertilizers, Corn has a very large input requirement, Soy Beans in comparison have a much lower input cost. That is most likely going to lead to a glut of beans and shortage of corn driving the corn price up. The second thing is a Ethanol production Mandate on a lean corn supply. If that plays out the way it is shaping up the Ethanol Plants will be paying record high contract prices for a limited corn stockpile. That will in turn have a huge ripple effect down the line of Beef, Pork and Poultry prices and the mass meat producers will be paying even higher contract prices competing with ethanol plants for the same corn stockpiles and the price of meats for the consumer will see major price increase due to the major feed increases.

As far as Government price controls they only have a handful of tools to leverage prices up or down. The trading Floor and Ceiling, Subsidies, and the incentive/Penalty system. And things like Ethanol production mandates. The Biggest tool in their chest are the crop reports from the USDA those reports are a major factor in which direction the grain markets go. Please keep in mind this is a vast over simplification of how it works, there are volumes written detailing the complexities of the grain, livestock, poultry, and ag markets in general. And that as we become more dependent on over seas markets and food the national regulated system we use becomes more unstable and obsolete with each passing year.

The Basics of Grain Basis Trading | Daniels Trading

You are not wrong but not exactly right either

Direct marketing to the end consumer by passing as much of the system as possible has been my bread and butter. Unfortunately those that followed what only handful of us were doing in 1990s price their pork beef and poultry at insane high prices direct marketing to the Foodies that shop at those Organic Farmers' Markets. So that is the perception the general public has of all of us that direct market. Before I retired here were my prices VS most others A whole 5# Chicken Me $7.25 the other guys $18 to $28, Pork Chops Me $2.85 per pound the other guys $12-$14 Per Pound, Ribeye Steaks Me $10 per pound THEM $30 per pound and one doing $55 per pound. Table Slicing Tomatoes Me $2.00 per pound Them $5.00-$7.00 per pound, 25# Boxes of seconds canning tomatoes $12.50 Them they would not sell canning tomatoes. It cost me .10 cents to produce a pound of tomatoes using composted cow manure and green manure tea. Cost to produce a pound of pork on pasture with supplemental grain .27 Cents Beef cost me .18 cents per pound to to straight grass/clover finish and .44 cents to grain finish. (I produce my own feed corn with a 2/3 1/3 lease so my 1/3 of the crop is virtually free feed except for the bean meal I mix in for protien. In the last two years I worked farmers markets the biggest question I got was "What is wrong with you stuff that you are selling it so cheap?" SMFH

 

LOL CVS calls me every other week telling me my 90 day prescription is ready to pick up. So about once a Month I go pick up a couple of 90 day refills. At Present I have about 3 years worth vac packed and in a freezer. Damn glad my Co-Pay on those prescriptions is only $15 if I had to pay out of pocket on this stuff it would be burning me for a hair over $800 per Month.

 

Thanks so much for responding. This was exactly what I was wondering about.

 

No its not just you its everything.

 

ya it sucks , many things

S

 

Yeah I'm not going to say what business I am in but our raw materials have gone up 70% in the last three months... and we are a very large American company. I will straight up tell customers who complain about price that they either pay it or do with out because there is no other competition.