I’ll give you a real world example. I used to pay about $6-7dollars for a box of masks (level 3, 50 count). That same box shot up to $35-50 a box right after the shutdown ended. This year it’s been holding at $15-16 I can get one whenever I want and am not limited to the number I can buy and it comes within 2 days. I only say that because during the Covid shutdown year that was not the case.
I really don’t see this price changing, it has not moved in a year. I think the Covid year made it very easy to blame things on supply/demand/shipping and so why not blame a price increase also. The price has come down but definitely not to what it used to be and I don’t ever expect it to.
A little background on what I was trying to convey…I handle the logistics of having containers shipped from overseas regularly as part of my job. Between 2012 and 2019 we paid abou $7600 to ship a container of product from Guangzhou to Houston. It is now up to $21300.
It’s not a problem. It just gets passed on to the consumer.
Let me ask you Absolutcougar about covid mandates:
Is gavin newsom and others partly responsible for imposing covid mandates on California/U.S ports?
Most of the Long Beach and L.A. dockers are part of the union. Quite a few refuse that same mandate and prefer to stay home. This is also happening in S.F., New York and other major ports.
Those gloves and mask are all pretty much made in China or Malaysia so the cost of shipping is a factor but I still don’t see prices going back to pre Covid levels. Even if the price of shipping comes down.
Gloves almost tripled in price in the beginning and have been the slowest to come down of all my dental supplies.
I agree the cost definitely gets passed on. No company is going to take a loss. They will at the least, keep the profit margin the same.
I don’t believe the idea that if supply chain is solved then the prices will get back to normal. They may come down a little but we are all going to be paying significantly more for the same things that we bought a year ago.
Demand is outpacing capacity at this point and everyone knows that if you can get what you need to run your business, you need to stay that course, for now. But when capacity gets back to equal-weight, or eventually over, there will be a shift back to a competitive market that will, eventually drive down cost. In my opinion, if consumers react to the current stock market correction or the rise of interest rate by buying less it could start happening pretty soon.
Buying less is not the answer. We gotta start by lifting all covid mandates like some of the European countries are doing. This will have a direct effect in the docking and trucking industries. Thus enabling better handling of our supply chain.
We have to reverse the energy regulations that have been put in place the last twelve months. It will start by leveling itself.
That’s like saying positive environmental conservation (or mitigation of a novel virus rampant spread) is bad because it will have a negative effect on my stock portfolio.
To clarify, I’m not suggesting that anyone buy less. I’m saying I believe that there are indicators of the economy coming back to Earth a bit from the growth of the last two years and that once that happens, the annoyances of marginally higher prices and wait times of consumer products will improve organically.
Ultimately I think the same thing will happen with the housing market as well.
I gave an example of the so called “minimum wage” a while ago.
After a sales meeting a few friends and I went to a sports bar close to Anaheim Stadium. I got a beer and a buddy of mine got a vodka drink. We got the tab and we found out that his drink was cheaper than my beer. The waitress explained to us that the bar’s owners had to raise “common drinks” such as beer to offset higher wages. She went on and explained to us that because of higher wages she was then making as much as a waitress as what she makes as a dental hygienist. She went to school to become a dental hygienist not so much to become a waitress.
By increasing the minimum wage we are actually “pushing” a percentage of the work force or future work to not “better themselves” Unless you consider making waitressing to be a career. It also pushes for convenient stores and fast food establishments to use more automation hence using less work force. Remember the example of a car factory that started using robots?
The pandemic and its effect on the minimum wage are the best example for all supporters of the minimum wage. How did it affect and keeps affecting the overall economy? We all have the answer.
I don’t disagree with that, I came into a market with minimum wage of $5.75–>$7.00, doing labor 100 hour paychecks in the heat, being a waiter and having my balls busted for tips, and tutoring jobs for scraps does motivate you to earn more or at least to desire a better living.
Moving out of your parents house really does help light a fire under your ass, or at least it better.
I’ll just add that as someone who has worked in the energy sector and knows a lot of people, including family who is currently working in energy and O&G, no significant regulations have been placed on the energy sector for years.
This may not be the narrative you’re hearing but the truth is virtually nothing has changed in energy for the past 6 years.
What you’re seeing is simple. A worldwide pandemic happened. Economies worldwide suffered. Inflation has settled in worldwide. Do you see the common theme?
It’s not just the US, it’s everyone that’s feeling the crunch. No amount of regulation or deregulation is going to help since we’re all connected to the world economy. We just have to not lose our minds while this thing plays out.
He did not say the entire workforce he said a percentage of the workforce, if you’re only response is to say “this is wrong” or a face slap emoji then IDK what to tell you.
You can’t just say “this is wrong” or “we have a problem”, thats pandering. The people are tired of hearing politicians say “we have a problem” and “we have to fix it”, or “or we have a solution”. What is your solution? What is the problem? Why is it wrong? otherwise you have no idea of what you are talking about and are not worthy of the discussion. People are entitled to their own hypothesis, now prove it, prove it wrong, or get the f out of the way of people who actually are fit to do so.
