Is My Attempt at Hoarding Merely Transitory?

 

It depends on definitions. An individual's life is transitory, in the grand scheme of things.

This term cropped up regarding inflation and it may or may not be transitory, but what about my hoarding habits, due to covid? I realize that Jerome Powell has said it might be time to retire the term "transitory". Seems like an admission that someone was wrong, when first describing inflation as merely transitory. Which begs the question of how much else might be wrong? Oh well, back to my situation.

Shortages early in the Pandemic caused me to add shelves inside the house; stuff the pantry full and then those added shelves being packed. It took a while to get that done but was largely completed in August 2020. At that time, it became just a matter of maintaining the stash. 

Since then, there has been limited contact with people and mostly visits to healthcare settings, etc. This has become normal, and I don't seem to have a problem with the lifestyle. In fact, discovering the many "curbside" opportunities have led me to the conclusion that I can get by quite nicely.

Having established the "stash" of goods, worry over shortages have abated. Granted, there are items each week that are marked "unavailable", but generally within a couple of weeks... they become available. The stash covers that, except for "perishables" which at times is hit or miss. Doing curbside from 2 different stores each week, reduces that as well.

Periodically, I try to evaluate the hoarded goods and estimate long term needs. Generally, this means looking at the world of covid, which currently looks dicey, even with double doses and boosters. 

Which brings me to discuss this Omicron variant. A lot seems to be missing regarding knowledge of this variant. I feel confident our own personal lifestyle should keep us safe from these variants. These variants will likely continue for quite a while as new types of vaccines will likely need to be developed and the lag time between development and sufficient global uptake to slow the rate of mutations... seems to be out of reach.

I would suspect the "supply chain" crisis will be alleviated in the spring, but that does not necessarily mean everything will be readily available, especially in the food area. When I refer to supply chain crisis, I am referring to the piles of goods at our ports, intermodal congestion, etc. We still have the issue of countries closing borders, the flow of goods, etc. You can't really have port congestion if there is no cargo coming in. 

Inflation will likely continue to be a factor, well into 2022, imo. I can almost guarantee the CPI for November will be at 40-year highs and December might ease a bit from the November numbers, as energy seems to be plateauing. However, nothing else seems to be easing, although it may well be the October retail sales, which were stellar and might just be people ordering Holiday "stuff" early... to avoid any potential shortages. That might explain the less than stellar sales of the past Thanksgiving weekend.

Food does not seem to be catching a break and given the disruption to meat packers, etc. due to covid; disruption to farmers worldwide, due to weather and covid, it would seem to indicate no immediate relief in the inflation trajectory. 

While most of our food supplies are of North American origin and would seemingly be safe from issues overseas, etc., the packaging materials, equipment, and replacement parts of equipment used in the food sector are not so safe, imo. 

Just as many industries are moving from the just-in-time model to the just-in-case model, it seems imperative that I consider that as well... which I did but need to continue.

I cannot say when I will ease off the hoarding or if I ever will. There are certain benefits to knowing I have enough to overcome most issues. So, renewing my zeal for hoarding and maintaining the current stockpile will continue and perhaps I will consider expanding, although the latter is much less likely.

Everything stated to this point is about unknowns, regarding inflation and supplies, but another worry and also unknown as well... is breakdown of societal norms, via social upheaval and in case anyone has forgotten... 2022 is an election year for all of Congress and 1/3 of the Senate. By the way... vaccine hesitancy will likely become a bigger issue, the Supreme Court is weighing in on some "hot" topics and people are generally in a bad mood over just about anything you can imagine. Some people are mad at other people because the other people are mad and it escalates from there. 

Outbreaks of the past have seen public trust eroded and with it... a breakdown in societal norms. The Spanish Flu saw some of these societal issues regarding trust in authority figures and the Black Plague was catastrophic.

Trust in leadership had been waning pre-pandemic and multiple factors not directly related to Covid... has eroded the trust even more. 

History indicates that breakdowns in society are not merely transitory, in that it requires changes over may years to achieve a new normalcy. Transitory might mean a lifetime.

When Will the New Normal Settle In?

It seems everyone wants to know when this will end. The ideas being...  if covid were conquered or the supply chain crisis were resolved, as well as a host of others... things will get back to normal or at least a new normal. I guess we all want a bit of stability.

I'm not an expert in these matters, but like any red blooded knucklehead, I must tackle the question or get tackled back.

The biggest complaint seems to be inflation. I would suggest that the holidays could end the excessive consumer spending. I base the term excessive on the massive jump in durable and non-durable goods back in about April. Non-durables seem to be decelerating somewhat, although not rapidly. Of course many of these items can link back to imports and current port congestion.

I suspect this will begin to drop rather quickly in January. That might reduce the stress on the ports and some of the inland shipping. Maybe February for that part. 

As a result the ever escalating inflation trend might flatten out a bit. Note I said flatten out a bit... not drop. A lot of uncertainty regarding that. Just because the port congestion and inland shipping might be easing up at that point, does not mean the cost of what is being imported is going down. Not by a long shot, in my opinion. Granted the supply might outstrip some of the supply, but not every case. 

I really should bring up the 800lb gorilla that started this mess... Covid. As any good American, I tend to look at things American, without consideration of the rest of the globe. And Covid is a Global Pandemic. 

Best case scenario would be sometime next summer, the globe will have sufficiently wrestled the death rates to an acceptable level. It would be foolish to think it is going to be eradicated anytime soon. In the interim, there will continue to be stoppages in all manner of production, distribution amongst many of our trading partners.

This will continue create spot shortages, panic buying, hoarding, etc. I would expect food to be inflationary for another year, as weather related issues driving up costs, require another growing season. Energy is dependent on consumption, so not sure it will go much higher and could go lower... if consumption fell. A recession would certainly drive down the price and reduce inflation on many items... other than food.

Maybe, just maybe, a new type of normal will evolve, nearing New Year's Eve 2023.  

But then, that would assume no new variant crops up that is more transmissible or deadlier or vaccine resistant or some combination or even all.

Maybe the new normal is already here and we just need to adjust. [sigh] And a newer normal, one year from now... etc. 

Trying To Push That Proverbial Rope.

We are familiar or should be... with the causes of current supply chain problems.

Let's be clear... the bottleneck is EMPTY containers taking up room on chassis and spilling over into container warehouses, docks, etc. This is clogging up the system and creating situations where multiple movements of both empty and full containers beyond the normal efficient "just-in-time" movement cannot take place.

To keep the goods moving, more containers are being built and a premium is being placed on empty containers. Just as the goods traffic is snarled, so are the return of empty containers. This is why the major rails shut down for one week in July and have since started metering to their midwestern hubs. For every chassis laden with goods inbound to that midwestern hub, the port must take one chassis laden with either an empty container or outbound goods. Here's a sampling from Freightwaves.

Until such time as the hubs in middle America are "un" choked, the ports will remain congested. And yes, there are driver shortages throughout the system. Truckinginfo.

It was nice optics to have some politico state the ports were now going to function 24/7 and then get 24/7 news coverage of the statement, but saying that and doing that are very different things. Where is the in-depth coverage and follow-up?

COP26

A meeting in Glasgow is to begin soon, to discuss ways to reduce carbon emissions and achieve some targets. A noble cause and more power to them BUT... apparently China and India can't even supply the expected paperwork AND at least one of their leaders is simply skipping the conference.

The current goals are cutting emissions in half by 2030 and net zero by 2050. Considering China and India are nearly one half of current emissions... it would require the rest of the world to be net zero right now. As both China and India are having difficulty finding enough coal to currently generate electricity and driving prices of coal upwards... if they were the only emitters, that 2030 goal is toast, imo. 

This is no reason to give up on emissions reduction, but realism needs to be on the table. It is certainly admirable to hope for the best but... we need to prepare for the worst as well. 

It should be noted Jaguar Land Rover is furnishing 240 electric vehicles to transport these folks around. However, there is likely not enough recharging capacity available, so Diesel generators will be used to re-charge. But this is not going to be that dirty oil, but HVO (hydrogenated vegetable oil). The type in fryers. Presumably this makes everything alright... even these vegetable oils were grown and harvested with old fashioned diesel vehicles. Or maybe all farm vehicles in the U.K. are now electric. /s

Oh, and before I forget, this from Deutsche Welle - UN says national climate targets 'fall far short'. So the even promises are not making the grade and we should recognize that promises often fall short of expectations.  

Note: Article written on 10-16-2021 and links may no longer be viable OR behind a paywall.