Big price increases coming in near future

R

Ron Ketcham

Active member

Last week had a chat with an old friend who is a top manager at a large car care products company. He sais that raw materials, packaging, printing has gone off the wall and produts will see a 20 to 40% retail price increase in the next few months. Just a heads up from the top.
 
Ron Ketcham --
Thank you for this alarming news.. :)
Did your friend happen to say why these things have gone up??? Because of the virus??? Some other things??
I have noticed that even in the nasty, dirty, walmart I have to shop in now, my grocery bill for one, has gone up and I purchase only the same things.. :(
Thank you!
Dan F
 
There was an interesting article I read today which mentioned the inflation was due to a lot of factors all colliding at once.

When the pandemic hit most companies they scaled back production either due to necessity to reduce crowding in facilities, full on closure due to local conditions/finical issues, or because buyers dried up. Now that world is starting to go back to normal people are trying to buy stuff, but companies are trying to scale up but it isn`t happening fast enough. Demand is outstripping supply. Transportation is also an issue whether it`s trucks, trains or ships. Capacity is being outstripped by demand.

I was at my local lawn mower shop not long ago to try and buy a new mower. They were almost totally out of everything and the companies are telling them any new inventory is weeks away because they can`t get parts to build the mowers. They are a small shop and I can`t imagine how much money they are losing because they have no inventory to sell.
 
If you think things are bad now or in the near short term, wait until the government takes off (or more correctly, allows them to expire) the moratorium`s (payment stoppages) on rents, mortgages, and student loans.
These extensions have gone on throughout this pandemic, but they cannot go on indefinitely (although those who "control" the federal government in Washington,DC and those who voted them in think they should).

Let`s just put it this way: "You do not make the poor people rich by making the rich people poor."
Or more succinctly, this quote from World War II era English Prime Minister Sir Winston Churchill:
`The inherent vice of capitalism is the unequal sharing of blessings. The inherent virtue of Socialism is the equal sharing of miseries.`

I think the above remark by Poison The Well is well worth noting (no pun intended) about "creating" 40% of the dollars in one year. Some governments devalue their currency through executive authority or legislation. We do this in the Untied States by just printing more of it. This never ending cycle of increased wages, increased prices on goods and services called inflation gives the illusion (and it IS an illusion) of "creating" personal and societal wealth. As long as YOU believe a government-printed dollar is worth a dollar, inflation is acceptable, and quite frankly, necessary for this illusion of wealth. It ends when there is no trust or acceptance by individuals or businesses in that printed dollar currency as legal tender. Enter the credit card and cryptocurrency. How else do you exchange large sums of money needed to pay for every-day essential living items. Businesses see paper money as a liability to handle as payment, count manually to keep track of, and protect in safes or with armored carriers, not an asset. Need I say more.

By the way, Desertnate`s lack of new lawn mowers experience is very real. I talked with a local mower dealer here who ordered his Spring 2021 walk-behind gas small engine mower inventory back in early October 2020. He has gotten 15 of the 81 mowers they ordered. His "new" shipments arrived with unattached wheels in the shipping box because they did not arrive at the factory in time for the assembly line and was told to put them on himself. It has been a trickle of "new" arrivals and he does not get compensated for the time his repair personnel are required to do this wheel installation. Where there are usually 20 to 30 consumer/residential mowers on display in his showroom, there are MAYBE 10 and most of those are the higher-end mowers no one wants to pay the big-bucks for or are commercial models in 25" or 30" widths decks.

Does anyone know if this 2021 February`s Texas Polar Vortex disaster is still affecting petroleum refining and gas production in that state and hence supply?? The Colonial Pipeline ransomware hack opened some eyes about the vulnerability of all of our gasoline supply line distribution and infrastructure.
 
Interesting....that will make me very picky on products then. I`m picky now. :D Sucks for professionals that`s for sure and car care companies, i can see a drop in newbies. This hobby can get very expensive as it already stands.

Might use this has an excuse to buy some bulk items. lol
 
You should be in the UK right now. On top of the global market issues, we have foisted upon us through the wisdom of our right leaning government and majority of the public Brexit. The wisdom of these peoples has meant that on top of the economic issues caused by coronavirus, we have (in a no way predictable, but which was predicted by anyone with any sense) the issue where we have left a massive trading bloc with free trade and all the benefits and have gone out essentially alone and having to agree terms on every part and delivery where there was none. This is particularly problematic with cars and other items where the components used to cross the borders several times before final assembly. It’s a total mess.
 
Funny, we produce beer at my work and we NEVER shut down through the pandemic. We picked up production and havent stopped since. Funny that all these companies shut down and now we are going to see the results. Wish we had months off and made more while sitting home than I do at work cause the GOVT was giving the $600 extra!!! Oh well
 
Regarding the Colonial Pipeline (Thanks Lonnie) hack, does anyone here work or has worked on one of these big pipelines ???

Will you please when you have time, tell me how something that is round, has lots of valves to open and close, divert product/s here to there, can be actually attacked by a small low voltage signal, and now be rendered unable to operate, please???

I still think of it as huge system of pipes that have "open and close valves", that had to be operated by hand for hundreds of years before the internet was even an idea.

So, if you have a pipeline, and it has a lot of valves that can be opened and closed to move product in and out, how could you not revert to doing it manually again, and just disconnect those pesky internet connections, that somehow disabled your big pipeline??? Did Colonial not ever think about this and have the normal Disaster Recovery Plan in their Binders???

Does not every big company still Back Up all their Files regularly and store them all offsite, so they can be recovered and loaded back up in the event of a Disaster Recovery???

Does America not have our own Hackers, perhaps teams of Hackers that can go out and undo what other Hackers did to our Operating Systems, etc., ???

Can`t we just trace their IP addresses no matter how many places they went with them to get to our pipeline, and send something back to them to disable them or better yet, send some big guys over to slap them silly and make them cry and promise to never do it again ??

Sadly, I saw today that the Keystone Pipeline that some dilbert stopped the work on, is going, going, gone...
Sorry Canada.. Sorry, America.. And especially sorry to those thousands of people who had work or had business that were related to this project that are now all out of a job.. :(

Dan F
 
dcjredline said:
Funny, we produce beer at my work and we NEVER shut down through the pandemic. We picked up production and havent stopped since. Funny that all these companies shut down and now we are going to see the results. Wish we had months off and made more while sitting home than I do at work cause the GOVT was giving the $600 extra!!! Oh well
Click to expand...

I know, Amigo, it is the strangest times for sure... But look at it this way for a moment; You worked all that time and put $$$ into your Retirement 401k, etc., and all those people who chose to take extra$$ now, are not going to have as much Later, when they are getting to retirement time, and you will..

I personally have worked hard since I was 10. Nothing fazes me.. I would rather always work.. :)
Dan F
 
Klaus Schwab of the world economic forum already had a big conference during the height of the plandemic talking about the next big crisis. Guess what it was? Cyber attacks, be it on the electrical grid, financial system etc

If i were i betting man, there is a high chance the next world "crisis" with be cyber attack maybe from Russia - A Russian software company is one of the leading players of some kind of task force they set up to counter the "threat" - on some country in the so called "west". And it won`t be a bunch of saudi`s living in caves.
 
Stokdgs said:
Regarding the Colonial Pipeline (Thanks Lonnie) hack, does anyone here work or has worked on one of these big pipelines ???

Will you please when you have time, tell me how something that is round, has lots of valves to open and close, divert product/s here to there, can be actually attacked by a small low voltage signal, and now be rendered unable to operate, please???

I still think of it as huge system of pipes that have "open and close valves", that had to be operated by hand for hundreds of years before the internet was even an idea.

So, if you have a pipeline, and it has a lot of valves that can be opened and closed to move product in and out, how could you not revert to doing it manually again, and just disconnect those pesky internet connections, that somehow disabled your big pipeline??? Did Colonial not ever think about this and have the normal Disaster Recovery Plan in their Binders???

Does not every big company still Back Up all their Files regularly and store them all offsite, so they can be recovered and loaded back up in the event of a Disaster Recovery???

Does America not have our own Hackers, perhaps teams of Hackers that can go out and undo what other Hackers did to our Operating Systems, etc., ???

Can`t we just trace their IP addresses no matter how many places they went with them to get to our pipeline, and send something back to them to disable them or better yet, send some big guys over to slap them silly and make them cry and promise to never do it again ??

Sadly, I saw today that the Keystone Pipeline that some dilbert stopped the work on, is going, going, gone...
Sorry Canada.. Sorry, America.. And especially sorry to those thousands of people who had work or had business that were related to this project that are now all out of a job.. :(

Dan F
Click to expand...

The issue is related to valves and instrumentation. Their valves usually have on them something called a PLC or Programmable Logic Controller. This is how most industries have controlled their industrial components for decades. Now think of the proliferation of smart locks, thermostats, lights, etc, etc in the home, which is often referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). Well where do you think security was when all these companies, and there were a ton, were trying to quickly enter the IoT market? Well, unfortunately about the same thing happened on the industrial side where they started hooking up these PLCs to the network or Internet. Not enough thought put into security and that is why we have pipelines and electrical grids vulnerable to hacking. And they will be for a while until they can properly add security, which includes training people to stop being a contributor to the problem, such as clicking on something they shouldn’t or giving/improperly storing information they shouldn’t.
 
dgage said:
The issue is related to valves and instrumentation. Their valves usually have on them something called a PLC or Programmable Logic Controller. This is how most industries have controlled their industrial components for decades. Now think of the proliferation of smart locks, thermostats, lights, etc, etc in the home, which is often referred to as the Internet of Things (IoT). Well where do you think security was when all these companies, and there were a ton, were trying to quickly enter the IoT market? Well, unfortunately about the same thing happened on the industrial side where they started hooking up these PLCs to the network or Internet. Not enough thought put into security and that is why we have pipelines and electrical grids vulnerable to hacking. And they will be for a while until they can properly add security, which includes training people to stop being a contributor to the problem, such as clicking on something they shouldn’t or giving/improperly storing information they shouldn’t.
Click to expand...


dgage - thanks for the explanation, I learned a lot about this..

Now, regarding Disaster Recovery, which I happen to know a lot about, do these people with pipelines not know how to address their pipeline operation in the event of say, massive electrical grid failure??? No one, well, actually teams of people can not go out to Their part of the pipeline and Manually operate it???

It still is a pipeline, right?? People operated pipelines and dam gates for over 100 years without the internet, can we not just go turn the dang valves to open and let that product go through them?? It still is a pipeline, right ?

If there is no solution to this, I am just amazed how this entire pipeline infrastructure ever got built without 1 person thinking, "hey, shouldn`t we remember how to operate this Manually, in the event of a power failure ????(long before the internet was invented) No one thought about that??? Ever???

Thinking about the Internet access, does using only VPN not work anymore??? We were using VPN`s at Verizon over 20 years ago.. We never got hacked either..
Or, cannot the IT team just limit access to only certain things coming And going, to help slow down those pesky little evil bugs that come in with something that looks normal but isn`t?? There are no Firewalls that really are Firewalls??

No one today can write a little program that flags things that go out, or come in, that are on a list of dangerous places to be, and block them before they do damage?

Our people at Verizon put limits on access to things for everyone... You were just not going to get to go to that place... It was dangerous... We even had the first design of Lotus Notes, long before Microsoft Outlook came out with their beautiful email version, in the middle 90`s..

Ok, I have to go outside, this is making me crazy.. :)

Thanks again for your time and help, dgage !
Dan F
 
noorth said:
Klaus Schwab of the world economic forum already had a big conference during the height of the plandemic talking about the next big crisis. Guess what it was? Cyber attacks, be it on the electrical grid, financial system etc

If i were i betting man, there is a high chance the next world "crisis" with be cyber attack maybe from Russia - A Russian software company is one of the leading players of some kind of task force they set up to counter the "threat" - on some country in the so called "west". And it won`t be a bunch of saudi`s living in caves.
Click to expand...

Cyberattacks on the USA infrastructure. Is that really so prescient? A blind man could see this coming from years ago. Ted Koppel had a book out in 2015 called Lights Out, about just such a thing.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ngkt6PVvc04

Yes, I`m sure he was not the first, but I am also pretty sure we have not taken this threat seriously enough. We seem not to heed the warnings we should be heeding.
 
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