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Right now things are starting to get a bit scary with not only how bad inflation has gotten, but also how bad supply chain issues are continuing to get.  The pandemic has caused a huge mess, and I'm curious how bad you guys see things getting and if it's as bad in your country as it is here in the United States.

First, how bad is inflation in your country..what % is it currently at?  (Here in the U.S. it's between 4-6% on average.  Many items have inflated much more such as seafood being around 20-30%)

Second, are you seeing supply chain issues in your country and how bad is it? (For example my favorite toilet paper has not been produced for well over a year now.  Recently my two favorite bags of chips have become unavailable from both supply chain issues and factories focusing on other items, putting them ahead of my FAVORITE damn chips lol).

I think I focus more on my needs or goods/services I need everyday... As far as I tell, there isn't much increase in price except in the price of water which I immediately stopped using after inquiring whether the increase was justified. Fortunately, there is steady supply of natural water at home which could be boiled before drinking, even though it's clean physically.

I think if price of something increase so much, better to look for good and cheaper alternatives of same/similar size rather than adding to the demand. If lots of people do this, that could force the price to come down.

Thanks for posting that statistic, because I wasn't sure what the US inflation rate is right now.  That doesn't seem to be that high, but compared to all those years when inflation was near zero, it's really damn high.  And yep, that 4-6% doesn't apply across the board for all goods and services. 

Just look at gas prices, which have gone from an average of $2.0x (or something like that) to well over $3/gallon today--and that's a massive hit on people's wallets, since most people drive.  The folks with the huge, gas-guzzling SUVs are taking the biggest hit, though I have little sympathy for them.

Oddly enough, I've noticed that regular Cheetos have been frequently out of stock in my area, though those awful hot ones are still on the shelves.  I've also seen cat food shelves near empty as of late.

As to your question of how bad it's going to get....I have no idea.  I assume the supply chain people are working on a fix and doing the best they can, though that's a pretty generous and optimistic assumption to make.  Let's say I'm hoping those things are true.

Went to buy some Lipton tea (the large one, 1.5L), and let's just say that I bought something else. Prices have skyrocketed, even in soft drinks, that tea costed €2.39, which I find way too much. However, I've noticed plenty of goods having inflated prices. From soft drinks such as Cola, to chips and dairy and meat products. It's disturbing to say the least, daily grocery shopping has gone up a good 4%-5% I'd say, and this number is expected to rise.

According to TargetEconomics, Greece's annual inflation rate rose to 2.2% in September 2021, which is the highest since January of 2012.  Main upward pressure came from prices of transport (7.8 percent vs 6.7 percent in August); housing (4.7 percent vs 4.4 percent) and food & non-alcoholic beverages & tobacco (3.1 percent vs 3 percent). On a monthly basis, consumer prices inched up 2.1 percent.

Source: https://tradingeconomics.com/greece/inflation-cpi

The problem with this is most companies who produce cheaper/generic items are the same ones who make the name brand/full price items.  What really sucks is those generic items having increased in price too, where as they would normally feel like a sale.


Did you mean to say 4-6% DOES apply across the board? Because that is the rate of inflation across the board in the US.  The vast majority of items are seeing inflation.  Most basic items are seeing that 4-6% rise but specialty items are really getting hit hard.  For example my buddy who runs a boat building business said the epoxy he uses for boats has increased by I believe it was 35%.  My dog food went up $10 a bag which is like 20% increase.

Yeah I've seen the same thing with stores here. My local Mexican grocery store is now completely out of basic Tostito's chips. My local CVS looks like a barren wasteland.  I just saw on the news that most grocery stores are starting to see the effects of this and once again things like toilet paper are running low now.  This is all getting ugly ugly ugly!

It seems we are still in the very early stages of inflation and how bad it'll get depends on how long it perseveres. People in most countries will likely be able to tolerate a year or two of inflation without too devastating an impact - it will erode their salaries and push up the cost of living, so it closes the margin between income and outgoings. However the real challenge will be longer term, unless it is gotten under control it could cause central bank interest rates to rise which will cause a lot of trouble for home owners in 2-5 years time after the mortgages come up for renewal. If people are used to paying 2% it will be a big shock to see it rise up to 5-10% and will seriously curtail spending power, this has a knock on effect and ultimately leads to recessions.

Here it's down to 4.5%, from a staggering 7.2% just a month before due to continuous printing of money and sudden lockdowns that contributed to goods being inflated. The price of basic necessities are still kept in check, although vegetables, fruits, and other such produce from farms kept on climbing all year round. Poultry products are also on the rise, too, and I don't think there will be a stop to this any time soon since the country is still on the works of reopening its economy for the nth time.

Imports are still steady, though the production of some of the local goods (such as sardines, chips, etc.) slowed down. I rarely see one of the local potato chips that I always buy whenever I go to the grocery, possibly because they still haven't resumed 100% of their operations.

You seem to know what you're talking about, I have a genuine question, though, how do things return to "normal"? How do we return to pre-inflation levels? For instance, fuel prices keep rising, so are most of our daily goods, how are these prices going to return to more humane levels? Is this thing a one off, which will last a few months before it dies down?

I am surprised that US is facing supply chain issues despite no lockdown being imposed in the country, this shows how fragile the US Economy is at it's core, even though I think these issues are just a one time event and will obviously heal them up in coming few months, they surely have impacted quite a lot of people. Honestly I don't blame government or systems for it, in such black swan events these things always happen, supply chains would still have been disrupted if there was no inflation, moreover 4-6% isn't that high in a developing country but as developed countries don't often face such high inflation it could be really hurting for sure.

I am noticing a drastic price increase on the food related products like meat, veggies, cooking oil in the recent days which are about 20 to 40% rise before covid 19 situation but government claims that there is no such increase and remain silent about people shouting at them for everything, I think the consequences will get worsen in the coming months and this how it will be from now on. :-X

Officially (https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/nieuws/2021/40/inflatie-stijgt-naar-2-7-procent-in-september), inflation is now 2.7%. But the official inflation calculation always seems like it's designed to keep numbers low, even though the price of almost anything I buy increases much faster.
People often say "taxation is theft", but I'd say inflation is the real theft because it's hidden. As a consumer, I'd be much better off without inflation. I love buying things with Bitcoin and seeing how products get cheaper over the years! Inflation is forced upon us by central banks and governments, probably to give the illusion of getting more money while in reality it makes it much more different to compare real prices (and wages) between generations.

I've been trying to buy a certain bicycle that's just not available. Other than that, supply chain problems just lead to a higher price.

How much do you pay for water if I may ask? Here (https://www.waternet.nl/service-en-contact/drinkwater/kosten/met-watermeter/) I pay $0.0015 per liter drinking water (that's why we use drinking water to flush the toilet).

Looks like you have no idea how lucky you are! Here (https://www.unitedconsumers.com/tanken/informatie/brandstof-prijzen.asp), Euro95 (the most common fuel with 10% ethanol) costs $9.22 per gallon. We almost (https://www.globalpetrolprices.com/gasoline_prices/) hold the record, only Hongkong left to beat :D

Have you seen the Backlog of cargo ships at southern California ports (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/oct/20/supply-chain-crisis-california-ports-cargo-ships)? I'm not sure how recent this backlog is, but considering container transportation is now very scarce and very expensive, having 100 ships waiting to unload hundreds of thousands of containers means all those containers can't be used elsewhere:
It's ironic: containerships were created because standardised containers are very convenient and made shipping very cheap. That advantage is gone now (https://www.supplychaindive.com/news/coca-colas-supply-chain-strategy-outside-the-box/607702/).

Current predictions are inflation will continue on to 2023 at high rates, but the US economy is going to grow slow too, so it's not just an inflation problem. High money supply and labor shortages, less products on the shelve. To some extent, the supply chain issues were inevitable due to Covid, but the US seems to be unique in that they pay people to stay home and do nothing, therefor lower skilled jobs are empty for months on end. From what I understand, most of the importing happens on the coast of California, and of course, California has basically turned into a welfare state during the course of the pandemic, so not like this was not expected.

It's going to get very bad, and all this inflation and chain supply issues looks like a manufactured and designed global reset economy crash ready to happen in next year 2022 I think.
I don't trust any of the numbers they are showing us for inflation because they are 100% rigged to be low, everyone can see that prices for everything went sky high, and cargo ships are staying stuck for weeks.
Anyone who thinks that this in temporary and transitory thing is delusional and lives in some fairytale, and I am not sure we can avoid it because people are blindly listening their governments, that is like a blind man leading everyone into abyss.
Owning Bitcoin, land and other hard assets is now crucial, but I would also get ready for hunger games and bigger electricity restrictions soon.

Great topic and I think what's worse is the fact that the insane crisis was there way before the pandemic began. I came across an article and couldn't believe it, but then reached out to a friend who has an IT company in the heart of San Francisco, and what I am going to post does not even only apply to those living right in the center. Check this article headline out from CNBC:

"In San Francisco, households earning $117,000 qualify as ‘low income’"

That is quite insane to say the least and my friend said that this is not just a relative figure because there are so many rich people, it is just the fact that you pay 5k per months for a shoe box as your apartment.

Now during the pandemic even many people from the middle class ended up living in tents on the streets in SF well known for those masses of homeless.

That's painful.

when I'm going through everything feels difficult.. I'm optimistic that there's still something I can eat during a pandemic like this.. it shouldn't be the time to just prepare everything.. the impact of the pandemic is very bad.. the country is in crisis with the economic process paralyzed. .. staying at home is not the solution.. The inflation rate for the calendar year (January–August) 2021 is 0.84 percent and the year-on-year inflation rate.. this is sad.. making the prices of products and services increase.. online buying and selling also experienced delays due to lockdown.. hopefully my story is not too painful to imagine

It's pretty high/bad in my country at the moment, I do not know the official percentage, but from my personal daily experiences, inflation seems to be skyrocketing over here as things stands now, another thing is, my country was In a pretty bad state before the pandemic and quite as expected the pandemic has made things a whole lot worse. This is another thing to point out, I believe countries that were struggling perviously are in more mess and things will get bad and even worse for them quicker than countries that could boast of a stable economy before the pandemic.
I'm yet to experience any issues with supply chain, the only thing that's happening is that the contents and quality of products produced are gradually reducing/declining, and I think it's as a result of a hike in the cost of production, well, if things continue in this way then sooner or later they'll outrightly stop the production of some items/products.

In the EU, inflation is between 2-4% according to official figures, but some economic experts warn that these figures are much higher, because the biggest feature of politicians is that they serve nicely packaged lies.
 

I'm sorry about the toilet paper, it's my least concern - but it's quite noticeable that everything has become more expensive, not only because of the disrupted supply chain, but also because of the increase in fuel prices, which logically caused a chain reaction. Since this development was expected, I created some supplies of basic necessities sufficient for at least 6 months, in addition to producing some food in my garden, which will allow me to be somewhat self-sustaining.

I have long since developed various survival tactics and I am not afraid of inflation or supply disruptions, I have survived much worse than that - but I understand that people are afraid when they see what is happening. Unfortunately, this is due to the fact that we have become a consumer society that depends on big producers, and when they get into trouble, those at the bottom of the food chain can really find themselves in big trouble.

i'm not feeling the supply chain issue in my country but the prices is going to the moon particularly the gas so it could still be a supply chain issue causing more demands. but there isn't so much news about it in my country compared to US news which they see port congestion while the delivery ships are docking nearby.

they couldn't just move to another port to unload what they have. it may take days but i suppose it's better than just waiting for weeks in the middle of the sea.
they are saying that if you have something to order for Christmas, this October might be the best time to order for it may be able to reach your doorstep right on time for xmas.

The supply chain issues are definitely going to be big for the countries like the US where they import most of the stuff and the factories are not really sufficient enough to handle everything. For the developing countries, the supply chain issues are a bit better but the inflation is worse since their economy is going down due to lack of international exchange.

Plus you should be aware that it's going to affect the upcoming festivals as well. People are going to pay a lot more than the MRP or what it should have been. Therefore what we are seeing right now is not even that bad, one should wait for the Christmas.

Neither do I, it's not like I've seen a shortage of anything, it's mostly that all prices have gone up, for most goods you can find in the supermarket. I don't believe that we'll face an issue with shortages anytime soon, but prices are expected to rise significantly in the near future.

Unfortunately that happens all the time. We end up with companies getting richer thanks to our money, and then we end up with not really pay them anymore, or at least not be able to pay them. Which causes us to have debt, and which causes them to not have any new buyers. So, what happens? Companies start to suck since they can't sell stuff, and people are already in big debt because they bought back in the day but can't now, and the market crashes.

This happens all the time, it is expected to happen again, it will never stop happening, it will keep on happening all the time. So all in all I would say that we are going to end up with something like a system change eventually, maybe not now, not this decade, but one day in the future it will be forced to happen.

It is pretty bad as you may guess and this is happening all over the world, I just made a purchase for an item and the expected time for its arrival is two months and quite honestly I think that is too optimistic, it will probably take 3 months at the earliest.

However I think we are bound to see an improvement on this situation as businesses will try to do everything they can to have their supply chain working and they will pay extra for it and this will bring more people and companies to the field and solve the issue eventually.

Here is an interesting piece on inflation published back in 2011.


....

A debate could be had over where current day inflation would legitimately be tallied. Governments around the world normally sugar coat and polish statistics to paint a prettier picture of current events.

The real question is: do people want inflation and supply chain disruptions to improve. Enough to be informed and support the right steps necessary to fix them. Delegating the decision making process to complete strangers can sometimes be a forfeiture of all decisions affecting ones future.

This is an important thing for the country to always maintain inflation and the supply chain, in my country, commodity prices can vary by hundreds of percent, this is because the country's infrastructure is still lagging, and maintaining a balanced supply is something that the state must do.

I'll just focus on the supply chains at macro level from personal experience:
Some are broken beyond repair at this moment, some are doing just fine.

So, at least in my country or rather than that my region, the things that worked almost flawless:
The whole chain of logistics between my family farm and the meat processing and the superstores, we had zero hiccups with this from the start of April. The guys that run the trucks say that's the same for most of the other businesses in the region, so that's the good part.

Worse than worse is everything that's related to importing heavy equipment and spare parts, we're waiting for some to be shipped out of the US for months and for some from the Netherlands about the same time but at least for the last, there is the hope of actually being processed. Complete disaster with everything that is construction material, from PVC to steel wire.

What could turn worse?
Rumors from our suppliers that fertilizer will go through the roof, and then when it comes to food you're going to see all of them skyrocketing. It's simple, you use fertilizer at 300% and gas at 200% the price you must at 25% or you won't get even, you don't use them your production is cut by 4 or 5 times, and then the law of demand and offer kicks in.
Prepare for a food shock new year, if farmers can't get cheap fertilizer/gas/seed in the spring in autumn you'll see twice the price for everything.


Hihi, just because you don't see them talking about it doesn't mean that there isn't one. Besides, if some ports are congested then it means all the ships are standing by rather than delivering stuff so some ports that are free are just because they aren't receiving anything or exporting anything, which is also damn bad.


Most ports are not designed to deal with huge cargo ships, they lack the equipment and even if they would try and deal with it what takes 1-3 days in a big port will take weeks in a small one. And there is the problem of manpower the problem of cargo that needs to be loaded which would have to get moved to the next port also to be loaded and so on and on, you can't train crane operators in a few months nor can you install them that easy, let's not even talk about the depth of the port.

On the surface yeah, it's easy, do it but when you start crunching the numbers you will see how difficult it is.

There is a huge backlog of work in the industry and most corporate client end organisations are pushing hard to get ahead in the current queue of delivery from suppliers, contractors and raw materials producers. The strain on the supply chain and the original producers is also funnelled into a clog of transportation by sea and, in many countries, by land.

My take, this will hurt the economy and last at least most 2022.

This is quite similar to what we’re facing in my country as well, there have been an increase in the price of almost everything you can get in the market these days. And as for not finding things I need in the market, well I can find them but the problem that I’m having with most of them these days is that companies are beginning to reduce the number of items that were usually in their products they sell: take for example let’s say that you can buy a biscuit of $5 and see about four pieces of biscuits inside it, this time around if you buy that same biscuit you are going to see only three pieces inside it.

And the worst part of it is that even after they have decreased the number of items in that product, they will also increase the price as well which is really annoying. I just hope that things get better and not continue like this.

I'd also like to note, despite not seeing any shortages or supply issues on most daily goods, I've faced multiple shortage issues when it comes to bicycle parts. I'm not sure what's exactly the case, my best guess would be the current supply can't keep up with the increased demand. However, this situation has been going on since the pandemic started.

Hasn't the increased demand pushed to a larger production, or is there a wider supply chain issue causing it?

I was looking to order one Raspberry Pi Zero for one of my DIY projects, and this device usually cost around $5, but I couldn't find it anywhere, it is either out of stock or it is 5 or 6 time more expensive.
More information and reports are showing that many microchips are also out of stock, and this is no affecting smartphones, computers, hardware wallets, mining hardware and every other electronic devices.
If you need any electronics parts my suggestion is to purchase them now and don't wait because I am hearing some news that it's going to get much worse in next few months.
We can live without microchips for sure, but now I am seeing that some postal service fees are going up almost 100% as well as essential food prices.

On Raspberry website they say this is all temporary but I am not so sure about that:
https://www.raspberrypi.com/news/supply-chain-shortages-and-our-first-ever-price-increase/

I noticed that Trezor hardware wallet increased the price for Trezor Model T and they also wrote about global chip shortage and how that affect hardware wallets:
https://blog.trezor.io/how-the-global-chip-shortage-affects-crypto-hardware-d391f0c90ff0

That's called Shrinkflation (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrinkflation), and it's been happening for as long as I can remember. Once in a while there's a promo with bigger packaging, but overall sizes shrink.

Example: Mars went from 62.5 to 58 to 51 grams (https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsround/25401945). It's amazing how marketing works:
Lol. Now I eat 2 of them.

The pandemic brought in lots of economic instability and cause a a heavy inflation in the price of local food stuffs. We used to have food stuffs and it's ingredients at a very cheap rate but after the outbreak of the pandemic everything went abnormal. Now an average man lives like below the standard meal. This also affected the raw materials for some local production of different commodities which had cause a reduction in both quantity and quality

its becoming interesting because just recently jack dorsey of twitter tweeted abiut hyperinflation is coming. with that people will really panic buy in stores.  there was already incident in the news i think it was in ohio where the people are ransacking a grocery store. and rich families are hiring security guards for themselves.

i dont know what goes on in USofA but soomeone's got to wake Biden up.

Its been said the human population of the world didn't explode, until the vast number of uses of crude oil were discovered. Prior to this, the technology didn't exist to grow enough food to support a larger human population.

Fuel for transportation is one use. Fertilizer and pesticides are another. Gasoline, crop fertilizer and pesticides are all synthesized from crude oil.

Which can both simplify and complicate addressing the issues we face.

I would encourage everyone to begin searching for alternatives to anything oil based. Thanks to modern science, there are many alternatives available.

Don't expect oil prices to decline anytime soon to save us. It won't happen. In my opinion anyway.

Consider the possibility that AI is making many mistakes, nature is becoming too unstable, things are moving out of course and are not easily predictable.
I don't think sticking to the "program" will solve this. You need competent humans to take charge

And now both Snickers and Bounty come in a 3 pack or Trio where instead of two pieces you obviously have 3 but they went down to 37.5 grams while the standard size is not 50grams, so you're buying 3 but you get two.

I seriously think we need a damn standard when it comes to this shit, bring back the normal bottles, no 470ml, 235ml, 960ml, make it mandatory for all of them to use 250,500, and 1l. That's it, f* your design, f* your whatever, everyone stick to this.
Same for food items, If I go to Carrefour or Aldi I would probably be able to get every possible package in 5 grams increments.

The only good thing that happened lately is that because of an EU directive some have started showing the price per/kg in most of the EU, and to be honest, it's damn helpful, I was amazed once to look at two nearly identical in size pudding cups that were close in price and to see that in price per kilo was actually more expensive by 40%! A few cents there, a few grams less, and there you have it!


In order to produce more, you need more machines, in order to get more machines, the manufacturer needs more materials, to get more material you need more machines to process them. this is not a thing that can be overcome in a few months.

     It is bad for every country right now. That, I can assure you. And yes, I am also afraid of this growing and quite difficult to solve problems with inflation that the world is facing right now. This is the reason why I along with the growing number of people are turning into this industry to somehow protect ourselves from the impending catastrophe that's about to happen because this is not something that can be questioned if, but when. One way or another the people who fail to see the potential of this industry will suffer badly for their stubborness. I just hope by then it still won't be too late for them because everyone has different capabilities in terms of finances and other stuff.

From what I heard, there most likely won’t be shortages of gifts on Christmas from retailers which everyone is expecting due to the cargo ship container delays. People are panicking and buying gifts now because they are worried that the shelves will be empty on Christmas shopping season. Some items might be sold out like PS5 but most items will be available.

Basically retailers prepared for this in advance and they are basically paying a premium to get their container ships delivered on time. One tire company did this and they basically had to pay $25000 extra to get the tires delivered. And what they did instead is just add the cost to the consumer. So basically there will be tires but $30 surcharge for all of them.

With retail it will be the same. There will be gifts but if they had to be imported there will be a mark up most likely and people will still pay it.

My country's average inflation, at least as of August within this year, is still beyond the government's target of 2%-4%, with 4% being the worst. It still stands at 4.4%, with regions outside the capital having a higher inflation than the average.

Of course, the pandemic has caused the prices of public utility vehicle fares primarily due to the social distancing measure. Petroleum prices are also rising. That's another contributing factor to the fare hike. But it is generally beyond the control of the government since the global petroleum market is beyond the country's control.

In terms of food, the prices of fish, poultry, and livestock products have also risen a lot. The African Swine Flu has contributed largely to the crippling supply chain. The shortage of pork caused the price to rise, even affecting other meat products whose demand suddenly rise as well as people are looking for alternatives.

---

Sources:

1. https://www.rappler.com/business/inflation-rate-philippines-may-2021
2. https://psa.gov.ph/statistics/survey/price/summary-inflation-report-consumer-price-index-2012100-august-2021

In my case I have not noticed a lack of products that I usually use, but I have noticed a rise in prices, mainly in electricity and gasoline, not so much in food, but little by little it is noticeable. Although I was recently promoted at work and I have had a considerable payraise, so between that, Bitcoin and other investments I think I will be able to cope well with inflation.

I would like to remind everybody that this is a direct consequence of political decisions; it is not like an earthquake or a storm, that you can do nothing to avoid it.

In the midst of an epidemic inflation prevailed over everything there is also a kind of inflation of expenditures as inflation, which is often caused by the state rising taxes often sharpen the problem of inflation with taxes aimed at covering the rising costs of arms management social programs the state. Keep in mind that tax rates increase production costs, so the rate level should be optimal. Inflation of every commodity also develops the whole system of controlling the market economy this automatically reduces the effectiveness of economic regulators often making their use impossible.

I would say that inflation rates are not normalised in each country and if you see the charts then graphs are reluctantly increasing globally and this is not going to be solved soon due to reckless government policies and they are not taking proper decision implementations to cut this off and the general public is facing the issues.This pandemic many people were not able to produce many things as raw material was not available and then shortages occur like of fruits and vegetables and resulting in the surge of prices for these food items and common public have to buy them as they come under necessary items.But what most Governments is to debate over them and try to portray that they are doing right work then previous ones and everything is under control but we all know what's the true picture.

There's a natural gas/electricity crisis in Europe.The prices are pretty high,which will cause inflation.
I don't see any problem with natural gas and/or electricity prices in the USA.What are you complaining about?
The inflation in my country is going to be bigger than the inflation in the USA,but I'm not complaining.
We just have to adapt and survive.The prices might go down after the winter(I'm talking about Europe,not USA).
I don't have any problems with supply chains in my country.I see news about USA having a shortage of truck drivers,which causes problems with logistics and supply chains.Is this true?

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I see, haven't realized that it's not that simple. As I've mentioned on another post, it's a vicious cycle. It's just astonishing that I've been looking for some specific parts since the start of the pandemic and I still cannot find them. From what I've read, manufacturers are rushing into producing parts that are to be placed on bicycles, and aren't aimed to be sold in retail, which is aiming in the satisfaction of the increased demand in bicycles, rather than its parts.

Could potentially explain why I'm having trouble finding specific parts, some of which are on bicycles currently being sold, but not in any kind of store I've searched.

It may be for those whose basic needs are imported. If your country produces most of its basic needs locally and you focus more on basic needs that are produced locally, source your products/services from people who produce in abundance, and people who don't look for too much profit (likely the poor)  you won't be too affected by crisis.

I think it's also important to know how to buy good things at affordable rate. Lots of people don't know how, and they accept whatever price they hear/see without inquiring whether or not it's justified price.

I'm starting to realize that a lot of things are changing after the pandemic. In the country where I live, the return to normal activities has also caused many items to become scarce and prices to increase. Although I don't see it affecting myself much, for those who are more difficult than me, they are facing huge pressures of life.

     But the problem is that this pandemic HINDERS EVERYTHING! People can barely shop or sell. Even the farmers have problems selling their products. Even buying materials proves to be quite a hassle since everywhere you go, vaccination cards are required. You can't even travel if you are not working or an employee that is employed to the place where you are heading. My grandfather died and I couldn't even pay my respects even when his death wasn't due to covid. Things are getting more difficult as time passes by.

If it is said that supply chain problems in the USA are caused by technical constraints such as a shortage of truck drivers then this is not a big problem.  However, have you seen the CNBC news which is expertly explained by the leading investment managers in the country and have concluded that this is not a temporary economic crisis.  Because there are many considerations that aggravate the current financial condition.  For example, the comment consumption index and riot approval

I somehow missed your post:


Fertilizer is made using gas, methane to provide hydrogen (lol!:) for the Haber process, so the current cost are not because of the oil price but because of natural gas shortage and the fact that Germany and Poland are the main producers in Europe and they are in a mess of their own where instead of using gas for this they need it now for electricity, winter is coming and they will burn more for heating too....


The alternative is so expensive it will never be sustainable unless we double the price of food.
Of course, we could go fully natural but it's not like all the birds in the world will poop enough guano for the agricultural needs at these levels.


Highly possible, it's an economic decision probably.
If you're a manufacturer and you lack all the materials to produce everything you can you focus on things that have a better margin of profit and those for which you deal with large producers, security of long terms contracts is the main key in this. If I would produce different things let's say aluminum I would for sure stick with producing cans for a large beverage company rather than selling aluminum sheets or tubes to random retail sellers with low volume each.

As I said before, we're in the same situation, we're waiting for months for two pieces for the forced steering system on one of our tractors, the other is already patched with parts from compatible non OEM and even some second-hand ones, hope it doesn't break till the end of November at least.

Unfortunately my nation is living one of those situations. We are a huge nation, we have a lot of population, we have a lot of land, and yet we still import even food from other nations. If it was something else I would understand, but I am talking about stuff as simple as wheat at some times, obviously wheat is not something we need to buy from other nations frequently, it rarely happens but it did happen a few times over the past years.

When a nation is mismanaged, everything gets screwed. From farming to technology to medical to law to any other thing you can consider. It is about people in power trying to abuse their power and change the nation to their favor ending up with bad results in all these things.

We will have to wait and see, for a long time there have been predictions about the fall of the fiat system and since it has not happened then those which are in favor of the fiat system use this as a demonstration that it will never fall, but we know better, we know it will happen we just do not know when it will.

However the crisis caused by the pandemic is proving to be a huge problem, the government printed a lot of money, the taxes they collected went down, the economic activity went down as well, and even after all the vaccination effort the economic recovery has been way slower than anticipated, so with all of that in mind I do not see things getting any better for at least a year.

Definitely an economic decision, such things are contracts, it's way more profitable to sell in bulk quantities to manufacturers rather than individuals. However, almost two years have passed and things aren't looking any better. For how longer will we face such issues? When will these issues be resolved? It looks like we have a long way to go before the majority of them are resolved.