East coast dock workers are on strike. How bad will supply disruptions get? It all depends on how long the strike lasts. A few weeks won’t be much of a problem. Even a couple of months shouldn’t be too terrible. After that there would definitely be major shortages and price increases.
Major retailers knew this might be coming. Many already have their Christmas stock in place. Most of their money is made during the Christmas season, so they plan ahead. That’s not say there won’t be some unavailable items.
Food will be a different issue. Imported foods may become unavailable especially fresh foods. Bananas in particular will be a problem. Longer shipping times to other ports won’t work. The fruit will turn to mush before it hits the east coast stores. The weird thing is that before the strike our “fresh” veggies were getting worse. Bananas and lettuce have been terrible lately.
I guess I’ll be eating a lot of local fruit -which basically means apples. Good thing I like apples.
Meat exporters will lose foreign markets. Eventually, if this goes on long enough, they’ll have to reduce flock and herd size. Prices will drop for a short while when that’s going on. It would be a good time to top off your freezer.
For most people the port shutdown will be an annoyance but not an end of civilization sort of thing.
In unrelated news Spectrum sent their repair guy over. He changed out a couple of sketchy cables, cleaned some contacts, and we are back in business. Nice to have full use of the Internet again.
-Sixbears
Some of the results of the strike will happen quickly.
ReplyDeleteAs business see the replacement costs for items rising they have to either raise the price of existing stock OR accept less restock on the shelves.
Like Socialist price controls empty shelves will occur as nobody will accept losing money on every sale..
Secondary sympathy strikes are typically common ADDING to the Blackmail hostage effects of the FU pay us union demands.
No automation lest we lose union jobs and strike power.
Big business will not suffer, you and I will pay the whole bill in increased costs.
Michael
Most of what will go up I either already have or don't need. I'm sure there will be exceptions but for most things there are alternatives.
DeleteMe thinks you are being optimistic about how this will affect people.
ReplyDeleteMaybe. Time will tell. My guess is that this won't go on too long as too many people will lose too much money.
DeleteGiven the "supply system chain issues " of COVID the union statement "we will cripple you " with this strike is a FU Pay Me mafia comment.
ReplyDeleteMeds alone, I get 90 day supplies BUT auto reorder happens at 2 or 3 weeks out.
If this runs a couple of weeks some heart and diabetic folk will RUN OUT .
But Hey that's the mafia power of a strike.
Remember they REFUSED a 50% raise AND ADDED NO AUTOMATION to protect their strike power.
Michael
Funny how we only panic when the working people exercise a bit of power but just shrug when big business does it.
DeleteTreat them like Reagan treated the air traffic controllers but make sure they never work anywhere again or draw any benefits.
ReplyDeleteSo . . . you are very strongly anti-labor. Good to know.
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