251–260 of 478 posts
I can remember when a year ago everyone agreed they were happy with consuming less and spending time with the family. Looks like that didn't last long, everyone is out shopping again.
Are you just making stuff up to argue about??
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What everyone is going to have a real hard time wrapping their head around for the next few years: We built a highly efficient economy for a set of behaviors. A shock happened that caused a lot people to change their behaviors (probably for a long time, since they've had 2 years of 'practice'). Our economy, which was built for those old behaviors (living in cities, riding public transit, eating at restaurants, travel…
I just don't get why everyone maintains JIT manufacturing is bad, it's one of the many reasons we can have such reasonably low cost goods, its efficient.
JIT iPhones? Sure why not?
JIT ventilators and PPE? Maybe not great. Maybe it’s ok to have some slack in the production of those types of things, you know in case of emergency.
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> The above makes oil and gas more costly to extract and to ship, which raises the price. I'm not sure if you're just expressing your personal concerns over what you believe can hypothetically happen, or whether you're grossly misinformed. Meanwhile, even though gas prices are breaking records all over the world, in the US they are still below the prices from 2010, back in the days no one in the US was concerned abou…
> I'm not sure if you're just expressing your personal concerns over what you believe can hypothetically happen, or whether you're grossly misinformed. So do you have an argument to make, or just a stream of ad hominem followed by smoke and mirrors? You point out that oil and gas prices are high all over the world with a price gap between gas prices in the US and the rest of the world -- because gas is shipped overse…
I already did. You made an unsubstantiated claim, and I pointed out your personal assertion was wrong and baseless, and provided a time history of gas prices as evidence, including the fact that not so long ago they were over 3 times higher than the current market price.
If you have a problem with the facts feel free to point out what exactly leads you to believe that justifies the discrepancy between your personal beliefs and the facts.
What this doesn’t really address is the why? Yeah there’s more money floating around, so perhaps more people want to spend it, but why? Most people aren’t getting materially more stuff or even need that much more stuff, consumption’s already god damn conspicuous. Maybe everyone can afford a jet ski all of a sudden? No, the stims didn’t really do /that/ kind of wealth expansion. To me, this still looks like the bullwh…
Your hypothesis of "bullwhip effect" would predict that global inventories are increasing (thus causing a surge in demand). However it doesn't square with all the graphs in the article that show inventories across the world at global lows. Overall, I believe the Bridgewater story to be more correct.
The article shows global lows for raw materials, but production for China is up 20% and exports are 40% higher.
I can't find any reference to retail inventories in the article, but I think some of the stock could be found there - though I imagine that a lot of it could simply be stuck in transit.
I think you and OP agrees - the parent post tries to answer the why of the situation, which the article doesn't spend much/any time on
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Thank god we have crypto & NFTs to help people use all this free cash
It doesn’t work like that though. If I buy BTC at 60k then someone is selling BTC at the same price. The fiat is just moving from one account to the next. The people getting cash-rich from crypto are either spending it (on lambos) or putting it back into the stock market.
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Is [this]( https://www.thestar.com/business/2021/10/23/experts-say-stat... ) the article?
Yes.
First? I think this is an ad. Newspapers are paid for placement articles like this all of the time. Now, how much oversight is placed upon such ads-articles, depends upon the publication.
The Star is well respected, so I suspect there's some strong oversight on opt-ads by them. EG "Please write about us", more than "Here's an article we've written for you." However, I'd be surprised if some cash didn't change hands.
Second? This doesn't mean the premise is wrong. Part of the problem is how vast Canada is. Local production in Canada, crossing 4+ timezones and 10000km, is going to result in local shortages of products, and thus, local price spikes in produces.
For example, if you have a local butter shortage one year, shipping from 5k away will raise the price.
Again, my above comments aren't meant to debunk this article, just provide some additional data.
Oh, also.. pricing is indeed different in the UK and Canada. I visited... 5? years ago, during a particularly rain free, heat wave summer. Was nice, btw. :) But during my visit I did see those massive pricing differences in some things.
Of course, UK pricing for wood and fuel was outrageous for me (just things I noticed, and these are things plentiful in Canada).
But you're right about market controls in Canada, which are designed to ensure supply, and keep farmers in a profitable state. The US, for example, does this in a different manner, for example, they don't limit production, they buy excess.
On the dairy side for example, they buy excess milk and make "government cheese", which can be stored longer than milk (years), and is often given to the poor.
What this doesn’t really address is the why? Yeah there’s more money floating around, so perhaps more people want to spend it, but why? Most people aren’t getting materially more stuff or even need that much more stuff, consumption’s already god damn conspicuous. Maybe everyone can afford a jet ski all of a sudden? No, the stims didn’t really do /that/ kind of wealth expansion. To me, this still looks like the bullwh…
Thats equivalent to a population boom.
WARNING: This site has an obscenely obnoxious terms & conditions blocking modal. I would prefer this link to be removed, it is so egregious. Post something, or don't. Don't put up a blocking modal to force me to read some terms & conditions before reading the actual content.
Bridgewater would love to show you their content without the modal. The only problem is, the lawyers who interpret things the US government says, are requiring them to show it. Unfortunately, the government has decided you're too stupid to critically read words written by an investment firm. Your elected representatives believe you need to be reminded that investment firms might be writing bullshit to try and take yo…
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> Natural gas extremely expensive? Let me introduce you to renewables, which btw are getting better and better every year. Shutting down a natural gas pipeline that people depend upon just before winter, and then lecturing them about solar panels is not a good look. Artificially increasing the price of natural gas causes famines, it causes food and fertilizer to be more expensive, and it makes it hard for people to h…
I sympathize with this, but if climate experts are to believed, we’ve stalled to the point where we have perhaps a decade to get emissions under control in order to meet targets, and most countries haven’t even begun to make significant changes. At some point there will be pain. The question is, “do we want a little pain now or a lot of pain down the road?”. And to be clear, “wearing a coat inside during winter” may…
The entire argument is poorly done forecasting for a system we don’t understand. The claims are unfalsifiable. It has all of the hallmarks of a scientific fad. When once again the modeling is inaccurate and the claims about temperature change impacts aren’t realized, this will be used as _more proof_.