Global Supply Chain Crisis 2021: Megathread - A cozy thread for watching the supply chain fall apart just in time for the holidays

[Billy Beer]

Yea 2003 was the closest one we had I think and that was mostly a political issue, I can recall Army fuel bowsers doing deliveries to some places and Police having to break up the lines when they had limmited deliveries not many but enough to make the news.

We had that lorry strike as well for a few days where no fuel got through. The bonus about the UK is you can restock the full country in no time because of how small it is.

Exactly, there is a lot of people being stupid not buy buying things but not by buying the right things you might have 5l of fuel but you can eat that fuel.

Exactly. Same shit as the toilet paper. Who needs toilet paper? If it runs out, just wash your arse in the shower. No need to panic buy it.

My tin foil hat view of this is it's soft exposure to shortages. Like, getting the population used to shortages and studying how we react. I believe the toilet-paper shortage, because it's such a 'pointless' product, was driven by social engineers to test the population of how easily they panic.
This fuel 'crisis' was caused because TEN petrol stations were closed in the whole UK (no mention of locations, so they could be anywhere, or nowhere) and now there are forecourts up and down the country that have ran out, which wouldn't have done if it was never in the media. Funny how broadcasting a non-shortage leads to this, but La Palma was radio silence up until recently.

I don't believe any of it.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

My tin foil hat view of this is it's soft exposure to shortages. Like, getting the population used to shortages and studying how we react. I believe the toilet-paper shortage, because it's such a 'pointless' product, was driven by social engineers to test the population of how easily they panic.

My favorite theory so far is that they are trying to shift fuel about to go stale with covid not selling as much the fuel has started to go stale and they want to sell as much as they can before they have to pump out the tanks and dump it.

 

[Billy Beer]

My favorite theory so far is that they are trying to shift fuel about to go stale with covid not selling as much the fuel has started to go stale and they want to sell as much as they can before they have to pump out the tanks and dump it.

Funny you say that, because it did cross my mind if they're trying to get rid of old stock before it went off. I believe this theory. I still think a fuel price rise is on the tables.

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

I still think a fuel price rise is on the tables.

It is, and it wont be going back down for a long time either.

 

[FarmerKhourtney]

My dad works in ocean cargo for a large cargo company (I just realized the name is in this photo don’t TMI me haha)
Anyway this is now attached to the bottom of his work emails

 

[Ancient Pioneer]

We're not going to run out of fuel, we've been in worse situations a few times over the past 10-15 years, and pulled through. EVEN IF shit hit the fan, what's a 5L jerry can going to do? It will make bollox all difference in the grand scheme of things.

This is muppets panic buying with a 'fuck you, got mine' metallity. Ironically, they'll be the first to die if it gets bad, as they're reactionary and not planning. They may have a jerry can of diesel, but they won't have months worth of food stocked up.

I'll bet pounds to pennies that the fuel price goes up within the next week. The Govt needs to bring in cash without raising taxes.

Who said anything about fuel totally running out? Fuel didn't "run out" in the US during the 1970s, but the gas lines certainly snarled everything. Long term pinches like this can absolutely suffocate an economy and cause a massive retraction.

 

[Billy Beer]

Who said anything about fuel totally running out? Fuel didn't "run out" in the US during the 1970s, but the gas lines certainly snarled everything. Long term pinches like this can absolutely suffocate an economy and cause a massive retraction.
View attachment 2568970

No doubt, but like I said up-thread, the really good thing about the UK is it can be restocked in next to no time because of how small it is.

On topic:

The Uk has just allowed visa's for foreign workers to be extended to Christmas Eve to help with the situation. No mention of encouraging nationals to get a job driving, or putting things in place to get more people skilled in driving. Nope. Keep the cheap labour so olag patzynski can drive trucks

 

[Zbk3VmLfujjzjxBd43tL]

Admittedly I was being a bit over simple but it goes way beyond quinna, there is a lot of things that the locals cant afford but grow and it forces out the local food crops or gets adopted as a export crop, there is a video of coco beans and the farmers shelling them who had never tried chocolate and the guy who gave it to them said it was a privalidge to try it, this wasnt a old video it was about 5 years ago when I saw it and it was new for the show it was in.

I know what you're referring to there, that was in Africa, right? A lot of the issue people had with quinoa was that it was fucking up people's diet (mostly poor urban dwellers) because the price had risen so much and people had to switch to less healthy alternatives. Chocolate isn't really like that for obvious reasons and it isn't traditional in Africa because it's native to Mexico and only came to Africa when it was spread and encouraged by the huwhite man 150 years ago.

Chocolate is a great example overall though. It's a plant native to Mexico that's mostly grown in West Africa and is then shipped to Europe or the US to be processed into chocolate, the processed form of which is blended with copious amounts of sugar which is usually imported from yet another country in the form of either cane sugar or beet sugar. The chocolate we eat today thus has no resemblance to the chocolate even a few centuries ago, let alone traditional Mexican chocolate.

 

[Cool Dog]

Here in Argieland our supply chain was, is and will always be shit so no matter what happens in the rest of the world we wont even notice it

 

[Phalanges Mycologist]

I know what you're referring to there, that was in Africa, right?

Yes indeed it was, I tried digging it up but I can't find it.

Chocolate is a great example overall though. It's a plant native to Mexico that's mostly grown in West Africa and is then shipped to Europe or the US to be processed into chocolate, the processed form of which is blended with copious amounts of sugar which is usually imported from yet another country in the form of either cane sugar or beet sugar. The chocolate we eat today thus has no resemblance to the chocolate even a few centuries ago, let alone traditional Mexican chocolate.

Yea there are other considerations as well, the miles and ecological impact of Chocolate is insane when you think about it as you said grown in Africa shipped around the world, processes mixed with sugar also shipped long distances, and it's became ubiquitous so much so I can get 5 packs of bounty bars (coconut as well) for under £2 how thats possible for all the people involved to make a proffit at that level when you consider the enery, time and effort to grow, harvest, transport, process, ship etc and people can and do eat several bars a day it's bonkers.

Incidentally I had a friend visit mexico and bring me back some Chocolate and it was amazing, I eked that out as long as I could.

 

[FarmerKhourtney]

A Brit joke meme I found. I love how the back of the car is filled with TP

 

[TerrorSperg99]

Will this effect prescription medication I just wonder if I should stock up now

 

[FatalTater]

Anyone hoarding soda? Carbonation is apparently hard to come by because of no one driving, making ethanol less in demand, making the byproduct -CO2- rare or something.

I dunno sounds lame.

Anyone with a fizzwater addiction should maybe be prepared to drink something else for a while, just in case.

CO2 supply tightens in some US states

Some areas in the United States are seeing a tightening in supply of carbon dioxide (CO2), according to CO2 suppliers and distributors.

www.gasworld.com

CO2 supply tightens in some US states | News | gasworld

archived 26 Sep 2021 02:08:00 UTC

archive.ph

 

[Thiletonomics]

Who said anything about fuel totally running out? Fuel didn't "run out" in the US during the 1970s, but the gas lines certainly snarled everything. Long term pinches like this can absolutely suffocate an economy and cause a massive retraction.
View attachment 2568970

Were these gas lines back then just as bad as the gas lines in current-day Venezuela? There were also reports of gas actually running out at gas stations in Venezuela.

 

[Voltekka]

This means truckers will get more money as the demand increases?

I'm rich!

 

[Ancient Pioneer]

Were these gas lines back then just as bad as the gas lines in current-day Venezuela? There were also reports of gas actually running out at gas stations in Venezuela.

Well I wasn't around in the 1970s so I can only give accounts from people I know that lived through it, the gas stations would routinely run out, all of the gas station attendants would be armed and people would line up with their cars early in the morning, we're talking 2-3am, getting in line and turning the engine off and only turning it on to crawl a few feet forward in line. Cars would get filled only a small amount of gasoline then get told to piss off. Eligibility was dictated by the license plate in PA which is where the people who told me about the gas crisis lived at the time, if you had a odd or even number ending the plate number you would go on every other day. Every single day the gas stations would run out before noon and if your V8 muscle car chewed up gas when driving then that was your problem when it eventually ran out in the rapidly decaying urban centers. Your shit would be on cinder blocks and parted out by the time you came back the next day. I'm told that when you got out in the boonies there was no gas crisis at all, my mother had to do a drive across 1/4 of the US and once the suburban area turned to rural she decided to stop in to a station just to check if it was possible to get gas, she had been borrowing other people's license plates to fill the car up every day and by the 5th day of this she managed a full tank, to her surprise the old man at the counter just told her to fill it up and that the idea of gas lines was non existent once you got outside of the urban sprawl. She had no problem driving to her destination because the old timer was right.

As for Venezuela I have no idea, I've only read mainstream sources about it and at one point the country was alleged to be so financially broke that it was unable to export oil.

 

[Beavis]

I’m a computer janitor for a public school in Las Vegas. I’ve been waiting for printers we ordered 5 weeks ago. In the past I’d get them a few days after ordering.

Theres also a shortage of bus drivers. Every day we have multiple busses that are 30 min. late to drop off or pick up kids. It’s only getting worse too.

 

[Thiletonomics]

As for Venezuela I have no idea, I've only read mainstream sources about it and at one point the country was alleged to be so financially broke that it was unable to export oil.

There were reports that Venezuela's oil production reached close to, or at 0 at one point, because they neglected to maintain the infrastructure, and fired all or most of their skilled workers, to go all-in on the socialism gravy train, which does not have a happy ending.

 

[contradiction of terns]

Will this effect prescription medication I just wonder if I should stock up now

YES!

If you do not already have extra medications, medical testing supplies, or your first aid kit is not currently well-stocked with supplies that are not expired (antibiotics go bad and will not be effective if they are out of date. This includes antibiotic creams) then you need to go do this ASAP.

Do not delay on picking up extra insulin testing supplies, and frankly, I recommend having a COVID test kit or two just in case (assuming you can lay hands on them).

Nobody in a major metropolitan area should need to hoard toilet paper or gasoline.

Big cities will be the first place aid and supplies are sent, with it trickling outwards from there to the suburbs, then the more rural areas. If you have limited space because you live in the city, where is what I recommend;

• YOUR MEDS. See what I said above. Please do not get caught needing life saving medical supplies you cannot get in a timely fashion.
• A case of bottled water and a way to purify more water in an emergency. Here is CDC guidance on how to pick out a filter that will filter out Giardia.
• 30 days worth of food. Don't be an asshole and buy 30 days of Campbell's soup unless you want to starve with a full pantry. A can of soup is roughly 130 calories. Multiplied by 3 meals that is 390 calories for an entire day. Less than 600 calories a day is a starvation diet.
• Batteries, candles, flashlights, and a small kerosene or battery powered heater (if you live in an area that might get cold).

Important facts:

• You die of thirst at around 10 days without water. This is the recommended method if you desire euthanasia and cannot get it.
• Successful [?] hunger strikes have shown it takes between 45-61 days to die with adequate water and no food.
• Scurvy sets in after 2 months without vitamin C and you will WISH you were dead.


If you cannot get toilet paper, Bible pages are ultra thin, the ink used to print them will not turn your asshole black (unlike newsprint) and Bibles are plentiful. I'm including a video on how to make your own toilet paper for the religious Kiwis among us that may not feel like defacing a Bible.

Edit: Edited 'citrus' to 'vitamin C' because @Sped Xing raised a good point; scurvy is a vitamin C deficiency and vitamin C has many sources.

 

[Sped Xing]

• Scurvy sets in after 3 months without citrus and you will WISH you were dead.


If you cannot get toilet paper, Bible pages are ultra thin, the ink used to print them will not turn your asshole black (unlike newsprint) and Bibles are plentiful. I'm including a video on how to make your own for the religious Kiwis among us that may not feel like defacing a Bible.

1) There are many, many sources for vitamin C besides citrus. If all else fails, a cup and a half of sauerkraut should keep you sufficiently ascorbic.

2) why would you care what color your asshole was?