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Time to Cultivate Our Gardens?

By Rick Ackerman Posted on November 7, 2021, 5:00 pm EST Last Updated November 8, 2021, 8:11 pm EST

Who could have predicted that a microchip shortage would threaten to seriously impair the global auto industry? And yet, here we are: assembly plants are unable to ship enough cars to meet demand, and buyers are facing six-month delays and steeply rising prices. This has pushed used-car prices beyond the reach of those who can’t afford showroom new. We sense that the problem could be worse than the industry is letting on because “experts” are saying bottlenecks could persist until the end of 2023. Whom do they think they are kidding? The global economy is so screwed up right now that even a team of MIT eggheads using a supercomputer and petabytes of economic data couldn’t predict where interest rates will be in 30 days, let alone in two years. To say the chip shortage might drag on for a couple more years is to all but concede that it’s likely to persist indefinitely (sort of like the Fed telling us they might consider tightening “next year”).

Rosary Bead Shortage

The shortages that have cropped up so far have taught us that predicting what will be in short supply next takes imagination. Bicycles, surfboards, certain prescription drugs, ships and shipping containers, workers in many sectors, including construction, trucking, retail, restaurant, hotel and manufacturing — all are in critically short supply at the moment. They are also economically tied, often in obscure ways, meaning that a shortage of pasta could eventually affect the supply and demand for accordions, Chianti and Rosary beads. It has also put consumers on high alert, ready to hoard household items a nanosecond after the mere rumor of a shortage hits the blogosphere.  It is predictable that there will be food scares this winter and that they will get the kind of attention that will make us nostalgic for surfboard shortages. A Berkeley friend with an large and very productive vegetable garden behind his home thinks my fears are overblown. I hope so, because if a food scare turns into outright panic, his yard is destined to become all too popular with hungry marauders from the East Bay.

  • Richard Charles November 8, 2021, 2:52 pm

    Perspective

    https://tinyurl.com/36fed5hv

  • Richard Charles November 8, 2021, 2:49 pm

    Sir John Templeton
    Used to Sell as close to the point of maximum optimism as possible.
    Well ?

  • Mike DiBlasi November 8, 2021, 5:06 am

    Really appreciate your insights and comments Rick. They lead me to wonder where we (the country) are heading next and how to prepare. Although I have some paper products, waters, and a bunch of canned soup in the garage, it will eventually run out. Aside from all that’s happening these days, the bottom line is God will provide. He always has and always will. Again, thanks Rick for your candor.

  • DanielK11980 November 8, 2021, 1:51 am

    The best way of predicting the future is by creating it.

    “Transient inflation” they say.. Well, we’re “Building Back Better” which implies something was destroyed

    Welcome to “the new normal”

    I don’t understand all of the confusion, it seems the scenario we’re living out is pretty clear, the screen play is available to the public and this has been shrewdly planned for a long time:

    15 days to flatten the curve gives way to the ability to locking down the global economy and marks the beginning of bottlenecks for the global supply chain. Nobody tending fields, manufacturing goes quiet and travel grinds to a halt. Amazon and Netflix are salivating. Now we have double dose “immunization” with boosters and “mixing and matching.”

    Our current situation all comes on the heels of –
    A trip by Bill Gates to Davos to launch his “Decade of Vaccines” in January 2010:
    https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2010/01/bill-and-melinda-gates-pledge-us-10-billion-in-call-for-decade-of-vaccines/

    Followed by Bill’s TED Talk “Innovating to Zero,” described this way:
    “Bill Gates unveils his vision for the world’s energy future, describing the need for “miracles” to avoid planetary catastrophe and explaining why he’s backing a dramatically different type of nuclear reactor. The necessary goal? Zero carbon emissions globally by 2050.”
    His CO2 emissions equation begins with “P”, the number of people inhabiting the planet which at the time was “6.8 billion” on it’s way to “9 billion,” as he goes on to explain that if we do a really great job on “new vaccines, healthcare, reproductive health services” we could LOWER that by perhaps 10 or 15%… no joke
    https://www.ted.com/talks/bill_gates_innovating_to_zero#t-273919

    Fast forward a bit –

    2017 Fauci warned that the Trump Administration would face a “surprise outbreak” during a Georgetown University exercise and speech:
    https://gumc.georgetown.edu/gumc-stories/global-health-experts-advise-advance-planning-for-inevitable-pandemic/

    The Centers for Health Security host “CladeX: A Pandemic Exercise,” in 2018, then “Event 201: A Global Pandemic Exercise” with players The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, The World Economic Forum, Johns Hopkins University and many big name industry players including Johnson & Johnson, Big Banking, Big Tech and bureaucrats aplenty.
    https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/our-work/events/2018_clade_x_exercise/about-clade-x

    https://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/about

    While the WHO hosts [another] vaccine Summit in December 2019 where they focus on vaccine confidence, issues with supply chain, etc

    So… 10 years after “A Decade of Vaccines,” and a warning from Dr. Fauci (along with “pandemic exercises”), we have Covid and a “warp sped,” never used before technology in mRNA gene therapy shots (though there’s a long patent paper trail dating back well over a decade) authorized under Emergency Use (not FDA approved).
    This came to pass because of a “test” also authorized under Emergency Use (again, not FDA approved) that created the case counts for the news to peddle, a method was created back around 1985 by a man who called Fauci “a fraud” (sought to debate him in public many times) but wound up dying back in 2019 the year before Covid.

    Now we have:
    Boosting Vaccine Confidence | DAVOS AGENDA 2021
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O–8WeoG0OQ

    and now we have Bill saying this:
    https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/34332/20211104/bill-gates-tells-who-to-do-germ-games-to-prevent-another-pandemic-including-smallpox.htm

  • Ben November 8, 2021, 1:50 am

    Hate to pour gasoline on the fire, but on top of these existing and looming shortages, we’re very likely to have a Covid winter as bad or worse than last year. The far northern hemisphere, once again, is forecasting increases in both cases and deaths. Alaska, Northwest Territory, Moscow…

    It certainly will not be better, though. Overall, we’re about where we were a year ago only with cases slightly lower but deaths a little more than slightly higher. I hate saying, “as I predicted”, but… as I predicted last year, the vaccines haven’t had a noticeable impact. So I’m thinking it will be another winter like we had last winter season. Except in Russia. Russia will be hit much HARDER this winter. They had surpassed their winter peaks this summer and are still rising.

    And because things always were worse in China than they’ve let on, I suspect many other things will go into shortage as existing shortages become more severe. We’ll just have to wait and see how bad it will be!


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