Ah, the loverly fall weather is here and I finally get to read about a “bomb cyclone” happening on the other side of this fucking rock we call “America”.  Is this what it’s like for the rest of the country watching the northeast taking nature’s loads to the face every winter?

Special thanks to Bill Gates for paying for the article today:

It’s 7:38 a.m. on a Tuesday — specifically Oct. 19, 2021 — and you’re taking a taxi from Kennedy International Airport to The New York Times building. If you’d taken that ride very early this morning, when there was no traffic, it would have taken less than half an hour. But during today’s morning commute it was more like an hour and 15 minutes, to cover about 16 miles.

This trip will run around $70 if you happen to be a normal human being that will tip the driver.  If you are a shit heel like Krugman, its about $60.  What a wonderful way to explain supply chain economics to the plebs:  by first pointing out you can afford to not only fly directly in to New York, but also the cab faire to your posh office in Manhattan.

What caused this snarled traffic? We could see major delays on the Long Island Expressway and at the Queens-Midtown Tunnel; I don’t know what they were about. It could have been accidents, or stalled cars, or just the kind of random traffic backups that always happen once highways are sufficiently congested. At a fundamental level, however, the specifics aren’t the point. The reason it takes much longer to make the Kennedy-New York Times trip during the morning commute than it takes off-peak is that this is what happens when more people are trying to use roads than the road network can easily handle.

And now you understand the basics of the supply-chain problems that are driving up many prices and may interfere with your Christmas shopping.

There has been excellent reporting on the details of the logistical mess that has created shortages of almost everything, with much coverage focusing in particular on the logjam at the Port of Los Angeles; that gateway and the adjoining Port of Long Beach are the entry points for 40% of U.S. seaborne imports. But it’s important not to let the details obscure the big picture.

You see, the supply chain hasn’t broken down — U.S. ports are actually unloading a record quantity of goods.

This only appears true if you deny the evidence of your own eyes and ears.  The ships are clearly queued up off the port of Los Angeles but why aren’t they being unloaded?  For that answer you would have to pay attention to that other Manhattan-based newspaper that is saying the opposite is true.

The reason everything is delayed is that people are trying to buy more stuff than ever before, and their demands are outstripping the supply chain’s capacity — the same way that morning-commute traffic in New York outstrips the road network’s capacity. And once things are that stressed, small disruptions tend to snowball into large delays.

In an accompanying chart, you can see real spending on durable consumer goods — everything from cars to kitchen appliances to exercise equipment — expressed as an index with the start of the pandemic set to 100.

There was a huge surge — a 34% rise over 13 months! — that has only partly receded. I’ve also sketched in the pre-pandemic trend, to show that this was really far outside previous experience.

What accounts for this surge? Overall consumer demand has been strong, boosted by stimulus checks. But that has happened during previous economic recoveries. What’s special this time is that demand has been skewed: Consumers are buying fewer services and more goods than usual. Or as we might put it, they’ve been forgoing experiences and acquiring stuff instead. Another accompanying chart shows consumption of durables and services since the beginning of the pandemic, with durables outpacing services since April 2020.

Why the skew? It’s not a mystery: We’ve been afraid to indulge in many of our usual experiences and bought stuff to compensate. People ate out less, either because indoor dining was banned or because it didn’t feel safe, so they remodeled their kitchens. People couldn’t or wouldn’t go to the gym, so they bought exercise equipment.

Prices are a signal of overall incentives.  As the homosexual econ man’s outfit explains with the rise in the price of new cars.  The cars themselves are no different but the price is reflective of an overall shortage of the computer chips new cars require to operate, therefore a drop in supply.  If there is no change in demand, the price will rise relative to it simply because there are fewer finished cars to sell.

Furthermore the supply chain related price shocks are a simple cause and effect of idiot political decisions made a year ago.  Where the factories were shut down, access to ports limited due to virus fears leading to labor shortages, the ripple effect has made its way to the supermarket shelf.

Not to mention Trump’s unilateral trade war with China.  Many companies anticipated a second term and began moving factories elsewhere.  Once they decide to roll that ball, they can’t exactly move it back.

So what can help resolve problems with the supply chain? Emergency measures, like trying to mobilize resources to keep the ports open 24/​7, might help a bit. In the longer run, investments in infrastructure could help much more: U.S. ports, rail lines and so on are shabby compared with their counterparts in other countries and could be much improved.

But the biggest thing that could bring fast relief would be undoing the skew in demand by making people feel safe buying more services and fewer goods. The way to do that is by getting the pandemic under control, above all by getting more people vaccinated.

And how can we get more people vaccinated? Mandates. No need to spend time here rebutting claims that requiring workers or customers to be vaccinated is an assault on liberty: Sorry, but freedom doesn’t mean having the right to expose other people to a potentially deadly disease.

It absolutely is an assault on liberty.  If the government told you in order to write these retarded columns, you would have to cut off your own balls and eat them so that you could not further contaminate the gene pool with your retarded ideas you might have a different view.

Sorry, but freedom doesn’t mean having the right to expose people to potentially catastrophic Keynesian drivel.

At this point we can also dismiss claims that requiring vaccination will disrupt the economy: While many people told pollsters that they would quit rather than take their shots, in practice employers that have required vaccination have experienced only a handful of resignations.

Bullshit.  Bullshit.  Bull-fucking-shit.  You just spent several paragraphs telling us how fragile this supply chain is, and how easily it is interrupted, only to hand wave thousands of workers quitting over vaccines as if that won’t compound the problem at all?  From the American Trucking Association:

“Now placing vaccination mandates on employers, which in turn force employees to be vaccinated, will create a workforce crisis for our industry and the communities, families and businesses we serve.”

The federation warns that motor carriers it represents – who it said supply 80% of the country and move 70% of all freight tonnage — could lose up to 37% of their drivers.

You can’t suck your own dick and eat your own asshole at the same time doofus.

In other words, what our economy needs now is a shot in the arm — or rather, millions of shots in millions of arms. And vaccine mandates will provide those shots, in addition to saving lives.

What a fucking clown.  “We would be prosperous, if not for these wreckers and Kulaks.  Lets step on their faces until they do what we want!”  – Krugabe