General Investing and Economics Discussion - No Politics

[ramblinwreckguru]

It’s freaking insane that I have over 100 open jobs at the moment and am in a bidding war again for talent. #1 competitor, unemployment line. You make $35k to have every day off, tax free. $70k if you’re a couple.

Oh yeah come work for me for $5k/month, pay $600/month for health insurance. I don’t know but your MTR is probably 8% or $400/month. You get clipped 7.65% for SS & Medicare, or another $380/month.

You net about $700/month to get up and work 175 hrs/month or a whopping $4/hr. Hope you live less than 30 miles from work otherwise you just ate it all up commuting back & forth to work.

$700/month?

 

[LibertyTurns]

$700/month?

Rounding here but $3600 is $700 more than $2900.

 

[ramblinwreckguru]

Rounding here but $3600 is $700 more than $2900.

Gotcha! "Net" being the key word in there. I was thinking overall, but you were talking about net. Makes sense.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I think we’ll see more of this. Most of the country is at full employment. A bunch are in a massive labor shortage at 2%-3%s unemployment.

And the states that have been shutdown like California and New York are re-emerging, so I’m sure we’ll see their economies surging shortly.

Montana plans to cancel unemployment benefits to address ‘severe workforce shortage’

Montana plans to stop some of its federally-funded unemployment benefits to address its "severe workforce shortage,” which will leave many out-of-work residents without any support at all.

www.yahoo.com

South Carolina just did the same. No need for it at full employment.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

Crazy how far reaching all this is - steel, lumber, etc all in tulip craze inflation numbers.

Steel prices have tripled. Now Bank of America is sounding the alarm

A bubble could be brewing in steel stocks.

www.cnn.com

 

[LibertyTurns]

Hey don’t look now ladies but my 15k of doggie is now worth over $10k.

Smiling about the GT win, laughing about the doggie. I’ve always wanted a convertible hot rod & if this baby crests $150k I’m gonna be riding in style! On the other hand I’ve always wanted a Bobby Dodd condo so I don‘t need a hotel room on Saturdays in the fall. So many choices.

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

Besides commodity prices going up, anyone here in manufacturing seeing supply chain delivery issues? Last week I had to place orders out through May of 2022 and hope like crazy I actually hit my growth numbers I just committed to purchasing inventory.

At this point, I will galdly take much higher prices as long as I can get raw PCB's, IC's, Inductors and all the other parts for electronic manufacturing.

 

[orientalnc]

My son is in the metal building business and told me steel supply is way off. He is not trying to find new customers because he needs all he can get for his regulars.

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

It is all interconnected. Interest rates will have to rise to stem off inflation. Spending will then decrease which will cause at least recession if not depression. I am not an economist, but from my take it appears to me that the government has spent much more than required to make up for losses during the shutdowns. At this point, many places are having problems finding workers. I have heard of a few places where workers are leaving companies en masse to get to higher paying jobs, which causes those places to raise wages. All of the companies involved will have to raise prices. That is going to result in higher prices, which will severely dampen the benefit to the higher wages. Eventually inflation will occur and things will settle down. There will be a temporary bump for some as wages rise, but when it is all past the ups and downs, people in relative job categories will be in exactly the same relative position that they are now.

I am not an economist... that is a definite plus. President Truman was once asked by a reporter what he wanted for Christmas. Replied the President: "A one handed economist" "Why is that?" asked the confused reporter. "Because all the ones I have now, keep saying "On the other hand..."

 

[Heisman's Ghost]

Sorry. What's the investment thesis for us to apply this information?

Buy gold? Short stocks? Head to the craps table? How do you want to apply this info?

Trying to avoid your posts getting picked up as political commentary.

Buy low, sell high? The way the market is now, going to the craps table may be your best bet. My portfolio has gained over $56,000 since January...alas, I lost $100,000 last March in the meltdown. So, don't ask me for financial advice.

 

[Jophish17]

Besides commodity prices going up, anyone here in manufacturing seeing supply chain delivery issues? Last week I had to place orders out through May of 2022 and hope like crazy I actually hit my growth numbers I just committed to purchasing inventory.

Yep. Our supply chain team just asked what we need for hardware in 2022. We typically have a 4-6 month lead time, and I’m now being quoted summer 2022 for the earliest shipments from China.

 

[LibertyTurns]

@MountainBuzzMan @Jophish17 If you’re in the business of making things, hope you got a star supply chain person working for you. Landscape is fraught with challenges, here & abroad.

On a different note, not sure how economics could not be political, but here’s some food for thought for those wannabe economists.

https://cdn.mises.org/the_austrian_7_no_2_marchapril_2021.pdf

 

[MountainBuzzMan]

Yep. Our supply chain team just asked what we need for hardware in 2022. We typically have a 4-6 month lead time, and I’m now being quoted summer 2022 for the earliest shipments from China.

That's a tough one. We make most everything here in the US, but there are a few key components we get from Taiwan. We do our PCB assembly here in Georgia as well. We are trying to bring in enough PCB components to get us through the next 10 months or so and hope we can manage 10-12 months into the future consistantly going forward until the supply chain settles back down.

 

[ramblinwreckguru]

Have any of you heard about chicken wing shortage? The B dubs here in Pooler has quit selling traditional wings on BOGO Tuesdays with the excuse of a chicken wing shortage. I'm a little perplexed because the Savannah B dubs isn't doing that.

 

[MWBATL]

Besides commodity prices going up, anyone here in manufacturing seeing supply chain delivery issues? Last week I had to place orders out through May of 2022 and hope like crazy I actually hit my growth numbers I just committed to purchasing inventory.

At this point, I will galdly take much higher prices as long as I can get raw PCB's, IC's, Inductors and all the other parts for electronic manufacturing.

Yes, lots of supply chain issues:

Supply Chain Challenges...Why So Many? - DSR Sales Support Blog

What are the challenges that are contributing to supply chain problems? From container shortages to the back up in the Suez canal

blog.rjschinner.com

We have actually paused the building of a small home in Louisiana because our lumber prices have risen again by $10,000 in the last two months...on a home which was to have cost us $220,000 before the steep rise in lumber that has already hit us this spring...

 

[Milwaukee]

Besides commodity prices going up, anyone here in manufacturing seeing supply chain delivery issues? Last week I had to place orders out through May of 2022 and hope like crazy I actually hit my growth numbers I just committed to purchasing inventory.

At this point, I will galdly take much higher prices as long as I can get raw PCB's, IC's, Inductors and all the other parts for electronic manufacturing.

I’m in the industry, I’m actually a distributor. The entire supply chain is broken worldwide at the moment. My customers can’t get raw materials (stainless, aluminum, wood, etc) and the ones that are able to get it can’t get their consumables from companies like mine. It’s a $hit show and it’s only getting worse. 3M products that used to take 3-7 days are now being pushed out 90 days. It’s not just 3M either. VSM, Pferd, Dynabrade, Chicago Pneumatic, Cleco, etc etc.
The customers that are fortunate enough to have raw materials and consumables can’t get anyone to work due to everyone wanting to collect the insane unemployment. Such a mess.

 

[Milwaukee]

Have any of you heard about chicken wing shortage? The B dubs here in Pooler has quit selling traditional wings on BOGO Tuesdays with the excuse of a chicken wing shortage. I'm a little perplexed because the Savannah B dubs isn't doing that.

Yes, started about 2 months ago in the Madison area Bdubs up here and now it’s hit the Milwaukee area bdubs. It’s hit or miss, some days they have wings and some they don’t so I just call ahead. Crazy.

 

[Deleted member 2897]

I’m in the industry, I’m actually a distributor. The entire supply chain is broken worldwide at the moment. My customers can’t get raw materials (stainless, aluminum, wood, etc) and the ones that are able to get it can’t get their consumables from companies like mine. It’s a $hit show and it’s only getting worse. 3M products that used to take 3-7 days are now being pushed out 90 days. It’s not just 3M either. VSM, Pferd, Dynabrade, Chicago Pneumatic, Cleco, etc etc.
The customers that are fortunate enough to have raw materials and consumables can’t get anyone to work due to everyone wanting to collect the insane unemployment. Such a mess.

South Carolina is one of the cheapest states there is in terms of what we pay unemployment. We just announced we're ending the federal part. If you added our state to the federal part, it equates to $17/hour. A lot of that type of work is hard work, so you can't really blame people for not wanting to work unless they could get several dollars an hour more than that. That's completely distorted and ruined the labor market and the supply chain. And we're one of the cheapest - imagine significantly higher effective free hourly wages than that in other states. For example, Oregon pays $650. So plus the federal, that's $24/hour. Massachusetts pays $850. So plus the federal, that's $29/hour. That's an incredible amount of money to not work when the economy is overheated and short of workers. I don't blame them a year ago because they forced companies to shut down and fire people. But once we started re-opening again several months ago and learned we could safely, it should have quickly ended.

 

[Milwaukee]

That's a tough one. We make most everything here in the US, but there are a few key components we get from Taiwan. We do our PCB assembly here in Georgia as well. We are trying to bring in enough PCB components to get us through the next 10 months or so and hope we can manage 10-12 months into the future consistantly going forward until the supply chain settles back down.

If you order a high end Trek bicycle right now you won’t get your bike until 2022-2023. And now they have people leaving the company because Friday they announced everyone must be vaxed starting in July. Crazy.

 

[orientalnc]

I’m in the industry, I’m actually a distributor. The entire supply chain is broken worldwide at the moment. My customers can’t get raw materials (stainless, aluminum, wood, etc) and the ones that are able to get it can’t get their consumables from companies like mine. It’s a $hit show and it’s only getting worse. 3M products that used to take 3-7 days are now being pushed out 90 days. It’s not just 3M either. VSM, Pferd, Dynabrade, Chicago Pneumatic, Cleco, etc etc.
The customers that are fortunate enough to have raw materials and consumables can’t get anyone to work due to everyone wanting to collect the insane unemployment. Such a mess.

You are in Wisconsin and the max unemployment benefit is $370/week. Are people staying home for that temporary amount? Maybe you should be paying them more???