quote:

Originally posted by two-two-niner-romeo:
Kellog's Cracklin Oat Bran. Can't find it anywhere.

I found it today! First box in months.

Life is good.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:
No paper towels or toilet paper at Costco yesterday

I have a dozen or so cases of MRE's about the house. Figure if I rat f**k them I can corral the TP. Probably enough to make one or two trips to the water closet.

Parts for my 38 year old car. Well, this is a different problem.

Did notice a lot more folks at Costco 2 Saturdays ago at opening time. Not like 18 months ago, where I turned around, went home and came back at 5 PM, zipping in and out in 15 minutes with what I 'needed'. Had 36 months of paper products anyway. Replenished my paper products 6 months ago. Good for 2-3 years and TP and 12-18 months on paper towels.

Aluminum Shortages Next As "Magnesium Supply Dries Up"

https://www.zerohedge.com/comm...gnesium-supply-dries

This week, the largest US producer of aluminum billet used to make automobiles and building supplies told customers and business associates that output capacity might be curtailed in 2022 due to a lack of magnesium supply.

"In the last several weeks, magnesium availability has dried up, and we have not been able to purchase our required magnesium units for all of 2022," Matalco Inc. President Tom Horter said in the letter obtained by S&P Global Platts.

Difficult-to-source supplies of raw materials and soaring energy prices are adding to the headwinds, Horter said in the letter.

"The purpose of this note is to provide this advanced warning that, if the scarcity continues, and especially if it becomes worse, Matalco may need to curtail production in 2022, resulting in allocations to our customers," he said.

Horter said his company will source as much magnesium as possible and other raw materials, such as silicon, to maintain its planned production output for 2022. The warning comes as he told customers they should have contingency plans if supplies tighten.

Aluminum billet cannot be produced without magnesium, which is a strengthening agent and allows it to be strong enough to be used in structural applications, such as automobile frames, engine blocks, and body panels.

"We will provide an update in a couple of weeks," Horter said. "In the meantime, you may want to consider letting your customer base know of this silicon and magnesium availability crisis and also let them know that other products or inputs needed for making billet or slab may also reach a crisis point."

Horter added other challenges such as the cost of energy, labor, and shipping are increasingly mounting.

Alcoa is another major US aluminum producer that also warned about shortages of magnesium and silicon. Without these two ingredients, both manufacturers cannot produce aluminum billet products. A reduction in US output would tighten global supply even further.

The macro backdrop of the aluminum industry is a complicated one. First, a military coup in Guinea last month stoked concerns over the supply of bauxite, a sedimentary rock with high aluminum content. Then the closure of energy-intensive smelters in Asia and Europe have tightened global supplies and forced LME prices to record highs.

So much for the Federal Reserve's "transitory" narrative. Higher costs will push up prices for new cars and other products made of aluminum.

canned chili with beans

lots of no bean stuff, but few with beans

What surprises me is the shortage of cheap plastic parts. I'm talking injection molded shit that costs pennies to make and sells for dollars.

Everything from plastic floorplates for pistol magazines (any 365 owner with a collection of mags and both sizes of grip frame will know *exactly* what mean) to organizer containers at IKEA. The line of containers I like the best, several sizes have been discontinued completely and the onrs they still carry our local store gets a shipment every month or two that sells out in a few days then nothing til the next shipment.

Easy to make, easy to ship, steady demand, high markup items.... and they can't make/get them? Not a good sign at all.

If chicom-made, they're probably stuck on a container ship; if they're US-made, probably stuck at the manufacturing plant because of shipping costs and are probably shipped in larger quantities to reduce shipping costs and/or manufacturer doesn't have enough workers to make said parts.

Good time to start looking at 3D-printing, as long as you can get printing supplies.

quote:

Originally posted by GregY:
What surprises me is the shortage of cheap plastic parts. I'm talking injection molded shit that costs pennies to make and sells for dollars.

Everything from plastic floorplates for pistol magazines (any 365 owner with a collection of mags and both sizes of grip frame will know *exactly* what mean) to organizer containers at IKEA. The line of containers I like the best, several sizes have been discontinued completely and the onrs they still carry our local store gets a shipment every month or two that sells out in a few days then nothing til the next shipment.

Easy to make, easy to ship, steady demand, high markup items.... and they can't make/get them? Not a good sign at all.

None of this makes any damn sense.

For the past year plus, the spices and dried herbs section of my local Walmart has been very thin with big holes where entire types of herbs and spices have been missing for a while. Today I go in there and it’s fully stocked with everything you can think of, the first I’ve seen this in over a year.

I don’t get it, it seems so random.

quote:

Originally posted by SIGnified:

quote:

Originally posted by old dino:
Okay, call me a hoarder or whatever ... but know that I live in a household of three adult women.

I have two years of toilet paper (from Costco) stored in the garage.

About the only thing in this house I have gotten right according to the women here.

They may come to appreciate the ammo later.

... have ammo too. Nothing like security for toilet paper.

quote:

Originally posted by PASig:
None of this makes any damn sense.

For the past year plus, the spices and dried herbs section of my local Walmart has been very thin with big holes where entire types of herbs and spices have been missing for a while. Today I go in there and it’s fully stocked with everything you can think of, the first I’ve seen this in over a year.

I don’t get it, it seems so random.

What I had heard thru the grapevine was that the issue was getting the glass jars.

A new bike shop opened nearby a few years ago. For most of the last 18 months it has been empty of bikes, but last week a shipment arrived and it is almost full.
It must really be hard doing business under these conditions.

My local CFA has been out of multigrain rolls for weeks now.

quote:

Originally posted by 229DAK:
What I had heard thru the grapevine was that the issue was getting the glass jars.

It's true. Finding canning jars around here is tough.

On a different note, last night my stereo receiver died. I'm not sure yet what really is wrong with it, but I went ahead and took a look at Crutchfield to start studying a replacement. Every single receiver I looked at was out of stock. Click the "Why?" icon and get a note about the chip shortage clobbering supply.

quote:

Originally posted by Dakor:

My local CFA has been out of multigrain rolls for weeks now.

Just brought home a couple spicy chicken sandwiches yesterday. My wife prefers the multigrain rolls, the local Chick-Fil-A did have them.

quote:

Originally posted by mbinky:
Tony Chachere's Bold seasoning. Went to three grocery stores today and none to be fond. Checked two stores a few counties over last week and came up empty. Plenty of the regular though.

Saw some yesterday. Seems like the Bold is the only one that sells anymore.

Not necessarily weird but when I went to fuel up last night, a few gas stations were out of everything but premium.

Bought any furniture lately? If it’s not on the floor it’s a 9 to14 month wait. Purchased couple recliners yesterday. Luckily we found what we were looking for.

We got lucky and were able to get a couch and loveseat for our basement fairly quickly. Two weeks for the couch and 2 months for the matching love seat. If we had gone with leather, it would have been six months easily.

In contrast, one of my LGS has/had of yesterday about 2-3 pallets of 9mm. First time I’ve seen that much ammo in one place for quite some time.

- Protein bars
- Figs
- Coke Zero (and Coke products in general)
- Bran cereal of any type
- Dishwasher detergent and bathroom cleaners

Most of the local Wawas are also very, very light on bottled ice teas of any variety.

quote:

Originally posted by mdblanton:

quote:

Originally posted by OKCGene:
9 Volt Batteries, and pretty much any batteries.

Got home late last night and one of the smoke alarms was chirping. The 3 are new, they were installed in April....

My smoke alarms somehow have batteries that only die in the middle of the night. Just happened with one a few weeks ago. I switched to the lithium battery powered model that has a 10-year battery life and beeps when it's time to discard the detector and replace with a new one. I didn't think it was a bad deal for $20.

My guess is you will still need to take them down every so often and clean out the ity bitty spider webs etc that will accumulate.