Pandemic supply chain in your area

[idleprocess]

The ports in L.A. used to have a lot of diesel trucks sitting waiting for loads. Now they have to be natural gas or electric to go to the port. This law had an unintended consequence of slowing down pickups and drop offs of loads, however. The companies that didn't want to change out their entire fleet to natural gas decided to buy one natural gas truck to stay by the port and load it with the load from the diesel trucks, then just drive the natural gas truck to the port and back about a mile, skirting the law and making it do nothing to reduce pollution.

Drayage has long been a discrete step in shipping port operations: cargo vessels must be loaded and offloaded in an expedient manner and dedicating vehicles to the task has been standard practice since before there were trucks. Given that diesels are not optimal for the short hops associated with drayage runs, replacing them with other energy sources - natural gas, electric, even hydrogen - represents low-hanging fruit to reduce air pollution, especially particulates.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Looks like that trucker work stoppage/protest/strike or whatever you want to call it now to protest A.B.5 happened again. This time, today, it was at the port in Oakland, CA. Just another slowdown of our goods making it to market. On the plus side, a potential rail worker strike that would have happened today got derailed by the President on Friday. This puts it on a 60 day hold before we have to worry about it again. Hopefully an agreement can be reached before this leads to a collapse of the supply chain in the U.S. You may not realize it now, but things are barely holding together. Won't take much to crash the whole system. Hopefully we can keep things held together long enough to rebuild and make everything in the supply chain work again.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Amazon is starting a new policy after August 5, 2022. After that date, they will no longer allow sellers to sell Mylar storage bags. They will allow see through "Mylar" bags of clear or colored plastic (not Mylar). Apparently, some people use the bags to hide drugs, while 99.9999% use them to legitimately store food long term in case of a disaster, food shortages, or for backpacking (Mylar blocks food scents when traveling in bear country). Not sure if this is a new law they are trying to comply with or if they are just trying to cover their butts from liability, but if you want to preserve a bucket of beans, rice, etc. for long term storage, this might make that harder to do very soon.

 

[knucklegary]

I thought the marijuana smugglers use a "seal a meal" vacuum bag system. Then alcohol wash and a bees wax cover, so the dope dogs can't detect..
I better load up on Mylar!

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Here's Amazon's mylar bag policy on their website:
https://sellercentral.amazon.com/forums/t/policy-update-affecting-mylar-bag-listings/1107662

 

[PhotonWrangler]

So it looks like plain Mylar bags for static sensitive electronic parts will still be ok...? I hope.

 

[idleprocess]

Apparently, some people use the bags to hide drugs, while 99.9999% use them to legitimately store food long term in case of a disaster, food shortages, or for backpacking (Mylar blocks food scents when traveling in bear country).

I thought the marijuana smugglers use a "seal a meal" vacuum bag system. Then alcohol wash and a bees wax cover, so the dope dogs can't detect..

Several years back I was vaguely acquainted with a fella at the makerspace who was selling odd grab bags of consumer goods - mostly cleaning products - on Amazon marketplace. Would spend hours at a time boxing up assortments either at the makerspace or out of a storage unit in the same facility where the makerspace also rented a unit. Had negative interest in conversation with anyone around when he was boxing these goods up.

Some time later I learned that he'd plead down a big boy felony-level drug conviction (in possession something like a kilo of weed and another kilo of hash oil) and managed to avoid jail time - probably rolled on his upstream supplier. It occurred to me that he was almost certainly selling drugs on Amazon via a highly obfuscated - if not invisible - listing with the cleaning products as disposable 'ballast' and to throw off detection.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

So it looks like plain Mylar bags for static sensitive electronic parts will still be ok...? I hope.

If it's the aluminum foil Mylar bags that are not see through, probably not. Clear or single color plastic ones are okay. However, the ban is for storage bags so electronics shipped in Mylar bags with a label saying what they are printed on them, I suspect those might pass. They want your packages see through so they know what is in them. This couldn't come at a worse time. We are dealing with a global food shortage with food prices skyrocketing. Being able to preserve food right now is like putting money in the bank minus the losses from inflation. Taking away the cheapest way to preserve food long term right now will likely go down in history as one of the dumbest moves of this century.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Looks like the trucker strike in California against A.B.5 is continuing. It has been shutting down the Port of Oakland all this week and shows no signs of stopping. Last week, the ports in L.A. were shut down for a day over this. This is going to seriously affect the supply chain on the West Coast. If they shut down the L.A. ports simultaneously, we won't have anything moving out West. Here's the news of it today:

 

[bykfixer]

Yes, in spring of 2020 and there've been issues since.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

The U.S. has been unplugged. We're still wrangling over control of the cord to try to plug it back in.

 

[Poppy]

View attachment 30086
Yes, in spring of 2020 and there've been issues since.

That was funny until you made it political. Lets continue to keep it clean, eh?

 

[bykfixer]

It was not meant as political....America pulled the plug during the "15 days to slow the spread"... then another 30, right? How is that a political thing?
Then when America plugged back in circuits popped, strained chain links broke and things then went into a frenzy in various sectors leading to many of the current supply chain issues regardless of who is currently running the machine.
Nothing to do with politics... so perhaps it would be best to not read something into something that was not there.

 

[knucklegary]

I read the sign just as rebooting America to make it work again. Where's the political implications?

 

[Poppy]

Oh, I see that you stated SPRING of 2020, not the election of 2020.

Your follow up post did a lot of clarification.

Thanks
Poppy

 

[bykfixer]

Yesterday I thought I was in the twighlight zone as the grocery store was loaded with masked people panic shopping. And the holes in between goods was very noticeable throughout the store.

Can't explain the masked people but the manager said they're loading the trucks at the warehouse to max capacity and sending bigger loads less often to save on the cost of fuel. So the holes were where the next giant load had not arrived yet.

I suppose the panic buying was get it before the price goes up (again). My bill is higher than a year ago but not all that much. Total bill is mainly higher from stocking up on sale items. A $4 item on sale for $2 was actually $2 regular price a year ago hence stocking up on sales stuff.

 

[PhotonWrangler]

I'm seeing more mask wearing as the BA5 variant spreads. Some of the counties in my area are at high transmission rates again. The county I live in has elevated rates but I work in one of the "high" communities. On a positive note, I've read just today that there is evidence that the existing vaccines may produce some long term protection against severe illness even with the variants because they signal the B and/or T cells (adaptive immunity system) to keep a list of the specimens they've seen, long after the front-line antibodies have waned.

 

[idleprocess]

I'm seeing more mask wearing as the BA5 variant spreads.

Masks had all but disappeared in my region ~6 months ago but they're back again to the point that you'll invariably see at least one customer wearing a mask at any establishment larger than a gas station.

Made a Costco run prior weekend / megalomart run this weekend and didn't notice any apparent shortages. Prices however remain significantly inflated.

 

[turbodog]

Can't find mini oreo cookies. Sucks because I owe someone a bag due to a favor.

Edit:

I'm putting this here as it pertains to c-19 supply chain as in stuff you want during these times but can't find.

And that would be a complete antibody test showing natural/acquired/etc antibodies and vaccine/spike antibodies.

Tell your doctor you want antibody test and to order "total & spike antibody". Appears that the word is _not_ out that this test data is available. I had to tell my dr today when he & the entire clinic staff was unaware this particular test existed.

 

[orbital]

+

23 months ago {let's just say two years ago} I ordered some Hornady 90gr. reloads for my Tokarev.
30 Cal.

they arrived yesterday,,,,,,, beat that!


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