stockpile shortages

STOCKPILE SHORTAGES
Is it just me, or has there been a trend lately where affordable survival items are in short supply? Obviously with enough money you can buy anything your little heart desires. But it seems the dirt cheap basics are slowly being depleted and then replaced by less desirable goods. Surplus bolt action rifles are a good example. Pre-Y2K you could buy the same item for retail that now goes for wholesale. Back then we had the semi-auto ban so rifles should have been at a higher price than they were. Now we have no ban ( for now- if you are a semi-auto guy buy as many mags as you can now before the Democommies enact a new and “improved” ban ) and bolt actions are going higher. Could it be that more marginally financial folks are waking up to prepping and the limited supply of surplus guns is under pressure? Now the only reasonable battle rifle for sale is the Russian M-N. Not a bad weapon per se, but there is always the safety issue of the ruptured case forcing hot gases into the users face. I am not enough of an expert you know how often ruptured cases occur, but err on the side of caution and don’t use those rifles myself. Of course, they are safer than having no rifle at all.
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If you go to Wal-Mart now there are no longer any #10 cans of corn, or pork and beans. They have been pulled. I understand it could be a simple explanation that those items weren’t selling. Wal-Mart, as far as I know despite all the feel-good, hug a liberal, can’t-we-all-just-get-along propaganda they employ about local charity giving, is not in business to be giving away money. They are around to make a profit. Now, once our new dictator-for-life Hilary is in office and takes over the re-education camps ( now erroneously known as public schools ) then “profit” will become illegal and “taxes” will become the new happy face word. But for now profit is a good thing and something we can all strive for rather than to be avoided. The Zimbabwe president has recently made raising prices illegal, despite inflation over 1,000% annually. This is about how Hilary would run things. But the fact remains that it is now harder to get bulk cans of beans and grains. Oh, they still have #10 cans of beans. Just a different type at twice the price. And the old metal cans of instant mashed potatoes are now replaced by a cardboard container. It used to be you got a bonus metal can for long life. That perk is now gone.
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Rimfire ammo has gone up in price. Not a lot, about 5%. But you can no longer buy a box of 550 for under ten bucks after tax. I would imagine the next trick they are going to employ would be to reduce the number of rounds in each box, probably down to an even 500. I guess it is inevitable, given that China is expected to do all of our manufacturing for us. They need metals, so they are scarcer for us. Supply and demand. Hilary can make the law of supply and demand illegal but she can’t repeal it. It is a universal law. Whenever you are confused about economics, just ask yourself, one, how has the government distorted the market for it and two, apply the law of supply and demand. Other ammunition is of course dear because the supply of surplus dried up and the new stuff is being bought up and shipped over to Iraq. 223 is a crappy round for killing, and now it cost more to do less with. Ha! That plastic plinker ain’t so hot now, is it?
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It is getting really hard to find five gallon food grade poly buckets anymore. If you buy new buckets at Wal-Mart or Lowe’s they are $6 and are not the safe kind of plastic. Of course, better perhaps-toxic than none at all ( just like the Russian guns ). But I’m finding it harder to get plastic buckets, at least in five gallon size. I have a Smith’s grocery bakery saving me all their food grade buckets, but 90% of them are two gallon sizes and the rest only 4 gallon. No more five gallons. Okay, not a huge deal. It takes 16 four gallon buckets to store four hundred pounds of wheat instead of 12 in the five gallon size. But over thirty in the two gallon size. That’s a lot of wasted space.
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Because of the current state of invading the whole world ( or anyway, at least because oil is more expensive ) MRE’s have gone from four or five bucks to five or six. Freeze dried foods are getting more expensive, so their sales drop, so the food gets expensive, a vicious cycle. They always were expensive, having a small customer base. But I think as real wages fall folks are forced to spend less on everything, including prep items. It may not be that less people are preparing, just that they have less money to do it with. So now the cheap stuff, corn and wheat, are also going up in price. There are many reasons for that, drought and ethanol BS. But no matter the reason for scarcity or increased cost, the end result is less items are available to the frugal prepper. I’m sure the Yuppie Survivalists are pleased as punch that the unworthies are being priced out of the market. Although they fail to understand that we can squeeze more blood out of a stone easier than they can squeeze a raise out of the CEO of MegaCorp. We can work around this easier than they can, since we are more flexible. Choke on your armor plated SUV, bastards!
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The lesson to be learned here is you need to stop putting off buying what you need. The longer you wait the pricier things become. If we enter a Depression the cost might go down, IF the item is still available. Do you want to gamble on that? Prices have doubled in the last seven years. Or close enough. Our prep items are becoming unavailable, more expensive or are being substituted with lesser quality items. Bite the bullet, go shopping now, and sleep sounder at night.
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One thing not going up in price-my books- www.bisonpress.com