just in trouble

JUST IN TROUBLE


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If the recent trend in readership continues and I get down to about the last five of you that are just hanging around to see who wins the pool on when I’ll be run over commuting on my bike ( since you should always expect the Gods to laugh last, my wager is that we either see a complete economic collapse the day before the first payday after I’m finished paying child support, OR, I get run over on my bike and killed the pay prior to that event just so all my preps go to naught ), and I now no longer have an audience to yak at, I’ll still even then bask in my own glow of legendary wit and cleverness. I make up so many acronyms and twists on words I forget half of them. And today, instead of Just In Time inventory we have Just In Trouble. Okay, not my most clever or best, but it will do, at least as far as impressing myself. Survivalist writers everywhere are busy warning you of JIT inventory, pointing out that the shelves will be bare. But I can’t just leave it at that. I am compelled by my nature and by poor taste to over analyze this. To take this small molehill and turn it into a high majestic peak of a mountain.

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Empty shelves because of a credit contraction or a Saudi oil supply disruption ain’t all there is to this. We have JITed our institutions. And the cause isn’t greed or profit, but resource draw down management. Let’s take our favorite example, Social Security. The seniors out there say, hey, bitches, I’ve paid into this for forty years. I want my money back. The young folks say, old bitches, you didn’t withhold at today’s high rate, so you didn’t pay in near what you are taking out, and since the system will be bankrupt when I get there, I will pay and pay just like you did but get nothing back. Don’t snap at me, I didn’t invent the system. The central bank and FDR, the most hideous crippled puke with a twisted soul and the morals of a crack whore ( which in actuality insults crack whores everywhere ) in all of history since Caligula did. And he never, ever, ever, saved or invested one humping penny. It was all spent from Day One. No lock boxes. But that is besides the point to seniors trying to survive after being lied to, right? I understand both sides. I give seniors crap not because I don’t agree they have a legitimate point, I mostly do so because it gets them so riled and this amuses me. But remember what I already told you. A 1950’s Supreme Court decision ruled that Social Security may legally be reneged on at the whim of Congress. I told you this years ago. You were warned. But again this isn’t the point. The point is, Social Security has always been like a JIT system. As one person needs a paycheck, another is being taxed and money collected. NEVER a savings or an investment. Just a pay as you go, as a JIT is a merchandise as you go.

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Notice a problem with food lately? Price spikes are becoming the new norm. And the primary culprit is JIT food. There is absolutely positively crap for inventory anymore to smooth out the shortages. This happened somewhat gradually. But stockpile drawdown has been taking place for some time, the global surplus dwindling more and more every year. And why? Not because of greed or the quest for more profits. The thing you need to understand is that in a system such as ours with a surplus of businesses and workers, with a shrinking amount of wealth, there is constant downward pressure of profits from competition. If you are just trying to survive and keep the current customers, would you alienate customers by always being out of stock? There is something else driving efficiencies ( the gentle euphemism for JIT ). That is shrinking supplies. The global grain stockpiles are a mirror to JIT systems everywhere, from a deficient of surplus electrical generating capacity, to store shelf consumer inventory to welfare ( or, employing another gentle euphemism, social safety net ). There are increasing mouths to feed and less supplies. At first we saw a drawdown in global stockpiles, until they were exhausted ( the last of the US stockpile was used up and replaced by cash and sold as a resource to acquire more grain as needed- what a laugh ). Then, we pretty much started going on a crop by crop basis. No problem ( keep in mind the stockpiles we have are months long, just to smooth out supply, they are not years long supplies going to replace any crop failure, as a strategic stockpile would ). Until it became a problem with the last few years of Extreme Weather Events. Now, Russia sees a drought, Texas has a hundred year event, Pakistan sees two major floods close together, not to mention Australia and China and etcetera, not taking into account the spreading wheat rust or rising fertilizer prices or spiking transport costs.

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There is simply not enough food to go around. We covered up the deficit with stockpile drawdown, and now without a stockpile there are shortages. Just now, it is only from weather events. But there are many things that can make this worse. Exponential multipliers. Just In Trouble inventory is not a wonderful way of doing business, it is a sign of desperation. You limit the total amount available by eliminating stockpiling. And you pray and hope a disaster doesn’t happen that creates a shortage of any kind that disrupts your shipping around those limited supplies in a game of musical chairs. In Social Security, we had a gradual demographic shrinking of workers supporting each retiree. We made up the needed numbers by allowing a porous border. That worked. Until unemployment doubled at the same time the first wave of Boomers retired. JIT.

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