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Things Are Accelerating
It’s not shocking to observe that the events of the past 10 months would have a cumulative effect. I’ve said for months that when all this is over, we’ll be dealing with a large part of the population suffering from PTSD.
I was wrong. I didn’t have to wait til it’s over. And for the record, I don’t think we’ve hit bottom yet. Not by a long shot.
It’s getting tougher and tougher for me to get the equipment my customers need in any sort of reasonable time frame. Which makes it tougher and tougher for them to earn a living. Almost to a one, my customers have been patient and understanding. But I just suffered a tirade from someone who has been waiting since the summer for a tool that is now sitting on a ship off the coast of SoCal. And I have no idea when that ship will dock, when the items will be unloaded, and when the item will be available to ship. He swore (not at me), then I swore (not at him). Let’s just say “COVID” now has a few preceding words that will be forever attached to it.
For my friends who are business owners, it’s getting tougher and tougher to find workers. “My wife was exposed to COVID” is heard so often it’s hard not to think it’s now a vacation excuse.
Everyday experiences are now riddled with stress. And stressful situations, like flying, sound so awful that I automatically start to craft an excuse whenever the subject comes up.
And my proof that the end times are nigh?
Last week I saw a Trader Joe’s employee be rude to a customer.
Published in General
And that’s before Joe Biden becomes Kamala’s placeholder. He has lots of loonie ideas which will make things worse.
Agreed. I purposefully didn’t mention politics for a couple of reasons:
One, I think the effects of the past few years on the political scene will be worse than the COVID effect. And I think the COVID effect will last at least a generation.
Two, I laugh maniacally whenever anyone makes a prediction. No matter how bad your prediction, ten bucks say things will be worse.
I agree. I just read an economics book making a dour prediction for the next year in terms of supply chain disruptions. The disruptions have been occurring over the past year, but they are becoming more noticeable now as companies are running out of their standing inventories.
And to your point, people are decidedly running out of patience, and there are fewer distractions–like the election and the holidays–from the daily irritations.
That said, I think a lot of the problems caused directly by the pandemic will be over by Easter, April 4. So many people will be vaccinated by then that the virus, which cannot survive outside a living host, will die out because it will be unable to get from host to host. It will leave nonimmune host A and go to immune host B and die there. So the virus should quiet down as dramatically as it arose.
However, I think it will be at least two more years until the economic hits stop coming, perhaps longer without Larry Kudlow at the financial helm in the White House.
Someone was rude at Trader Joe’s? Maybe the world is ending. Sigh.
So it’s not just me. I feel exhausted by COVID-19. (I am happy to not mention politics.)
I don’t doubt your prediction regarding the virus. I don’t believe for a minute that the torture to us as individuals and society at large will end. I do think your prediction regarding the economy is optomistic.
It was shocking. And her ‘rude” behavior wouldn’t have even been noticeable had it been a checker at our chain grocery store, where the workers have been pissed off for years.
To be fair the Joe’s Diner Mac n Cheese wasn’t really on sale…
Are there a greater number of strange behaviors appearing but that cannot be connected to Covid-19 or any other specific occurrence. It just seems to me that is happening. Of course, maybe it everyone in their own place but not able to act as they normally would because of all the unusual conditions.
Well, this is the kind of anecdotal information Peter Lynch used to base his investment decisions on.
Short the market?
The mind virus they have implanted in everyone is far worse than the actual virus. Billions of times worse. If you believe that people should be free to assess their own risks, you’re as fringe-radical as a Flat Earther. I don’t think the mind virus is strictly a right/left theme either.
My buddy has a three year old daughter and he said something that terrified me. Everyone was worried about toddlers not being able to keep their masks on or throwing them off in a fit back in April. Nobody thought kids would put up with this. He told me that when she got out of the car to go to the store yesterday, she just threw the mask on without him asking. Like it was completely normal. I don’t want this to be normal for kids. It’s completely insane.
Agreed. One of my worst days in a year full of them was watching my granddaughters leave for their first-ever day of school wearing masks. I’m shocked at how easily they’ve complied with the demand to wear one.
I’m actually rather appalled at everyone’s compliance, but it’s worse in little ones. How easy will it be to make them do other ridiculous things?
I think we already have a lot of young people who have no clue what individual liberty is, what free speech and freedom of association are, and a host of other things that were passed to us by our founders. It is a time I never expected to see and I am sure I bear a part of the responsibility for permitting this to happen. I’m in shock at how easily the country has turned to fascist behavior and how closely much of the pattern fits George Orwell’s predictions. We are in real trouble.
That’s not funny! You take that back!
Commercial vehicle order books for 2021 are almost completely sold out. And the books are smaller this year than in previous years.
In layman’s terms, if you were wanting to order a model-year 2021 van or truck, you cannot because the factories are not taking any more orders. This is all due to:
And Ricochet is determined to pour as much gas in the fire as possible with renewed front page of Jon’s post.
Classic.
It might have to be a different flammable liquid. We’re going to see four dollar a gallon gas within a year.
We are leaving Ricochet after a decade.
conservative no longer equals Constitutionalist. You go the way of the Whigs.
They are loyalists and it is 1774
Governor Cuomo, the Granny killer, is now saying, things need to open up, it’s just to costly to continue with these closures. (I guess the trillionaires are ready to buy up NYC?)
Meanwhile, I think people have been isolated for so long, that the honeymoon of regathering will be very brief, followed by militant intolerance of others being close and invading your space.
I’ve grown accustomed to the quiet and have forgotten how to tiptoe around the important, but small civilities.
Easily. The kids at school are mostly ruined. Some will be parents before they even process this abuse, ket alone recover. They will raise their own kids inside a Covid and Critical Race Theory shadow.
This year will be visible, like an aberrant tree ring, for history to see.
When dining out post-lockdown, I intend to insist that the tables around me be vacant. Who wants to hear other people talk?
People and society cannot be turned off, then on a whim turned back on like nothing has happened
Like the one-child policy in China. After a generation when it was rolled back, people were fine with only having one child
Turns out a lot of people were probably seeing their extended families only due to obligation. Just another tie that binds gone for good
It really is sickening. I don’t need to be a child psychologist to know that we’re going to see some severe developmental disorders down the road. Children need social interaction. The teacher’s unions and the politicians cannot seriously believe that removing two or three years of a child’s social development will have no repercussions.
Think back on every single argument you’ve heard against homeschooling pre 2020. They simply don’t care about the toll this is taking.
And before anyone compares our current situation to homeschooling (there’s been a few idiots on FB who have attempted) – the situations are not comparable. Homeschooling pre 2020 included libraries, reading groups, play groups, parks and sports.
If things keep going for immunizations as they are going around here, we will be lucky to have a quarter of the population immunized by next year. 6 to 8 hour waits and don’t get out of your car. And 1000 people only per weekend. It’s not going well.
Up next: Vaccination is the latest super spreader event!
I knew this would happen, just this way.
I live among Democrats, and I know how much they love money–other people’s, that is.
I knew the cities and towns and states would wake up and realize that more was going out than coming in.
That would be the end of the “lockdowns.” They will wave their magic wands and make it disappear.
This is happening a lot. Masks provide the cover.
He’s instilling half the old Obama crowd – this isn’t a new administration. On Anne’s note, these things are scary. It seems to be affecting all industries. Why can’t the ship dock and unload? I tried to get some bags of cat food from my vet and they said they are having a hard time getting anything from the supplier Royal Canin! I definitely am feeling the effects of PTSD – after last week. I could not get to sleep from the anxiety. I started singling Silent Night to myself…..I’m ready to get the Christmas music back out. There isn’t enough TUMS or Advil to calm up down right now.
This could be its own post – I would be interested to hear from others on what kind of supply chain issues they are experiencing, not just on the job but life in general.
Attacking supply chains and destroying means of communication is an ages-old warfare tactic.