Store Shelves Looking Bare Again And Tire Places Are Overwhelmed.

[Bobby Henderson]

With more and more of these fast food joints even if the work conditions are decent and customers aren't treating the workers like shit the wage scales are simply un-live-able in more and more locations.

I've heard plenty of bitching from certain camps over activists calling for a $15 minimum wage for people like fast food workers. Hell, $15 an hour is NOT a survivable wage in more and more locations, especially large cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. The worker would have to be living with a spouse, multiple roommates and/or working multiple shit jobs just to survive. Living costs, particularly housing costs, are just too hatefully high for these workers. In high cost of living locations I don't know how they can even manage to staff such restaurants. The workers must be commuting long distances or something.

If we want to keep McDonald's jobs down at low wage jobs just for high school kids then the restaurants should only be open a couple hours during the evening so only high school kids can work those jobs. If the restaurants are going to be open during business hours and while school is in session the jobs should pay better and the workers should be treated better. If that can't work then shut down the damned places. I pack my own lunch to work most of the time anyway.

[Leo Enticknap]

Trains up to 3 miles in length with 200 or more cars are going to become more common. It sucks if you're parked at an at-grade railroad crossing waiting for a mega-train to pass.

This crossing, about two miles from me, has become a major point of contention. It is on what was a sleepy back road through a canyon, which, thanks to the creep of exurbia into communities further east, has now become an overflow commuter route for the I-10. The railroad is also the main line (I think BNSF, but am not sure) from the Port of LA into Arizona and the south-east. When it was announced a couple of months ago that they were going to add several new freight trains to the schedule, and do a feasibility study about adding extra tracks and passenger trains as well, there was local uproar. Unless they build a bridge over that track, any increase in rail traffic will cause even more gridlock than happens in the rush hours already.

But still, if there is a shortage of truck drivers, then one train crew (two or three guys?) can move 300-400 containers at a time, whereas one truck driver = one container. I suppose it makes sense to use rail more for long haul movements (using the same principle as the hub/spoke airline system), to free up the truck drivers for last mile journeys that the trains can't do.

[Bobby Henderson]

The railroad is also the main line (I think BNSF, but am not sure) from the Port of LA into Arizona and the south-east.

The line was once the main route for Southern Pacific going out of California into Arizona and points farther east. I remember that being the case back when I was a kid and my dad was stationed at MCAS Yuma. Amtrak also uses the route. It's now the main East-West route for Union Pacific in the Los Angeles region of its rail network.

That railroad crossing you linked in Google Maps looks really familiar. I think I've seen it as a movie location before. I just can't remember which film. It is a picturesque location. San Timoteo Canyon Road would look like a great place to drive for train watching. CA-111 farther Southeast would be pretty good too. But, yeah, if they add more trains to the schedule they're going to have to build more grade-separated crossings.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Nothing is curtailed in this Republican State. And soon this town needs to change it's name to NashVegas! People are free to go out and get covid as they please here. I ate out last week, Sushi. But the number of tables was reduced and I did not feel unsafe in there. I will also eat outdoors in good weather. But I will turn around and walk out of a restaurant that is not going by common sense 6 foot separation.

[Leo Enticknap]

That railroad crossing you linked in Google Maps looks really familiar. I think I've seen it as a movie location before. I just can't remember which film. It is a picturesque location.

That canyon is one of the few unspoiled patches left in the Inland Empire (the San Bernardino Mountains being another, and Big Bear City/Lake has been used in several movies), though I'm not aware of it having been used as a movie location. That doesn't mean that it wasn't, though, and the place has a pretty colorful history stretching back into the c19.

Returning to topic, this from today's Daily Wail:

California ports hit 17-day record logjam as supply chain crisis continues to disrupt shipping, while Newsom attempts to double DMV capacity for commercial licenses to tackle truck driver shortage

The logjam at California's ports for ships to wait is now as long as 17 days - a new record amid the continuing supply chain crisis.

There were as many as 83 ships at anchor and in a holding pattern outside ports in Los Angeles and Long Beach as of Friday night, officials said.

The nearly 17-day wait is double the wait time from just two months ago.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom is attempting to address the problem by doubling capacities at the state's DMV in an effort to conduct more commercial driving tests and ease the truck driver shortage.

'With today's announcement, we'll get more truckers on the road to get goods where they need to go faster,' Newsom said. 'The supply chain crisis is not a California specific problem, but we've taken swift action to relieve congestion and increase our capacity to move goods quickly.'

The California DMV will open up Saturday hours at various test sites.

The logjams at the ports come as strained supply chains have caused controversy for President Joe Biden as they combine with inflation and shortages of workers.

Biden headed to his home in Delaware for the weekend amid the continued crisis, in addition to ongoing trouble at the US/Mexico border.

'Every sector of the supply chain has reached capacity,' Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero said in a statement earlier this week. 'We are trying to add capacity by searching for vacant land to store containers, expanding the hours of operation at terminals, and implementing a fee that will incentivize ocean carriers to pull their containers out of the port as soon as possible.'

Biden said on Wednesday that most Americans cannot understand the problems faced by the United States' supply chains, adding that 'not a lot of people' have a clear grasp of the networks and their implications.

Speaking at the port of Baltimore, where he touted his $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill - which was passed by Congress earlier this month, and which he plans to sign into law on Monday - Biden said that investing in resiliency was essential.

'You hear a lot about the supply chains in the news, but frankly, not a lot of people have a clear understanding, whether they have a Ph.D. or they didn't go to school, about how a supply chain works,' the president said.

'In simple terms, supply chain is just the journey that a product takes to get to your doorstep,' he said.

The president in Baltimore also admitted that his decision to send out stimulus checks contributed to the current high inflation.

'The irony is people have more money now because of the first major piece of legislation I passed.

'You all got checks for $1,400. You got checks for a whole range of things,' Biden said, referencing his COVID relief checks sent out in April.

'If you're a mom and you have kids under the age of 7, you get $300 a month and if it's over 7 to 17, you're getting $360 a month,' he said, misstating the second amount, which is $250 per month.

'It changes people's lives. But what happens if there's nothing to buy and you got more money to compete for getting [goods]? It creates a real problem.'

'On the one hand, we're facing new disruptions to our supplies. At the same time, we're also experiencing higher demand for goods because wages are up as well as people have money in the bank. And because of the strength of our economic recovery, American families have been able to buy more products.'

Biden said it was 'easily understandable' why Americans would not comprehend how 'incredibly complex' supply chains work, because they rarely crossed peoples' minds.

'As long as goods and materials are getting where they need to go on time, there's usually no need to worry about the supply chains,' Biden said.

Since September, the United States has - like other countries around the world - been battling snarled supply chains.

Ships have spent days off the coasts of the world's major ports, unable to unload their cargo due to a shortage of delivery drivers and technical staff. Container ships have plied their routes with their vessels only partially loaded, due to logistical issues in ports and warehouses.

The crisis has led to fears that stores may not have enough supplies for the holidays, and gifts may not arrive.

Biden has said before that the knock-on effect of the supply chain problems were scarcely understood.

On Saturday, he said: 'If we were all going out and having lunch together and I said, 'Let's ask whoever's in the next table, no matter what restaurant we're in, have them explain the supply chain to us.' Do you think they'd understand what we're talking about?

'They're smart people,' the president added, but he concluded the current crisis was a part of a 'complicated world.'

Biden also said Saturday that he has yet to see a reporter outline 'very well' how supply chains work.

Earlier on Wednesday an inflation report showed the largest annual increase in prices in three decades.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said that prices in October rose 0.9 per cent from September — and more than 6 per cent over the past year, the largest annual rise in 30 years.

'I'm here to talk about one of the most pressing economic concerns of the American people,' he said. 'And it's real.

'And that is getting prices down, number one.

'Number two, making sure our stores are fully stocked.

'And number three, getting a lot of people back to work while tracking and tackling these two above challenges.'

He said he believed the problem was temporary, and that the economy would stabilize.

'People are not going out to dinner and lunch and going to local bars because of COVID. So what are they doing? They're staying home and ordering online and they're buying product.' Biden said.

'Well with more people with money buying product and less product to buy, what happens?

'The supply chain's the reason, the answer is you guys, I'll get to that in a minute. But what happens? Prices go up.'

He said that the U.S. was feeling the effects of a positive sentiment in the economy.

Biden said that 'more products are being delivered than ever before — that's because people have little more breathing room than they did last year. And that's a good thing.

'But it also means we've got higher demand for goods at the same time we're facing disruptions in the supplies to make those goods. This is a recipe for delays and for higher prices.'

Strained supply chains have become an economic drag on the world's largest economy and a political risk for President Joe Biden as the disruptions put upward pressure on inflation while highlighting shortages of workers, including truck drivers and warehouse staff. Consumer sentiment is deteriorating amid a spike in the cost of living.

'Every sector of the supply chain has reached capacity,' Port of Long Beach Executive Director Mario Cordero said in a statement this week announcing that its terminals had their second-busiest October on record.

The White House earlier this week touted incremental progress at L.A.-Long Beach-- a 20% decline in the number of containers sitting for more than nine days days in the week to Nov. 8. The adjoining gateways for 40% of the nation's containerized imports have handled 17% more volume this year, while their land-side storage capacity remained unchanged.

As an aside, my only real experience of inflation personally up until now has been in gas prices: up from around $3.20 a gallon locally around this time last year, to $4.50 when I filled up yesterday. But when I did the weekly family food shop at Trader Joe's in Redlands yesterday, boy was there a sticker shock! Bagged salad was up from $1.99 to $2.59; orange juice from $3.99 to $4.39; almond milk from $2.99 to $3.49; a packet of light roast Keurig capsules from $3.99 to $4.99, a loaf of sliced sourdough from around $3.50 to $4.79, etc. etc. The price of most the staples I buy was up by between 10 and 20%. I'm not trying to turn this into a political discussion, but if price hikes for non-discretionary basics aren't brought under control, those currently in office will also eventually pay, at the ballot box, regardless of how responsible for this they actually are.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

"Trader Joe's in Redlands yesterday, boy was there a sticker shock!"
I only buy certain things at Trader Joes. Most of the rest of what I buy comes from Aldi's whom owns Trader Joes, Aldi has much lower prices, but still good quality. Just not tje frozen pizzas or most of the frozen dinners. Their salmon is a bargainI.... Plus I can shop via Instacart and delivery is only 3 dollars and change if you buy $50 worth of groceries. Its not worth driving there for $3! Kroger is last on my list, but I seem to end up there once every week or two.

[Marcel Birgelen]

With more and more of these fast food joints even if the work conditions are decent and customers aren't treating the workers like shit the wage scales are simply un-live-able in more and more locations.

I've heard plenty of bitching from certain camps over activists calling for a $15 minimum wage for people like fast food workers. Hell, $15 an hour is NOT a survivable wage in more and more locations, especially large cities like Los Angeles and San Francisco. The worker would have to be living with a spouse, multiple roommates and/or working multiple shit jobs just to survive. Living costs, particularly housing costs, are just too hatefully high for these workers. In high cost of living locations I don't know how they can even manage to staff such restaurants. The workers must be commuting long distances or something.

If we want to keep McDonald's jobs down at low wage jobs just for high school kids then the restaurants should only be open a couple hours during the evening so only high school kids can work those jobs. If the restaurants are going to be open during business hours and while school is in session the jobs should pay better and the workers should be treated better. If that can't work then shut down the damned places. I pack my own lunch to work most of the time anyway.

I have no real experience running a fast food joint myself but I know some folks that do run some of those franchised outlets. According to them, their current business model simply isn't sustainable at higher minimum wages, as their staffing requirements are still relatively high and especially for prime real-estate, the rent and leases are through the roof. It's primary the latter that's hurting many of those businesses, giving them a hard time to remain profitable.

So, what would be the end-game? Raising prices so people can be paid a reasonable, livable wage? But how would that affect the bottom line? What if consumer prices would e.g. increase by 50%? Or what if they would double? Would they still be willing to pay for the same food and service at such price-levels?

Most people agree that the industry will push hard to automate as many of those jobs as possible. You see this happening across the board already with stuff like on-line ordering, automated cashier kiosks instead of traditional human cashiers, next up will be food dispensing and more and more "robotized" food production. It probably will be a while before your local McDonald's will be entirely ran by robots, but it's probably the road we're heading for.

[Bobby Henderson]

I have no real experience running a fast food joint myself but I know some folks that do run some of those franchised outlets. According to them, their current business model simply isn't sustainable at higher minimum wages, as their staffing requirements are still relatively high and especially for prime real-estate, the rent and leases are through the roof. It's primary the latter that's hurting many of those businesses, giving them a hard time to remain profitable.

I completely understand the financial squeeze restaurant franchise owners are facing. They have to walk a financial tightrope to keep their businesses afloat. But the workers they hire for minimal pay are facing real money math circumstances at least as bad. The workers are just trying to keep a roof over their heads. A growing number aren't even managing to do that.

Major cities in the United States have growing populations of working homeless, people who have one or more jobs but cannot afford to buy/rent housing on their own. That living situation is spreading to smaller cities and towns. It's even happening in my town. The problem is somewhat hidden out of easy view via unconventional living arrangements. Lots of young adults are renting couches rather than entire apartments or homes for themselves. Co-habitation is increasingly common. I suspect my new neighbors next door are at least 2 families plus one or more grandparents all piled into the same 3 bedroom house, pooling their incomes to pay the rent.

Naturally, douchebags will try to intervene. Nearby in Altus, OK the city manager there is trying to crack down on Air BNB style operations that cater mostly to Air Force personnel who are in town for only a couple or so weeks for specialized training. This activity has been going on for over 20 years. The homes renting out rooms or couches don't have permits to act as commercial hotels. What I think happened is either a couple hotel operators complained to the city manager or some property owners who expected Air Force personnel to buy homes are bitching about it.

So, what would be the end-game? Raising prices so people can be paid a reasonable, livable wage? But how would that affect the bottom line? What if consumer prices would e.g. increase by 50%? Or what if they would double? Would they still be willing to pay for the same food and service at such price-levels?

The most obvious solution is somehow creating and PRESERVING affordable housing for people at the bottom end of income classes. But NIMBYs are such dedicated and vengeful assholes that any efforts to carve out areas of affordable housing in any city or town will be answered with damning political consequences. The real estate market in the United States is a GLOBAL playground for investors. Too much money is trading hands, forcing prices upward, far above what state-mandated minimum wage levels can afford. So that is going to leave the situation up to the real world market to resolve.

Ultimately businesses who rely on minimum wage labor to support their business model could end up totally screwed. The operators of these businesses don't appear to be making any effort of advocating on behalf of the people they employ. The minimum wage personnel are seen as disposable gutter trash who should be thankful for the oxygen they can draw into their lungs. Or maybe they should be paying for that air too. The douchey attitude will leave more and more of these businesses short on labor.

The United States has worse, long-term worries. These stressed economic conditions work as one hell of a birth control pill. Children are the future of the American economy. But for more and more Americans the act of having children is an entrance into abject poverty. The right wingers want to ban abortion. Those efforts won't make any difference. Young adults are more socially isolated. They're finding it ever more EASY to avoid poverty-inducing pregnancy. Jack off to porn rather than have sex for real. It's a hell of a lot cheaper! The United States is at the early stage of a long term population decline. That might seem like a good thing at first. But Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid and most public and private pension systems all depend on a steadily growing population. We're hitting an inflection point.

On a personal note, I've never been married or had any kids because I didn't want to live through the financial hell so many of my friends, relatives and colleagues have had to experience. If anything, the situation has grown increasingly worse financially for parents. If the children are our future the United States is sealing its own doom via its asshole stupid selfish greed. This isn't a nation; it's 330 million people all out for themselves.

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

I don't know about Oklahoma, but here in Nashvegas McDonalds pays $16 an hour to start plus all part time employees can get a fully prepaid 2 year Jr College degree. Full time workers and management can get a full 4 year college degree if they want to do it.

[Bobby Henderson]

Here in Oklahoma fewer and fewer businesses can get away with paying employees $7.25 an hour. But they're not paying fast food workers $15 or more either. Restaurants in Lawton are trying to cope with labor shortages. Some are upping their starting pay. But the vacancies are persisting. That invites the common refrain: "these lazy people don't want to work, they want to stay at home and draw welfare."

Oklahoma was among the first states to end COVID-related aid programs. Locally one reason the job openings aren't getting filled is because a few thousand people moved out of Lawton in the past couple years. Some moved to smaller towns nearby (Elgin, Cache, Medicine Park, etc). Others have left the area completely. A lot of women have been priced out of the workforce because they can't afford rising day care costs. Strangely, people moving to Lawton, such as military personnel reporting to Fort Sill, are still having trouble finding housing to buy or rent. Speculators, investors, etc are buying up properties and just letting them sit. I'm worried the real estate market is primed for a pretty ugly crash.

[Mike Blakesley]

Here at the Carquest store I’ve seen the effects of inflation for sure, because one of the things I do is, I keep our price tags updated. Since the pandemic started I’ve probably changed at least 5000 price tags, which covers just about every area of the store. Tags that I changed in August or September are changing again, jumping anywhere from 5% to 20% each time. I got a notice a few days ago that R134A (a/c refrigerant) is going to go up 147% in the next week. There are whole categories of products that we just can’t get at all.

Our warehouse, which usually has a 95% or higher fill rate, is limping along at about 20% at best.

[Leo Enticknap]

From the Redlands Daily Facts:

SACRAMENTO – California state officials are unusually bold in their approach to major problems. For instance, Gov. Gavin Newsom and his progressive allies believe our state can pass labor laws that revamp the economy, provide affordable healthcare for all residents and even change the trajectory of the Earth’s climate by shifting the economy toward a carbon-free future.

In his 2019 State of the State address, Newsom boasted that there’s virtually nothing that our state can’t accomplish – from meeting the needs of devalued workers to providing quality housing for everyone to restoring fragile ecosystems – provided we are willing to “think bigger.” The challenges “are as hard as they come,” he intoned, “but I truly believe we have the tools to solve them.”

Yet, for some reason, Newsom doesn’t possess the tools to tackle a totally surmountable obstacle that is threatening the economy. I’m referring, of course, to the bottleneck at the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach, which handle 40 percent of the cargo shipped into the United States. Container ships usually pull into ports, quickly unload their goods and head to sea.

At the beginning of the pandemic, however, shipping companies scaled back as factories curtailed production, but demand has unexpectedly spiked. “Warehouses struggled to hire enough workers to keep up with the demand and they started getting backed up,” according to a recent CalMatters report.

Currently, 111 container ships are idling off the coast of Los Angeles – far surpassing the historically worst backlog of 17. In addition to disrupting world commerce and driving inflation, the chaos is causing environmental damage – something that should concern an environmentally focused governor.

“The ships are pumping out pollutants as they idle, clogging the air with smoke,” The New York Times reported. “Plus, one of their anchors may have caused the recent oil spill off the Orange County coast.” Where is Newsom?

Actually, that’s been a titillating news story for the past two weeks after he disappeared from public view without explanation – something that led to wild social-media speculation when he cancelled his trip to an international climate summit in Scotland. After re-emerging, the governor pointed to his need to spend more time with his kids at Halloween.

That’s fine, as governors have family obligations (although he should have announced his hiatus at the outset). But where is his administration? This Editorial Board met recently with representatives from the business, warehousing, retailing and agricultural industries. They expressed extreme frustration at the governor’s non-responsiveness.

They believe economic and agricultural issues appear to be at the bottom of Newsom’s priority list, which is a recurring theme in his governorship. Because of the governor’s sensitivity to labor issues, “he’s not rushing into it,” said Rob Lapsley, president of the California Business Roundtable. Well, maybe it’s time for Newsom to convene one of his rapid-response teams, because there are immediate actions he can take.

Nearly a month ago, business organizations called on the governor to, among other things, declare a state of emergency at the ports, delay implementation of a law that bans labor quotas at warehouses (Assembly Bill 701), and suspend the controversial labor law (Assembly Bill 5) that requires truck drivers to be employees of trucking firms rather than owner operators.

The port logjam centers on backlogs at warehouses and shortages of truckers, but these union-backed measures are throwing a wrench in the industries’ ability to process the cargo. And as early as Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court will consider a California Trucking Association lawsuit challenging AB 5 on interstate-commerce grounds.

If the high court rebukes the truckers and suspends the injunction that is halting implementation of AB 5 in the trucking industry, it will mean at least 80 percent of the drivers who are unloading containers no longer may operate in California. If you think we have a port crisis now, just wait.

Newsom will claim he’s already taken action. In October, he signed an executive order “to ease supply chain issues by engaging the diverse network of stakeholders.” That’s sorely lacking in substance. His decision to allow higher stacks of containers and to seek out additional state properties to store them is a nothing burger, also.

The business letter explains that the supply chain crisis is caused in part by “state, regional and local mandates forced upon every aspect of the goods movement economy.” The government could suspend or evaluate many rules – if it wants to do so.

Meanwhile, 18 union-allied legislators sent a letter to Newsom slamming the business groups’ proposals. Instead, the lawmakers say, “we should be addressing existing issues in the supply chain and matching those problems with solutions from our next surplus.” What does that even mean?

A state government that believes it can achieve virtually anything apparently now is powerless to do anything. Perhaps Newsom doesn’t want to do anything because the real solutions will anger his union and environmental allies.

In replying to Mark's original post, I have to confess to having forgotten about the local (California) issue of AB5 and truckers. AB5 essentially legislated that anyone who does work that is an employer's regular business activity has to be a salaried employee, and cannot do that work as an independent contractor. At the time it was going through the state legislature, media attention focused almost entirely on Uber and Lyft, probably because they represented what would have been the most public facing impact of the bill if it passed. This has turned out to be true - fares went up by around half in the months after it became law. Uber and Lyft then sunk tens of millions into promoting a ballot initiative to exempt them from AB5, which passed last November. Surprise surprise, the fares did not go back down again.

What I'd forgotten is that a large proportion of truckers work as independent contractors, and that if a legal challenge to exempt them fails, many will likely quit California, thereby making it even more difficult and expensive to move containers between the Port of LA and the state line (and, very likely, boosting even further the strategic importance of those railroads through the San Tim Canyon and the Cajon Pass). According to this article, the SCOTUS will start work on this case tomorrow.

[Jim Cassedy]

I was working a private event at a screening room in downtown San Francisco on Sat nite.
I walked over to the 7-11 store a few doors down to grab something to drink, and I noticed
that the shelves where the candy bars, potato chips, & other 'junk food' snacks were usually
located were practically empty. Looking around I noticed that almost all of the shelves in the
store were understocked. I left without buying the beverage I went in to get, since they were
out of that too. After the screening, I was going to pop into the store again and take a photo
of the empty shelves, and it was closed. I don't know if the closure had anything to do with
'supply issues' or if they have cut back their night-time hours, as many other stores in San
Francisco have done, as a result of the rampant shoplifting surge that's been going on here,
as you may have read about or seen on the news. It was only 9:30pm, and this was usually
a very busy location on Market St that was usually open 24/7. I've worked in & around that
area for over 20 years, and I can't ever remember seeing that store closed. (Except maybe
for a couple of days after the 1989 earthquake, when the power was out for 2-3 days)

[Mark Gulbrandsen]

Was at a nearby Dollar General today and the place was fully stocked. And it's a really busy location as well. I have read that some big chain storess, Best Buy is one, has their own container ships. Leased I imagine. But they still have to get the goods off the ship and get it to the stores. Pete Buttigeg says this is going to go on for a while yet...

[Jim Cassedy]

I went back to that 7-11 I mentioned in my earlier post. This area would
normally be stocked full of candy bars, cookies, rice crispy treats, mints, etc.
NoFood.jpg
So I asked the clerk if this was due to 'supply issues', and while he acknowledged that
was part of the problem, the real reason they stopped stocking the store was because
7-11 is closing that location at the end of the month, due to rampant shoplifting and
street crime in that area. I have worked, on-an-off around that section of Market
Street & bought stuff at that store for over 25 years. It is, or at least was, in a
pretty busy section of the financial district corridor. The pandemic & "progressive
politics" have put an end to all that though.