From what I’m reading, the troubles should start to pick up now; harbors being quieter, truckers not having work, … Are any shortages noticeable yet?
ETA:
Source: https://paulkrugman.substack.com/p/trump-is-a-virus
Businesses have been filling their inventories. That’s ending now. Economic pain in terms of job losses should accelerate now. It will still take up to a few weeks before inventories run empty, and the full impact hits consumers. Even a full reversal of Trumpism couldn’t prevent knock-on effects that last into next year.
Cargo container bookings are down 60%. 60%! Thats an incredible drop, and it really hasn’t even started yet.
I’m ready for a “Hot Tariff Summer.”
I’ve been on a no-purchase kick for a while now, even before HitlerPig was elected. We have become such a culture of consumerism that it had started to disgust me. I’ve embraced the “re-use, repair, re-sell, recycle” philosophy. If i need something, i try to buy it used.
I’m a guitarist, so I buy used guitars when i get a good deal, clean them up, fix them, and re-sell them at a small profit. It puts a beautiful instrument back into service, allows a poor or new musician an opportunity to have an inexpensive but quality instrument, and its music makes the world a slightly more beautiful place.
I even went on a much-needed diet (down 80 pounds so far, and still going), and decreasing my consumption, and spending less money with evil corporations, is a primary motivation.
So let the shelves be empty of cheap Chinese-made consumer goods, i don’t need them, despite how much advertising and marketing tells me i do.
The silver lining is that if tariffs become a longterm thing, people will be forced to come around to my way of thinking, and when the tariffs finally end, corporations may be surprised to find that nobody needs their shiny crap any more.