[MD]

Kunstler's Daily Grunt of February 4thfeatured letter from a lady in South Africa. Her tales of current happening in South Africa were quite telling.

In that vein, here's a spot shortage poll. Let's see what's happening elsewhere in the world.

In central Ohio you have to catch the grocery store early now if you want choices. Moderate to heavy amount of store closings. Building supplies can be hit or miss too. Don't even try to buy anything out of season any more.

[Tyler_JC]

Everything is still bright and beautiful in Boston. A little rainy today but it sure beats the snow. Gotta love global warming.

I haven't noticed a shortage of anything. There are a few more "for rent"/"for sale" signs than usual, but it's a recession so that's to be expected.

[jato]

Most locals here think we are headed for a recession. House prices are falling fast. Some construction workers are looking for work.

[KillTheHumans]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MD', '
')
In central Ohio you have to catch the grocery store early now if you want choices. Moderate to heavy amount of store closings. Building supplies can be hit or miss too. Don't even try to buy anything out of season any more.

[IslandCrow]

Here in rural Finland I am could tick both the first and the third options.

The shelves in the local store are getting empty, but that is because the place will close in three weeks, to be totally renovated and opened by a new owner. [Change of ownership has nothing to do with falling sales, rather a death in the family that is currently running the shop]

There are always other shops that I can get to, but a two hour trip for fresh milk is not something I fancy....It will be interesting to see how I can manage without a food shop for 5 weeks! Rice and beans here I come

[MrBill]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', '"')I am watching South Africa with an eye on what, when and how the global trends contributing to your Long Emergency will start taking effect. But the government here, together with some outside influences of the stock market, have plunged South Africa into the Premature Long Emergency. It has only been a couple of weeks, but the country is in dire straits. . . ."

[MD]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '
')No offense, but I really hate it when posters equate bad government and poor public policy choices with peak oil!

....I think Kunstler is an idiot!

[MrBill]

Point taken. Thanks! ; - )

[KillTheHumans]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '
')
We should stop blaming markets - or even peak oil - for political failures.

[MrBill]

Kunstler even means artist in German, so there you go! ; - )

Actually, the article got me thinking about S. Africa, so I ended up buying two S. African stocks - one energy, and one banking stock that has exposure to mining, etc. - as I was simply mesmorized by ZAR weakness, especially against the EUR, but also against the USD even, so I thought stocks looked cheap as they had low P/E ratios AND the ZAR is weak!

I will probably regret it, but if the world does not blow-up on PO schedule then the little insurance I have bought by owning these energy shares and exposure to commodity producing/exporting countries will just be the proverbial drop in a bucket compared with continued prosperity as far as the untrained eye can see?

What are you doing out of Cornucopia Only Land? ; - ))

[dorlomin]

Bad government planning is the big factor but oil prices are not totally out of the picture (allegedly). The government had coal transport companies on fixed contracts and rising prices forced them out of bussiness, the powerstations are not getting the coal to them. It also drew down its reserve supply apparently as a cost saving measure.


The government seems to have given us an intersting foreshadowing of the unintended consaquencies of not enough oil to go round.
http://www.mnet.co.za/Mnet/Shows/carteb ... sp?Id=3444
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'C')hris: 'There is not enough electricity. That is why we are having blackouts.'

Wouter Wolmerans used to deliver coal by truck to Majuba.

Wouter Wolmerans (Transporter): 'There was always a lot of coal and a lot of trucks like 300 trucks standing there to offload coal. Tuthuka had a big stockpile - I would say about 400m long, 60m wide by 30m high.'

When we flew past nearby Tuthuka power station there appeared to be no stockpile of coal. All that remains is a black stained stretch of land. However, Eskom's Steve Lennon insists that wet coal remains a major problem and, when pressed to supply Carte Blanche with figures of the actual stockpiles at the power stations, he declined.

Derek: 'Can you give us a print-out of how much coal is being delivered to those stations?'

Steve: 'We can give you the big picture on coal, but to give you the detail on every single power station and the coal situation is not our policy.'

Derek: 'Why not?'

Steve: 'Because there is obviously security issues that relate to the security of the supply to those power stations. But what I can say is that we have never been in the situation where our stockpiles have gotten to a zero or negative situation.'

But where are those coal stocks?

Let's go back to 2004. That year Eskom cancelled many existing transport contracts and handed over the job to ten BEE companies, many with little experience in transport. According to Chris, one of the contractors was an interior decorator. Eskom paid the contractors 43 cents per tonne of coal per kilometre and they paid their sub-contractors 40 cents per tonne.

Chris: 'There were major problems as the rates were too low. I said to them, 'Look, if you don't pay higher rates to make it feasible for the guys they will go into liquidation'. They will go bankrupt. They will not have enough trucks to supply the coal because they are already short of trucks to supply the coal and this is going to happen.'

Chris's prediction was spot on and the new transporters soon began to feel the pinch. The 40 cents per tonne was simply not enough for the subcontractors. Atrocious roads, which led to many breakdowns, didn't help their cause.

Chris: 'We complained with Eskom on the dirt road to the one mine. That road is very bad and the maintenance cost is very high. They must repair the road. They couldn't get somebody to repair the road and they asked us to do it. We repaired the road twice but we didn't get paid. Thereafter we refused. We were not going to repair the road again. A couple of weeks later the farmers decided that the road is getting so bad that the farmers closed the road. After they closed the road, within a matter of six hours Eskom signed a deal with the farmers that they must repair the road. Within a couple of days the road was repaired and has been maintained ever since.'

Wouter and his father, who were subcontracted to Chris, went bankrupt as they could not survive at 40 cents per kilometre.

Wouter: 'The diesel prices went up by 80 percent in the period of a year. We had a lot of breakdowns then. Out of 27 trucks, if you only had 20 breakdowns a day you were lucky. Your overheads were more than your income. There was no way you could survive.'

[Tyler_JC]

So it looks like predictions of global economic collapse in 2008 were exaggerated...again.

[KillTheHumans]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', '
')
What are you doing out of Cornucopia Only Land? ; - ))

[KillTheHumans]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Tyler_JC', 'S')o it looks like predictions of global economic collapse in 2008 were exaggerated...again.

[I_Like_Plants]

I had to check #1.

Now, what kind of moron would stay in S. Africa????

[patience]

I voted #1. There are signs of economic hardship here in Sou. Indiana, but just beginning to really slow retail. Nearby Louisville, KY, is doing fairly well, although real estate is slowing and credit is getting tight everywhere.

Cannot fathom #2. We don't have cabs nor theaters out here in the sticks, and can't imagine what that means. Sorry.

[dinopello]

I guess I'm the only one who is happy enought to have something to eat and stay dry.

I think I misunderstood the question

[one_more_day]

I am not sure what happened...if this was just an anomaly or a sign of things to come.

Last week I went to get milk at the store, and they were completely out of the store-brand milk that I usually buy. This was not Sunday evening when the shelves are depleted from weekend shopping. This was late afternoon mid-week when things should have been stocked to the fullest. I bought what was available even though it cost a lot more and wasn't the type (1%, 2%, Whole) of milk I wanted. Several days later I checked back and there was ONE gallon left from their new shipment. I think several things may be happening here.

1. Maybe the store has decided to receive less frequent shipments and have not yet adjusted their ordering.

2. Maybe a good portion of their customers have recently switched from name brand to store brand, and the store was taken by surprise.

I am sure there are other possibilities, but those two seemed the most obvious. My point is...I have never seen this store run short of anything, ever, period! My little anecdote may not point to the collapse of the world. However, I do think that it shows the effects of inflation and higher transportation costs. It just reminded me of shopping in certain Eastern European countries where you had to stock up because you didn't know when you would see it again.

My only action is to find out when the shipment comes so that I can get first pick of the lower priced items I want. It sucks to pay higher prices because that is all that is left on the shelf!

[Lanthanide]

Dairy products, particularly milk, are probably more vulnerable to shortages at the moment than most products. I live in NZ, and the price of milk solids has gone up something ridiculous like 40% in the last year (globally), because of a variety of problems but most of them being drought-related in other milk producing parts of the world. Dairy products are one of our biggest exports and the rural economy is going bonkers because of it.

[RedStateGreen]

Haven't had any problems here.