From: howdHol@yaooho.com   
      
   Boron Elgar  wrote   
      
   > There are plenty of backups in the shipping/transport of goods this   
   > year, and perhaps there are shortages in some areas of certain items,   
   > but it isn't as if there is some major economic disturbance or   
   > disaster.   
      
   I have to suspect that a lot of manufacturers are trying to bump up   
   margins to make up for the short term disruptions from Covid over the   
   past 18ish months, but also because margins have been extremely tight   
   due to getting squeezed by major retailers for so long. They're also   
   seeing workers finally get pickier about their wages.   
      
   So on top of whatever issues they may experience due to ships or trucks   
   having slower turnarounds, they're also using "supply chain" as magic   
   words to try to charge more at the wholesale level.   
      
   What's interesting to me is how big retailers seem to be organizing   
   pretty effectively to keep things available for the most part, according   
   to the Marketplace article I linked to elsewhere. I'm curious how this   
   will be sorted out, and the extent to which retailers smaller than big   
   chains bear the brunt.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)