08:27 – My 30-day estimate may have been optimistic. Only three business days after the crisis summit, yields on Spanish and Italian bonds had already returned to pre-summit levels, and both countries are having difficulties selling their bonds even at those disastrously high yields. Meanwhile, German banks are dumping Greek, Portuguese, Irish, and Italian bonds as fast as they can sell them. So much for stopping the contagion.
UPS showed up yesterday with six large boxes from one of my wholesalers. I now have about 98% of what I need to assemble 60 more chemistry kits. Unfortunately, one small item is backordered until late August, and I can’t find a second wholesale source for it. If necessary, I’ll see if I can find it at retail and get a quantity price break. But that’s a last resort. I’m hoping that what I have in inventory will last another couple weeks, but I’ll probably end up having to backorder kits, at least for a couple of weeks. Oh, well. At least we can build a bunch of kits lacking that one item and simply drop it in once that item arrives.