Not really cool, and certainly damp. Then not really hot, and still damp, although actual cool is supposed to be coming. Just not today, or yesterday. It was 93F in the sun at my house in the afternoon, according to my unfortunately placed weather station. Radio said 80F at 5pm, so I’ll take that as more accurate, but still, 80F!
Oh well. Mostly caught up on auction stuff. Fewer bargains as more people find the auctions and bid. Fewer bargains at the thrift stores too. The stores have raised prices (as they do periodically, when they get jealous of resellers), and they are FULL of resellers looking for a “come up”. They are having the same staffing issues as the rest of the working world, and so shelves are a bit bare and the stores are disheveled. Signs of the times. Eventually the flow of free stuff to the thrifts will reduce or cut off, and there will be a shakeout in that industry too. The ‘returns’ reselling space is getting very crowded with some of my long established auctioneers dipping their toes in this month. The ‘little guys’ might have a chance if their overhead is low, but the big guys have the capital and the staff, and can gobble up bigger lots.
As a nation, we can’t just open boxes from China, we can’t have an economy based on giving each other massages and haircuts, and we can’t just keep reselling the same cr@p to each other, ’round and ’round. We have to make stuff, adding value to it as we do. When I see all the stuff we used to make domestically in these estate auctions, it depresses me no end. Clocks- we had dozens of manufacturers. Ditto for radios, tools, household goods, textiles, white goods, appliances. You could build your house, furnish it, park your car in it, and EVERY SINGLE THING would have been made by your neighbors and your countrymen.
It wasn’t just us. Even Canada had a domestic industry for housewares, and even TVs. Now we have chinese drywall, brazilian lumber, iron work imported from INDIA, clothing from vietnam, electronics from china and singapore, gasoline from Norway, and food from Chile. We enrich the middle men, support virtual and ACTUAL slavery, while impoverishing our neighbors. What can’t go on won’t.
Big changes coming. Lots of people will be grist for the mill of change.
Try not to be one of them. Live through to the other side.
Stack some stuff, then stack some more somewhere else.
nick