Anyone who resorts to cannibalism before August just wanted to try cannibalism.
Is that the new "it's only gay if you do it in port"?
Shipping will be badly affected on the West coast by early-mid May and East coast by early June I think. Of course this means a host of other sectors will be affected as well including trucking.
That kinda makes me want to get entirely out of the market now, instead of half-out like I am currently.
Alarming development: Seattle has no international vessels docked right now. Normally, we'd expect a slowdown a few weeks out -- not immediately.
Seattle used to be ahead of the rest of the county on things.
Ah, ok. For a moment I thought job market and I wondered how a takeover of the best office could have gone so badly so quickly.
We have so far failed to invest the proceeds of a house sale from last fall, and that has turned out to be a solid decision. Past performance is no indicator of future results, of course.
At least put it in a high yield savings account.
On NPR skim, I see no reason to think Musk is a Russian asset. TL;DR, more simply explained by incompetence than conspiracy.
The DOGE people learned in the first few days that the first thing they had to do was disable all the security systems, else they wouldn't be able to do anything; and maybe they're just smart enough to know that what they're doing has no legal basis, so they're covering their own asses by deleting their logs etc. However, they're not smart enough to disable security wihout exposing the systems to the entire internet, and so third parties are breaching and exfiltrating right on DOGE's heels.
Possibly contra me, there's this
The attempts were "near real-time," according to the disclosure. Those attempts were blocked, but they were especially alarming. Whoever was attempting to log in was using one of the newly created DOGE accounts -- and the person had the correct username and passwordand some other details nearby; but again, I think that could be equally well explained by third parties having previously compromised DOGE device/s and that device later being carried into the NLRB.
I haven't seriously thought of getting my retirement money out of the market, retirement is still a long way away. But I also have some non-retirement money in index funds and I've thought about selling those. One reason I haven't is that I worry that's a lot of capital gains taxes to pay all at once, but I haven't actually sat down and done the calculation.
So far it seems like Trump backs down eventually when the market tells him to, so I expect he'll back down on China too relatively soon, and I don't really want to sell before that.
Agree with 13, if you're in the government "move fast and break things" is obviously just incompatible with hiding anything from any country with a serious spying operation.
Weird thing, I was completely convinced until approximately 2018 that Stinktree was *actually Russian". No idea why.
Weird thing, I was completely convinced until approximately 2018 that Stinktree was *actually Russian". No idea why.
I think it's plausible that a good share of DOGE employees are themselves compromised, either knowingly or unknowingly. One is 19 and was a member of a cybercrime ring, for pity's sake. Sufficient explanation of Russians getting ahold of some of their login credentials.
(Also even the Russian-ness of that IP address could have been spoofed to throw off the trail - although they didn't know non-US logins were barred from the server comprehensively, so maybe that implies more skill than the social hackers had.)
I just ordered some boots off of a discount site and bought something at IKEA. I need a few things for the kitchen. I should h e bought more clothes. I've been delaying that. I wanted to go hunting in consignment shops in the fancy suburbs.
But mostly, I've upgraded several appliances in the pst few years and hoping to hunker down and not consume much.
6,8: My wife was briefly hopeful that Target and Walmart's investor explanations meant that the tariffs were due to be walked back even further, but reading their statements, it looks more like they think they can weather the tariffs better than other retailers -- likely because they can get their suppliers to slim margins. Every dollar they manage to get their suppliers to eat saves them $2.50 after tariffs, which can be $5 off the sale price if it's an item with a standard markup.
The Port of Seattle is relatively small; the big port is Tacoma. Still not a great sign, obviously.
Tacoma is where the airport is too. I think.
@20 Where is this "standard markup" talking point coming from? It is clearly a talking point. There has been a sudden rash of "standard markup" posts on Reddit that postulate, for example, $8 increments in customs value turning into $20 increments in retail price.
Your prices are determined by what the market will bear, not your desire to maintain a constant COGS ratio.
Presumably, if they don't get enough of a markup, they stop stocking whatever it is. Empty shelves and Soviet-style lines to purchase goods won't play much better than inflation.
23: For small scale markets, many items in my wife's industry with an MSRP have a wholesale discount of 35-45% - so a $10 game will cost her $5.50 to $6.50 wholesale, approximately. (There are lots of hidden ways that the number shifts; minimum orders for free shipping, etc.) For craft and local items that we resell, and for snacks and sodas, we do aim for a 100% markup -- so we'll try to pay $2.50 for a $5 sticker pack if a local maker produces them. That allows us some small profit for shelf space and exposure, and ensures that if we don't sell through them, we can still recoup much of our investment.
You're right that larger retailers often have different math, relying on volume of sales to make up for smaller margins. I think Costco is famous for keeping their markup over wholesale to 10-14% for standard goods, and 15% for Kirkland brands. It takes a lot of scale to be able to support a staff on small margins.
@24 If they simply pass the increase in customs duties on to the retail price, they will make the same profit. Are they going to go out of business in a fit of pique?
Consider bananas - the customs value of imported bananas in 2024 (HTS 080390) was 0.23/lb (dataweb.usitc.gov) while the consumer price of bananas was about 0.63/lb (Federal Reserve). A 50% duty on imported bananas would result in a 20% increase in consumer prices, if the price was passed on to the consumer. And that 12 cent increase is not a wild swing in prices if you look at the last 20 years or so.
I think that at a 20% increase in bananas, you would sell less bananas unless actual fruit that tastes good becomes cost-prohibative.
26: Well, the business has laid out 50% more, so they have to sell more of their stock to get the same profit. If you lose a percentage of goods to spoilage, theft, etc., then you need to charge more than the tariff, since that's up front cost and loss, which you'll recover only if you sell through your whole stock of goods. If you sell through 80% of the stock, buy you paid the extra tariff on all 100%, then your profit is the same as selling through only 70% of the stock -- so you're making less, unless you sell through everything. So it's higher risk, lower reward if you increase your prices by only the tariff.
Something tells me that "return basis" goods will pass the tariff through on the original sale to the retailer, but I bet it's not going to be refunded if goods are returned. (Not an issue in our industry, but important for booksellers, etc.)
The marginal banana becomes banana bread.
How much can one banana cost? $10.80?
"Well, the business has laid out 50% more, so they have to sell more of their stock to get the same profit."
Same profit margin, perhaps. But if they sell the same amount of bananas then they are going to get the same profit.
They might seek a larger line of credit to purchase inventory, and might incur incremental interest costs on that line of credit that they have to cover. But that is in turn going to be a small fraction of the increase due to tariffs.
They won't sell as many (supply and demand) and their costs of selling the bananas will go up because some of the inputs they need to sell bananas are going up because of the tariffs (mostly labor and stickers).
And energy. Probably more energy than stickers.
The people saying there are literally no ships in Seattle seem to be wrong (they're not looking at all the berths, much less Tacoma) but here's what the FT said this morning:
The first container shipments from China to face tariffs are due to land in the US in the coming week. The Port of Los Angeles, the main route of entry for goods from China, expects scheduled arrivals in the week starting May 4 to be a third lower than a year before.
US bookings for standard 20-foot shipping containers from China were 45 per cent lower than a year earlier by mid-April, according to the latest available data from tracking service Vizion.
Hapag-Lloyd, one of the world's largest container shipping lines, said Chinese customers had canceled roughly 30 per cent of its bookings out of China.
I wonder if it will be easier to drive on the Turnpike because of fewer trucks.
(I think my work is blocking the link in 8 about Seattle, to be clear. I saw persuasive skeets countering other viral skeets about a lack of ships.)
Tacoma is where the airport is too. I think.
The airport is actually between the two, in the separately incorporated City of SeaTac. It's owned and operated by the Port of Seattle though.
Probably to keep the prices of bananas equal between the two cities.
23, 26, 32: Could I trouble you to put a name to your comments? I think you're a consistent unnamed personage, but it's tricky to be sure. Unless you're someone who recently gave up a 'nym, and everyone else knows but I somehow missed it.
a source that I have no idea how to evaluate
I think Krebs is a pretty good source on computer security and crime.* Though I'm basing that mainly off of following his mastodon account, plus reading the occasional blog post here and there.
One of the things I learned from reading his Spam Nation book is that, at least in the period he was writing about, terrible US health care was a huge driving force for spam. Turns out some of those pharmacy spammers would actually connect people to real drugs, sometimes working drugs, and got business from people whose coverage had run out.
*Do I have to call it cybersecurity?
Were the hot singles in my area real too?
The sales of bananas in my area, and also of the bananas near me, have been on a wild swing in the past few months. I'm in the fortunate position of not paying close attention to banana prices but there was a period where no bananas could be found at all in the three different groceries where I looked.* When bananas came back, they tasted noticeably worse. I don't know if they're more expensive now and can't remember if they disappeared multiple times.
I have not seen hot banana singles for sale, but you can get small packs of frozen chocolate covered bananas. I think it might be just two bananas.
*I wasn't looking just for bananas but I buy them regularly so I notice when they're gone. Trader Joe's took the whole display down, shelves were empty at other stores.
Krebs' integrity and acuity have been powerfully endorsed by the Trump administration, which has targeted him for investigation.
I'm still eating more eggs than usual, just to heighten the contradictions. And because I'm lifting more.
We did get astonishingly bad bananas a few weeks ago - like so green that they never ripened - but I blamed the curbside shopping and not the underlying banana-trends.
49: Well I don't think he's eating them off the floor.
Moby, you're not eating eggs off the floor, are you?
No. But I am using a wooden spatula, because of chemicals or something. I feel like I'm on Cold Comfort Farm.
48: Chris and Brian are different people. I've wondered if they're related.
I was in the Bay Area last week for work and the port of Oakland had a bunch of container ships. I don't know what's a "normal" amount.
Where's my viral post for this eyewitness reporting?
If you need a ripe banana, you can put a green banana in a paper bag with a ripe banana.
Also, I recommend this history tour if you're interested in Oakland/Alameda/riding a boat around the edge of a port.
54: Oops. I hope Trump is more careful about namse than I am, or Brian is in big trouble.
(I just figured that with the name and the subject matter, they had to be the same guy.)
Here's Brian on the former Twitter, which I shan't link:
Trump just fired Chris Krebs (no relation), his top election security official and director of the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. "Highly inaccurate" Trump said of Krebs' statement that Nov. 3 election was "most secure in history." SMH.
55: You may have better vantage and discernment than I would, but interestingly, the huge ship most visible to incidental visitors to Oakland (since just next to Jack London and the ferry pier) is the USNS John Glenn, an Expeditionary Transfer Dock.
On Friday I experienced a no bananas at a major grocery store experience. First I can recall in a long time. And no strawberries a week previous.
There's no song about not having strawberries.
@59 The real-life Wild Kratts are getting alarmingly older and more broken-down than their animated avatars.
That's to be expected when you live a wild, wild life.
62: Aside from taking a boat tour that went from Emeryville to Oakland, I also went to a couple of regional parks where you get a pretty good view of the container port. There's a new park where the old Bay Bridge eastern span started*, plus Middle Harbor park, which has one of the best views of the bay.
On the boat tour we went far enough into the Alameda-Oakland channel to go past Jack London Square and it is kind of incredible how far the containers are from there. I guess they've gotten so large that the cranes used for loading barely cleared the bottom of the bridges when they were brought in after being built elsewhere.
*Also a departure point for the trail along the bridge to Yerba Buena, but I didn't have time to make that hike**.
**And don't have a bike.
68: Marlin Perkins was only 42 when he left Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom.
Just saw a, or maybe "the", skeet about Seattle's port being empty. It's accompanied by a picture that is indeed a port with no visible ships and few containers (only visible in the distance). It doesn't look like there's a lot of room for the big container ships there but I pretty much don't know anything about Seattle's port.
From what I've read, most goods from China come into LA/Oakland and the really big dropoff is still on the way. For all I know, the ships I saw Friday/Saturday are the last big deliveries.
Where is this "standard markup" talking point coming from? It is clearly a talking point.
No, it's a rule-of-thumb assumption that the cost of getting the product to the retailer who sells it will be roughly half the retail price. For example, a $100 Nike trainer costs $22 to produce, $5 to ship. Marketing is another $5, taxes, overheads and the manufacturer's net profit bring it up to $50. The retailer buys the trainer from Nike for $50 and sells it for $100. Out of the $50 the retailer keeps, he must pay his own staff, rent, taxes, utilities and so on.
Source for Nike: https://bsky.app/profile/dieworkwear.bsky.social/post/3lmkjnur5522d
Source indicating this is a general rule of thumb: https://www.thedesigntrust.co.uk/cost-price-wholesale-price-retail-price/
Of course it's a rule of thumb, not an iron law - some products have far lower average markups, some have higher.
Where is this "standard markup" talking point coming from? It is clearly a talking point.
No, it's a rule-of-thumb assumption that the cost of getting the product to the retailer who sells it will be roughly half the retail price. For example, a $100 Nike trainer costs $22 to produce, $5 to ship. Marketing is another $5, taxes, overheads and the manufacturer's net profit bring it up to $50. The retailer buys the trainer from Nike for $50 and sells it for $100. Out of the $50 the retailer keeps, he must pay his own staff, rent, taxes, utilities and so on.
Source for Nike: https://bsky.app/profile/dieworkwear.bsky.social/post/3lmkjnur5522d
Source indicating this is a general rule of thumb: https://www.thedesigntrust.co.uk/cost-price-wholesale-price-retail-price/
Of course it's a rule of thumb, not an iron law - some products have far lower average markups, some have higher.