I’ve been checking hardware stores the last couple of weeks, mostly because there are things I need, but a little because I’m watching their stocks fall.
Smaller hardware stores are having a harder time covering the stock gap than larger ones. That makes obvious sense; they have less to begin with, so the duplications and outright gaps are more clearly visible. Hand tools in particular are getting pretty thin on the ground at this point; screwdriver bit replacements – well, lots of particular varieties are no longer available. Stuff like that. It’s been a multi-week process, not all-at-once – though it will probably look that way in retrospect.
Today, though, I had a somewhat more pointed experience.
Yesterday, Home Depot had 34 of a particular China-made mini circular saw available. It’s inexpensive because it’s corded; it’s from WEN, who make very basic but generally adequate enough kit for people on a budget. A chonkier Ryobi, perhaps. And last night, they had 34 of these saws available for store pickup or delivery.
This morning, when I woke up, they had 17.
An hour later, they had 15.
I was going to buy this with credit union rewards points, but it seems that was going to take too long. So I shelled out the cash, buying it immediately instead. It’s not a big deal for me, we’re still within our current tight budget this month.
So now they have 14.
Maybe that big drop was a one-off, a fluke – an organic surge, rather than someone grabbing a set for their employees while they could. Maybe Home Depot’s remaining 14 are enough that they’ll still have 10 in another month.
Or maybe it was scalpers. I don’t know how quickly these things sell, as a rule.
But that… that was a surprise.
Most people won’t notice stock thinning, I don’t think. Not quickly. I don’t have a reason for that other than recent experience shows that most people don’t notice a single goddamn thing until it punches them, personally, in the face. They to go get a thing, and it won’t be there, and then they notice.
A lot more people are probably pretty close to that moment of noticing.
They’ll notice it even more when their Medicare gets its $350 billion dollar cut.
It’ll be a moment of awareness, a moment of panic. It won’t last long – the fascist noise machine will do everything it can to patch it over – but it’ll be there.
Are you ready to take advantage of that? Particularly with your Trumpy relatives?
Maybe you should be.
Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.
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tielan
