Spooked by trade wars - some Trump administration officials are stockpiling toilet paper and food before Trump’s tariffs cause prices to skyrocket. "It would be stupid not to!"
Trump Officials Are Stockpiling Household Supplies Amid His Trade Wars
bidet on the way! thanks hexbear for your suggestions.
my butthole is going to be so grateful.
Seriously folks, get a bidet and some lil bidet towels. A single pack of TP will become a yearly supply and your butthole will thank you for it
My parents have bidets and I think I am finally ready to get one after my last visit home. One was heated (heated seat as well) which was especially nice, although it was $300
owie. yeah i just got a $40 unpowered, cold water type (but self cleaning!). going to definitely be a shock in the winter lol.
Mom, can I be president again?
To lower the cost of groceries?
Yeeeeeeeeees
Actually, wages insane trade war making inflation 100 times worse like a boss.
Those are the silliest things to stockpile. 1) You can get a bidet, 2) even without it we produce TP here. 3) We also produce tons of food here, we're a huge exporter, unless these officials are huge fans of Chinese brand chili crunch or ramen or something they don't need to worry about that. If anything things like soy should in theory have a price collapse for a short while as farmers go bankrupt before the price shoots up and stays up for years after due to a shortage. But you can't stockpile the things that matter long-enough term to matter, they'll spoil.
What you should stockpile is electronics, is household goods made in China that you go through. You should not defer purchases but make them now, now, now for that new TV or hard drive for yar har or video card for
, etc.lao gan ma
So what would/could the average person stockpile that would be helpful? We have had conversations in our family and friend group we agree on a few things…
That said in the end without a functional society no one can stock pile enough to last long. We quickly go to preper mind set and it gets crazy difficult real quick.
dried goods (rice/pasta)
don't forget the tasty and nutritionally dense
One of the ironies of stockpiling stuff is that you're probably mostly planning for shortages when other people are trying to stockpile. At least, that was my memory of early covid and toilet paper.
Isn't toilet paper one of those things that's almost always produced relatively close to where it's used because the logistics of moving it long distances just don't make sense?
As long as the lumber and chemicals are also produced locally
how on earth is an administration official not well paid enough to be insulated from toilet paper and food price hikes? like, an intern or low level type, i can imagine... but this makes it sound like someone for whom finding toilet paper will never actually be a problem.
stockpiling cash, i can sort of understand. except that it's stupid and dangerous, so i never would. but if i had a security detail, yeah OK, maybe. in an Imelda Marcos type scenario, i would have a shoebox full of hundos in case i had to bribe a guy to get me to a freight port and get onto a slowboat headed out to sea after i toss my cell phone out the window.
but again, this all sounds like some Der Untergang shit, except instead of High Command, it's a pickup team made of Keystone Kops recruits, and nobody wants to be first into the bunker. everybody, instead is arguing at the entrance about how the want to be the last one in.
I think because it’s not just prices—back in covid there were supply chain disruptions as places shut down. Some of that may be replicated here as countries reroute, or shipping gets disrupted. Basically just that as this stuff bites, there may be some mid-term supply chain disruptions and we could see shortages of certain products.
For instance we did a Costco order this weekend, and the typical Kirkland paper products we normally get were not available. We were able to just get a different brand in this case, but that did pique my interest. I remember being at Costco back in 2019 and there was a line snaking through the store and they had staff guarding the toilet paper and rationing it to customers, 2 max to avoid people trying to essentially profiteer in the shortage.
Anyway, on the one hand I’d say that you can source TP from a lot of places, but on the other hand, if logistics is going haywire as container orders are all halted to “wait and see” you can imagine that some staples are gonna get held up there. So basically I would imagine shortages to be temporary, but possible.
See now, I don't know if I should stock up. It seems like it would make sense, but these are the dumbest people on earth, so I don't think it's a good idea to follow their word.
I was already stocking up since the absurdly huge tariff numbers were released because they are dumb.
The only thing I've realistically "stockpiled" (buying an extra months worth) so far is just extra coffee
I've been buying electronic stuff mostly. Just updated my phone and on the look out for a new TV. Not sure what else to get. Maybe a new hard drive to pirate stuff.