NC Renegades

Continued Supply Chain and Cost Increase Issues

It has been a few months now since my last letter telling you of the many supply chain issues affecting supply and pricing in our markets. I wish I could tell you that things were getting much better, but unfortunately they are not. There continues to be problems getting some products at all as well as delays in many of the products that we are able to get. Cost pressures also continue to build in many areas of the economy which is causing many price increases. In this letter I will let you know of some of the things we are hearing and seeing so you know better what to expect going forward and also arm you with information you can use when talking to your customers about these same issues.

Many products made in the US continue to be delayed in production as factories simply have more orders than they can handle. With the rapidly improving economy, demand jumped up a lot in the last 3-4 months which caught many suppliers by surprise. They have found it hard to source materials in a timely manner to be able to produce their goods in increasing volumes. Many of the goods they need are much delayed or on allocation which means that they are limited in how much they can buy. For those that are able to source their products, the most common frustration I hear is that they are not able to find additional workers to be able to produce the additional amounts of goods. This leads to further delays in shipments and longer lead times. Many items that we used to be able to have produced in 30 days are now taking 90 days for us to get in.

Products made overseas are also experiencing long delays. The problem is less about the factories being able to produce the products, and more about the shipping delays. It used to be that when a container was ready, the factory got a booking on an upcoming ship and the goods were often on a ship within a couple of weeks. Right now it is very difficult to get bookings in the first place due to not enough empty containers and ship space. When the factory does get a booking it is not unusual for the goods not to actually leave for a couple of months. Demand for space on the ships and empty containers is simply greater than the supply. Right now we have over 50 containers of products finished at factories that we are trying to get moved. We have never seen these types of lack of space or delay issues on this scale. As we are just now entering the normal peak shipping season in preparation of holiday gift season, it is not expecting to get any better until at least very late in 2021.

The strong demand in many markets is also causing prices to increase which I am sure you are hearing from most suppliers. It seems that we are getting new price increases from factories almost daily. We are doing all we can to mitigate the price increases or place large orders before they go into effect, but that is not always possible, and even when it is, it only delays the increases until our next round of orders. Most vendors we used to contract with at an annual price based on our expected volume, but today many vendors quote us a new price each time we need to place an order based on the market at the time of the order. Internationally, the costs of containers are shooting up at a rate we have never experienced before. Rates on many freight lanes are now 3-5 times what they were just 6 months ago. Average freight on a container from China for example used to be about $4000. Last week we had container space offered to us at about $20,000 per container. This is a huge increase in the landed cost of products that are now being shipped. If you consider an average container of goods to be worth $50,000 for example, this additional $16,000 in freight costs will increase the landed costs of those products by over 30%. These are very large and scary increases and at this time they seem to get worse each week. Our choice is to either pay the much higher prices, or further delay the shipment in hopes that rates will be better later. Delaying shipments causes big problems in the factories as they then have to store the goods until they can be shipped and most factories do not have the space to store more than a few containers until they have to stop producing.

Due to many of the reasons outlined above, you can expect to see a lot more products out of stock at many of your suppliers, including us, in the upcoming months. Right now we are in the summer season which is usually slower for us. This is the time that we usually are able to replace the inventory we sold in our busy spring season as well as build up for the upcoming busier fall season. This year with strong demand as well as supply chain issues, we continue to sell more each week than we are able to bring in and we are not seeing signs of this ratio improving in the next couple of months. You will also continue to see price increases on many products due to the increases I discussed above. We had hoped that by now cost pressures would be decreasing, but that is not the case, and not expected to be the case any time soon.

We encourage you to check with your vendors on availability of product as you are selling jobs and projects. You may need to bring in products sooner than you had planned to ensure that you have them for orders you have coming up that you know of. You may also need to be flexible and look for alternatives in some cases if items are not available in the time frame needed for your customer. Pricing is also going to continue to be fast changing, so be careful when quoting jobs very far into the future.

We do expect that over time things will normalize and supply chains will return to balance. How long this process will take though is unknown at this time.

Best Regards,

STORY AT-A-GLANCE

• The Delta variant has a very low 0.2% case fatality rate (CFR) in the U.K., which drops to 0.03% in those under 50, yet is being used as impetus for COVID-19 restrictions
• The public, increasingly fed up with the contradictory guidelines and mandates, is speaking out against the draconian measures that are being reinstated
• In July 2021, more than 160,000 people, including 11,000 in Paris, protested in France against the “health pass,” the country’s version of a vaccine passport
• Demonstrations against Italy’s similar Green Pass have popped up in Rome, Naples and Turin, with people calling for freedom and chanting “down with the dictatorship”
• Thousands of protestors also turned up to rebel against extended lockdown orders in Australia and, in India, hundreds of people joined a Freedom Rally to protest COVID lockdowns and mandatory masks, vaccination and COVID testing
• In the U.S., more than 100 people protested outside the Iowa State Capitol against COVID-19 vaccine mandates, while advocacy groups in California filed a lawsuit against Gov. Gavin Newsom and health officials to challenge COVID restrictions in kindergarten through grade 12 schools

COVID-19 vaccines were supposed to set you free and bring life back to what it looked like in 2019 — no masks, no lockdowns and freedom for everyone, regardless of vaccination status.

Along those lines, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated their guidelines May 13, 2021, to state that vaccinated individuals no longer needed to wear a mask outdoors and in most spaces indoors¹ but, July 27, 2021, they changed the guidance to once again recommend masks for vaccinated people while indoors in areas with “high” or “substantial” COVID-19 transmission.²

This time, the about-face about masks — even for the vaccinated — was blamed on the Delta variant of the virus.

At this point, however, with effective treatments like ivermectin available, the documented high survival rate of COVID-19³ and knowledge that if you’ve had COVID-19, you’re already likely immune to further infection, the rationale for further restrictions is questionable — and even more so when you consider the Delta variant has a very low 0.27% case fatality rate (CFR) in the U.K., which drops to 0.03% in those under 50.⁴

Read the Whole Article Here…

The Truth for Health Foundation and LifeSiteNews present “Stop the Shot… The Rest of the Story.” This online meeting will feature Dr. Peter McCullough, Attorney Thomas Renz, Dr. Michael Yeadon, Sister Deidre Byrne, Dr. Elizabeth Lee Vliet, Dr. Jose Trasancos, and other prominent physicians, scientists, attorneys, and religious leaders who will be discussing vital information related to the COVID jab, clinical trials, and more.

By Brandon Smith

I have been feverishly writing lately on covid mandates and vaccine passports issues, and I’m sure most readers understand why – We are currently at the cusp of a great conflict against the powers that be; people who are exploiting the (mostly manufactured) covid crisis for unprecedented political and economic control. And when I say “manufactured”, I mean that there is no crisis, no need for mandates, no need for lockdowns and no need for vaccine passports.

We are dealing with a virus that around 99.7% of people will easily survive according to the medical establishment’s own studies and stats as well as numerous independent studies, yet, for some reason we are being bombarded with fear mongering from the media and from governments.

Why is the only solution being suggested to the general public involve us giving up all of our freedoms and medical autonomy? Why is 99.7% of the population supposed to lock down, mask up and submit to an experimental mRNA vaccine with no long term testing data to prove its safety? Why don’t the 0.26% of people that are truly at risk of dying from the virus simply take precautions or stay home while the rest of us get on with normal life? Hell, I would be fine with contributing to a fund to help support the 0.26% at risk, to help their families and help with their medical bills.

The Federal Reserve and other central banks burned trillions of dollars in stimulus measures and PPP loans to keep businesses from going completely bankrupt, and to keep jobless “non-essential” workers from starving during the initial shutdowns. But , we could have simply kept the economy going this entire time and paid a fraction of that cost helping the tiny minority of people that would actually suffer from the illness.

Yes, that’s right, I’ll say it again and again because I STILL to this day see the media and misinformed covid cultists continually claim the death rate of covid is much higher. It is not. The median Infection Fatality rate of covid is ONLY 0.26%. This is a FACT. This is the science according the vast majority of medical studies out there on the IFR. Let me repeat: The entire world is being locked down and told we have to give up our inherent human liberties because 0.26% of the population might get more than sniffles and brain fog from a covid infection. Why?

Well, that’s easy; because the covid response and restrictions have nothing to do with public health and everything to do with public control.

This essay is a little different from what I usually write in that it is not so much an appeal to pure reason or pure science and more an appeal to principle. I have been asked by many readers lately if it is not better to argue against pandemic mandates based on ideals and principles rather than hammering away at the science. I think it’s important to do both, but let’s take a moment to consider the moral question and the moral question alone. To do that we must ask some simple questions:

Who has the right to control your medical decisions? Who is qualified to control your constitutional right to life, liberty and the right to seek out prosperity? Who should be given the power to tell you what you can say, where you can work, where you can buy, where you can sell, where you can walk, where you can travel, what you must believe in?

The answer is NO ONE, except yourself that is. But of course, the covid cult and the people that benefit from the pandemic will claim that your rights no longer apply when you are “putting the lives of others at risk”. It’s the old social contract argument – You are “part of a society”, therefore society has expectations that supersede your rights. This is all nonsense, but it’s a classic strategy used by every totalitarian in modern times. It’s never been about what “society” wants, it’s always only ever been about what the tyrants want.

As I have noted in numerous articles with endless scientific facts and evidence, no one who wants to remain free from covid mandates or vaccine passports is putting anyone else at risk. Again, the median death rate for covid is 0.26% and neither the mandates, nor the masks, nor the vaccines have put a stop to covid infections. Interestingly, it has been the states with the harshest lockdowns and mask restrictions that had the highest rates of infection for the past 18 months. Even now, fully vaccinated people are getting covid by the thousands in “breakout cases”, and some of them have died. Infections and deaths dropped off in January long before the vaccines were widely manufactured. Only 5% of the US population was vaccinated with a single dose by February. The fact is, the vaccines have achieved nothing.

Even if I was among the 0.26% of people that are at risk of dying, I would NEVER demand that the other 99.7% of the population give up their freedoms and their children’s freedoms just so I might feel a little bit safer. That would be an act of selfish madness.

Read the Whole Article Here…

Authored by Rand Paul, op-ed via Fox News,

Resist. 

They can’t arrest us all. They can’t keep all your kids home from school. They can’t keep every government building closed – although I’ve got a long list of ones they should.

We don’t have to accept the mandates, lockdowns, and harmful policies of the petty tyrants and feckless bureaucrats. We can simply say no, not again. 

Speaker Nancy Pelosi — you will not arrest or stop me or anyone on my staff from doing our jobs. We have all either had COVID, had the vaccine, or been offered the vaccine. We will make our own health choices. We will not show you a passport, we will not wear a mask, we will not be forced into random screening and testing so you can continue your drunk with power rein over the Capitol. 

President Biden — we will not accept your agencies’ mandates or your reported moves toward a lockdown. No one should follow the CDC’s anti-science mask mandates. And if you want to shutdown federal agencies again — some of which aren’t even back to work fully — I will stop every bill coming through the Senate with an amendment to cut their funding if they don’t come to work. 

No more.

Local bureaucrats and union bosses — we will not allow you to do more harm to our children again this year. Children are not at any more risk from COVID than they are for the seasonal flu. Every adult who works in schools has either had the vaccine or had their chance to. There is no reason for mask mandates, part time schools, or any lockdown measures.

Children are falling behind in school, and are being harmed physically and psychologically by the tactics you have used to keep them from the classroom last year. We won’t allow it again.

If a school system attempts to keep the children from full-time, in-person school, I will hold up every bill with two amendments. One to defund them, and another to allow parents the choice of where the money goes for their child’s education.

Do I sound fed up to you? That’s because I am. 

I’m not a career politician. I’ve practiced medicine for 33 years. I graduated from Duke Medical School, worked in emergency rooms, studied immunology and virology, and ultimately chose to become a surgeon. 

I have been telling everyone for a year now that Dr. Anthony Fauci and other public health officials were NOT following science, and I’ve been proven right time and time again. 

But I’m not the only one who is fed up.

I can’t go anywhere these days — from work, to events, to airports and Ubers, restaurants and stores, without people coming up to me thanking me for standing up for them.

For standing up for actual science. For standing up for freedom. For standing against mandates, lockdowns, and bureaucratic power grabs.

I think the tide has turned, and more and more people are willing to stand up. I see stories from across the country of parents standing up to teacher unions and school boards.

I see members of Congress refusing to comply with Petty Tyrant Pelosi. 

We are at a moment of truth and a crossroads. Will we allow these people to use fear and propaganda to do further harm to our society, economy, and children?

Or will we stand together and say, absolutely not. Not this time. I choose freedom. 

More…

Not much from this illegal government makes sense. But then the acceptance of a coup, voter fraud and tyranny by the “people” makes no sense. Are you ready to Boogaloo?

David DeGerolamo

Not to either promote or denigrate Q, but the point being made above is simple.

David DeGerolamo

According to the VAERS website there have been 8,182 deaths pinned to the Pfizer/Biontech coronavirus vaccination.

The VAERS database contains information on unverified reports of adverse events (illnesses, health problems and/or symptoms) following immunization with US-licensed vaccines. The CDC government website links to VAERS platform. The elites have yet to offer a credible explanation on how these thousands of reported deaths are illegitimate.

There have been over 400,000 adverse reactions reported to the COVID vaccine according to the VAERS website.

But this hasn’t stopped the Biden-Obama government from pushing the FDA to give full approval to Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

That way they can force Americans to get the vaccine to participate in public life.

Read the Whole Article Here…

h/t NC Rob

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Dear NC Patriots,

Another month has past and the scourge of children being raped by illegal aliens in NC continues unabated.

For the month of July 2021, NCFIRE was able to document 22 illegal aliens who amassed 96separate charges of child rape/child sexual assault.

I can not begin to imagine the horror these children had to endure and will continue to endue for the rest of their lives. I also can not imagine the guilt, anguish and anger the parents will have to live with, every time they look at their children.

If you want to help end this nightmare, I strongly urge you to contact your NC House Representative in Raleigh and insist they pass illegal immigration measures in NC. Their contact information can be found here: 
https://ncleg.gov/Members/RepresentationByCounty/H
(find your county, then click on the individual names for their contact info)

We have posted the latest (July 2021) issue on our website: www.ncfire.info

 
Thanks for your support!

James Johnson
President-NCFIRE
North Carolinians For Immigration Reform and Enforcement
Email: NCFIRE@ncfire.info
Website: https://www.ncfire.info