Quote:
Originally Posted by Icky Thump
but while I have always been for mitigation, this poor white boy living in Shanghai ain't exactly livin the dream.
I guess that's why if I want a new MacBook Pro, I have to wait until July. |
Speaking of supply chain:
Friend of mine is a sales guy at the local Mini dealership. He stopped by a few days ago to see the baby, and caught me up on the goings on of auto sales. He's never made more money in his life, and he's never been more bored at his job. Most of the time everyone on the floor is just messing with their phones. There is NO inventory. None. Zero. Zilch. If you want a Mini, you have to custom order it and it takes four months to get here. He says his place doesn't go too far above MSRDP, but he knows some dealerships will (of all makes) will slap on a $5000 "dealer's fee" just because they can.
We're lucky, because we're 20 miles from the Port of Houston and the cars get here relatively fast. On the west coast it's six months to get through the Panama Canal and to LA.
Preowned cars are few and far between, mostly big trucks and SUVs because people don't want to pay to gas them up anymore. Their pricing is WELL above blue book, and if it's newer very close to MSRDP.
In addition, there's a specific part in the electrical system that's made for Mini, Audi, VW and BMW. The factory is Ukraine. All of the men who work there have left to fight the Russians, so most of the women in town have taken over. They have to be able to vacate and get to the busses in 15 minutes when the sirens go off. They have to shut the entire place down at night to prevent any lights from being visible to make them a target. He guesses there's some sort of plan to get another facility up and running, but for now, if that factory gets hit, it'll be a long time before any of those cars will be coming off the line.
He says the current estimate is about 2 years before the car market stabilizes again, and unless you absolutely need to get a new car, hold off. He's doing ridiculously well financially, but bored off his rocker.
