Hi,
COVID-19 numbers progress as expected; with currently ~40,000 new cases per day, the landmark of half a million infected will be reached in a couple of days. 40,000 new cases per day means that there is a similar number of cases every two days which took China two months at its peak. According to worldometers.info, the pandemic is now present in 196 countries and territories. That's more than the number of UN members. But it appears we are much closer to the SHTF stage than I thought as there are so many (anectotical) indicators that things are starting to break apart. An area which concerns the doll business is
shipping and logistics.
At least here in Germany, courier and postal services have become very unreliable. Regular postal services still deliver mail like letters domestically, but even small packages do not travel reliably across the EU anymore. Plus, there is now a long (official) list of destinations where mail can not be delivered anymore. The tracking I posted above (with "
Return to Deutsche Post Return Center" scan) simply stopped, there is no delivery, no explanation and no resolution why the shipment is being returned before even making a delivery attempt.
All courier services I checked in the past days - e.g. DHL, UPS, DPD - do not deliver personally anymore, meaning:
you will not be asked to sign for the delivery; the delivery guy confirms delivery
for you and leaves the package on the porch (or wherever he chooses to). He might not even ring your doorbell and just dump the package somewhere. That is a serious problem for shipping anything valuable, be it a new doll or getting some gold or silver (if you do not trust in paper money anymore).
Not sure how Fedex is currently handling deliveries in North America. So far, shipments still make it to U.S. destinations in time and packages seem to be delivered to customers. Though, no idea about USPS and Canada Post.
For
electronic payment processing, I noticed strange 'delays' (to avoid saying 'not processing payments'); e.g., the float for SEPA bank transfers is regulated to one banking day max; but currently, payments seem to take a lot longer than they should for mysterious reasons (electronic payment processing is all machines, no human intervention). I am not sure what to make of this, one can only hope that this are just delays and not disruptions in digital payment processing; it's almost impossible to reach someone by phone at banks, shops or shipping carriers who can explain what is happening. I will keep observing this for a couple of more days, but I don't think that I want to keep too much money locked at the banks. It's just too easy to shut down ATM machines or close branch offices if someone decides that he does not want you to withdraw money (remember Cyprus in 2013 and Greece in 2015; quote from an old report: "
review the restrictions each day with a view to progressive lifting of the measures as soon as circumstances allow" - sounds familiar, right?).
In the U.S., jobless claims in the coming weeks are expected to be in the millions, U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is even contemplating about a possible increase in the unemployment rate up to 20% within the next months, the Federal Reserve is in the process to fund a $1-trillion USD for a "Temporary Corporate and Small Business Lending Facility", and many, many very weird financial decisions are in the making all over the world. It sounds like another massive bailout for big corporations like airlines is ahead, and everything is steering straight towards a recession and inflation. I guess this will start in fall unless something unexpected good happens in the meantime.
Anyway, regarding masks, like with fruit, vegetables, disinfectants and toilet paper, most people can not get masks so nobody is using them. So it's time to start taking things in our own hands, as far as possible. E.g., start planting a garden, if you like to eat fresh stuff when food supply chains fall apart, and make your own mask if you can not purchase them. This is from a
DIY Cloth Face Mask tutorial:
- reg-size-mask-pattern.jpg (81.23 KiB) Viewed 2242 times
On instructables.com, there are further instructions how to make them. Also, there are patterns in other sizes available, and other sites like craftpassion.com have more suggestions. So if you can sew, start helping yourself. Maybe make some more masks to give away and to help others.
Sandro
