For years now, I’ve been a bit of a prepper. Granted, not a very good one, there are huge holes in my prepping, a vast range of skills and supplies I’m lacking.
But even before the pandemic started, I’d had more supplies on hand than your average Joe Blow, including medical supplies. Among those, some N95 masks (in retrospect, not enough), as well some of the cheaper disposable “surgical masks” that have ear loops. I had gotten those at Dollar Tree, by the box, ten for a buck. Picked up a few more right before the feces hit the air circulation unit.
And then things changed. One day you could buy all the toilet paper, hand sanitizer, and masks you wanted. The next day shelves were stripped bare of all three.
TP was eventually restocked (but even now, 2+ months later, doesn’t take up as much shelf space as it used to), very limited amounts of hand sanitizer has been showing up sporadically, but until today I’d seen none of those cheapie masks. But now they’re available:
What’s a little 1,400% price increase between friends?
I don’t remember the exact price, but I think that last fall a box of ten N95 masks sold for about $16 or so.
Here’s the kicker: on the back of the box I saw today, there was a Made in China notice. So the much higher price can’t be explained away by higher American manufacturing costs. And the bottom of the box had something displayed that I’ve never before seen:
Not Made in the USA. Not even the Assembled in the USA from Foreign Components that I’ve seen before. Merely designed in America.
Welcome to the new normal?
@bubke
@peakd