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I work for one of the largest packaging companies in the world. Customers across the board in the US are cutting back on how much packaging they need due to pre

I work for one of the largest packaging companies in the world. Customers across the board in the US are cutting back on how much packaging they need due to presumably lower sales volume. Make of that information what you will.

chii 1y ago
car manufacturers, right at the beginning of covid, started cutting orders of components from their suppliers, thinking that demand is going to drop due to covid induced recession. Guess what happened next?
- tyre 1y ago
  Covid was a black swan event. Unless we see something like the MBS collapse, the underlying economic weakness isn’t due to a such an acute root cause. Not sure how comparable they are.
  - mtsr 1y ago
    I know it’s not popular to bring politics into things on HN, but… From the outside at least, White House policy sounds like at least as much of a black swan event as COVID.
    - deleted 1y ago
      [deleted]
    - watwut 1y ago
      Black swan event should be unexpected. Trumps victory was within expected possibilities. It was also his second victory. And his moves after winning were not unexpected either - he is doing what his opponents predicted he will do.
      - littlestymaar 1y ago
        A coronavirus causing a global pandemic at some point was even more expected though. And even the erratic government reactions to the pandemic was not entirely unpredictable either to be fair.
        freejazz 1y ago
        Yes, expected at some point. Everyone knows when the election will happen, who is running, etc.
      - intended 1y ago
        True. It must be added, that theres two wrenches in the machinery that transforms information into action currently. Firstly - The average market behavior is average. From experience, most people could not imagine anything of what was predicted, would come true. There is a large … debt of intellectual work that is being underwritten, allowing people to sell narratives which do not correspond to reality. This is a direct result of a captured, unfair information environment. As a result, the average behavior of the market is not pricing in these things, even if the plans were made clear.
      - formerly_proven 1y ago
        > Trumps victory was within expected possibilities. While people felt that polls indicated a Harris victory and the margin of Trump's win was a surprise and a failure of forecasters, in reality it was always a toss-up in forecasts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for...
    - throw-10-13 1y ago
      Not at all, people voted for this and the outcome was expected by people paying attention. I moved all of my money out of the US the week following the election.
      - AlecSchueler 1y ago
        > I moved all of my money out of the US the week following the election. That sounds pretty black swan to me, I'm guessing you never felt the need sheet any previous election? Being predictable and being unique are different things.
        etiennebausson 1y ago
        Black swan event: an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. Trump is the direction taken by U.S. politics for decades now. I could see it post- 9/11, and I was not the most enlightened teenager. Others probably saw it coming years or decades earlier.
        ben_w 1y ago
        > Trump is the direction taken by U.S. politics for decades now. I could see it post- 9/11, and I was not the most enlightened teenager. Others probably saw it coming years or decades earlier. While it is kinda the same direction, it also has two Black Swan components: 1) What he's doing actually matches the rhetoric, e.g. actually trying to kick out illegal immigrants even though they're the (underpaid) farm workers holding back food price inflation. 2) It definitely wasn't on my metaphorical bingo card that someone with multiple felony convictions and who had been impeached twice for trying to interfere with the democratic hand over of power, went on to become the popular choice for president.
        etiennebausson 1y ago
        Because his criminal record has little to do with the policies he is pushing. Sure, the election of a convict was a risky bet, but the appearance of the policies he is pushing was really not.
    - ls612 1y ago
      From the inside, this is nothing compared to COVID. 2025 feels a bit weird but to compare it with 2020 is laughable.
      - eimrine 1y ago
        Depends on your country, 2025 can be either the super easy life or the super hard life compared to 2020.
      - overfeed 1y ago
        For (services) software people, 2020 was great: work from home, sky-high jobs demand (perhaps Zero-interest related), surging demand and revenue because by people were bored at home. Brick and mortar retail workers were screwed in 2020. It is possible that 2025 could be the opposite, the software jobs market os already spooky for juniors, and could get much worse with an AI bust - guess what companies will do to show investors they are making up for written-off AI investments? A recession will lead to a drop in demand for online services like streaming, online shopping as people tighten their belts, upward ratcheting of subscription prices will only make the drop worse.
        entropicdrifter 1y ago
        I think with an AI bust we're more likely to see juniors actually start getting jobs at reasonable rates... but only after short-sighted layoffs of a bunch of more senior positions as opposed to dumping AI products that so many companies have already signed year+ long contracts for in advance.
      - Alive-in-2025 1y ago
        That view sounds like it's coming from a position of a white person, not married to a minority, not an immigrant. That describes me too. Software engineer, more secure economically. Even people with visas or permanent residency, or who even look like they might be Hispanic are justifiably worried about a random car pulling them over and breaking their window. If you aren't aware or concerned, I call that oblivious or a denial of reality. Or privilege (edit: corrected spelling). It's different in some ways of course than with covid.
    - throwaway422432 1y ago
      A week before the election I bought shares in Lynas, (the major rare earth producer outside of China) when it seemed Trump could win. Rare Earth exports was a known lever that the CCP uses in a trade war, and Trump was very likely to restart his previous one. However, the Pentagon putting money into MP Materials was quite unexpected, and people are still throwing money at them.
  - littlestymaar 1y ago
    > Covid was a black swan event I beg to differ. Epidemiologists and public health planners always knew such a pandemic would happen eventually. In fact, it wasn't even surprising that it came from a coronavirus as this virus group was the most likely contender with the influenza family. The only open question was when. We dodged the bullet several times over the past two decades with SRAS, H5N1, MERS and H1N1 (notice, two influenza and two coronaviruses), but one virus slipping through was definitely the most likely outcome. And I can confidently tell you: it will happen again.
    - jvanderbot 1y ago
      Ah, so an asteroid obliterating NYC is not a black swan event because it's statistically likely to happen over long enough time horizons? If you can forsee the event, but not predict the time, it's just as bad as an even you cannot forsee.
      - margalabargala 1y ago
        Exactly. The only thing that could be considered a black swan event is something foreshadowed or predicted by no one ever, even in fiction. If all rivers suddenly turned to wine and killed all the crops? Not a black swan event, water gets turned to wine in the bible. As you can see this attitude makes the phrase "black swan event" very useful.
        Rooster61 1y ago
        That would be a burgundy swan event.
      - ben_w 1y ago
        That's a grey swan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_swan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_swan
      - littlestymaar 1y ago
        Because something likely to happen over the next billions of years and something that will most likely occur in your lifetime are entirely equivalent indeed… You guys should really go get some nuance at the retail store.
  - harvey9 1y ago
    A contagious disease pandemic is not a black swan event. We have had many of them before and there are people whose day jobs are to model and plan for them.
    - array_key_first 1y ago
      It was the only such event in most people's lifetimes.
      - jcranmer 1y ago
        We've had, in this century, SARS, swine flu, MERS, ebola (× like 4), mpox (×2 apparently), Zika virus, and COVID-19. AIDS is a pandemic that's been going on since before I was born. Pandemics and pandemic scares are really friggin' common.
        monooso 1y ago
        Several of those were not pandemics (I assume this is why you used the phrase "pandemic scares" as a catch-all). Regardless of official classification, I don't recall any of them having anywhere near the same global impact as COVID.
        AlexandrB 1y ago
        How many of those resulted in worldwide lockdowns, masking mandates, and widespread testing requirements for travel? I believe the answer is: 1. This is a very pedantic counter argument that leans on the fact that "pandemic" has too broad of a definition. There was nothing else like COVID in my (40 year) lifetime.
        jcranmer 1y ago
        Half of them have, actually. The COVID response was heavily based off of the SARS response. The major difference with COVID is that it's the first time first world countries were asked to employ standard public health responses in many decades.
  - onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
    Tariffs can easily be turned off, and in December the supreme Court could rule that they majority of tariffs in place are illegal AND must be refunded. According to Polymarket, there's a >50% chance that happens: https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-supreme-court-rule-in-favor-of-trumps-tariffs https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-supreme-court-rule-in-...
    - jagraff 1y ago
      Polymarket gives a >50% chance of the tariffs being ruled illegal, not that they would be refunded - the market only gives a ~8% chance of the tariffs being ruled illegal AND and order to refund: https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-court-force-trump-to-refund-tariffs?tid=1760449476539 https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-court-force-trump-to-r...
      - hypeatei 1y ago
        Don't forget that Howard Lutnick, the Commerce secretary and tariff fanatic, has his sons betting against them at his former firm. Trump’s Commerce Secretary Loves Tariffs. His Former Investment Bank Is Taking Bets Against Them: https://www.wired.com/story/cantor-fitzgerald-trump-tariff-refunds/ https://www.wired.com/story/cantor-fitzgerald-trump-tariff-r... And the senate probe into said conflict of interest: https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-warren-probe-lutnick-firms-potential-conflicts-of-interest-related-to-massive-tariff-bets https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-wa...
    - mikeodds 1y ago
      I can push that market to 100% with 10k usd so I wouldn’t weight that too strongly as evidence, although I agree on the tariffs part.
      - names_are_hard 1y ago
        Can you explain how you reached that conclusion? If I'm reading the order book correctly, you'd need much more than 10k to remove all the opposing liquidity. And of course you can't assume that other participants will stand by idly, when you put in enough money to move the market away from what they believe is correct you might discover a lot more contra liquidity appears. So it might not stay where you want it for more than a moment.
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  A gigantic contracyclic fiscal policy was adopted to sustain demand. Do you think Trump and the GOP will do that anytime soon?
  - glaucon 1y ago
    At least until such time as his polling stumbles the GOP will do absolutely anything he says. And Trump will do whatever it takes to keep the grease coming in, I really think him turning on the printing presses is a long from the least likely scenario. Would the GOP have to eat large quantities of excrement, yes. Have they become used to doing that (cf Epstein), yes.
- yobbo 1y ago
  > Guess what happened next? Stimulus and zero interest rate followed by 10% inflation.
  - chii 1y ago
    and that inflation was (partially) due to the lack of supply of production (say, of cars). Which is due to the lack of supply of components (that was cancelled due to expectation of low demand, as well as various shipping/cargo issues in the ensuing period).
nxm 1y ago
Short the stock market then if you feel a recession is coming
omgJustTest 1y ago
tariffs could be an explanation. sometimes volume and total $ are not the same.
dawnerd 1y ago
My eBay sales have been way down this year too and so far q4 is not looking good at all. People are cutting back across the board and it’s going to be very ugly once wall street stops plugging their ears and covering their eyes.
- culll_kuprey 1y ago
  > My eBay sales have been way down this year too and so far q4 is not looking good at all. I had half the mind to start up an old project I abandoned after losing my job. I opened eBay and was floored to see how much costs have increased in my little niche.
dh2022 1y ago
This is an indicator that is very close to the sale time. If you can share and don't mind sharing, how did whatever you saw during 2020/2021 corelate with retail sales?
deleted 1y ago
[deleted]

chii 1y ago

car manufacturers, right at the beginning of covid, started cutting orders of components from their suppliers, thinking that demand is going to drop due to covid induced recession. Guess what happened next?

tyre 1y ago
Covid was a black swan event. Unless we see something like the MBS collapse, the underlying economic weakness isn’t due to a such an acute root cause. Not sure how comparable they are.
- mtsr 1y ago
  I know it’s not popular to bring politics into things on HN, but… From the outside at least, White House policy sounds like at least as much of a black swan event as COVID.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
  - watwut 1y ago
    Black swan event should be unexpected. Trumps victory was within expected possibilities. It was also his second victory. And his moves after winning were not unexpected either - he is doing what his opponents predicted he will do.
    - littlestymaar 1y ago
      A coronavirus causing a global pandemic at some point was even more expected though. And even the erratic government reactions to the pandemic was not entirely unpredictable either to be fair.
      - freejazz 1y ago
        Yes, expected at some point. Everyone knows when the election will happen, who is running, etc.
    - intended 1y ago
      True. It must be added, that theres two wrenches in the machinery that transforms information into action currently. Firstly - The average market behavior is average. From experience, most people could not imagine anything of what was predicted, would come true. There is a large … debt of intellectual work that is being underwritten, allowing people to sell narratives which do not correspond to reality. This is a direct result of a captured, unfair information environment. As a result, the average behavior of the market is not pricing in these things, even if the plans were made clear.
    - formerly_proven 1y ago
      > Trumps victory was within expected possibilities. While people felt that polls indicated a Harris victory and the margin of Trump's win was a surprise and a failure of forecasters, in reality it was always a toss-up in forecasts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for_the_2024_United_States_presidential_election https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nationwide_opinion_polling_for...
  - throw-10-13 1y ago
    Not at all, people voted for this and the outcome was expected by people paying attention. I moved all of my money out of the US the week following the election.
    - AlecSchueler 1y ago
      > I moved all of my money out of the US the week following the election. That sounds pretty black swan to me, I'm guessing you never felt the need sheet any previous election? Being predictable and being unique are different things.
      - etiennebausson 1y ago
        Black swan event: an event that comes as a surprise, has a major effect, and is often inappropriately rationalized after the fact with the benefit of hindsight. Trump is the direction taken by U.S. politics for decades now. I could see it post- 9/11, and I was not the most enlightened teenager. Others probably saw it coming years or decades earlier.
        ben_w 1y ago
        > Trump is the direction taken by U.S. politics for decades now. I could see it post- 9/11, and I was not the most enlightened teenager. Others probably saw it coming years or decades earlier. While it is kinda the same direction, it also has two Black Swan components: 1) What he's doing actually matches the rhetoric, e.g. actually trying to kick out illegal immigrants even though they're the (underpaid) farm workers holding back food price inflation. 2) It definitely wasn't on my metaphorical bingo card that someone with multiple felony convictions and who had been impeached twice for trying to interfere with the democratic hand over of power, went on to become the popular choice for president.
        etiennebausson 1y ago
        Because his criminal record has little to do with the policies he is pushing. Sure, the election of a convict was a risky bet, but the appearance of the policies he is pushing was really not.
  - ls612 1y ago
    From the inside, this is nothing compared to COVID. 2025 feels a bit weird but to compare it with 2020 is laughable.
    - eimrine 1y ago
      Depends on your country, 2025 can be either the super easy life or the super hard life compared to 2020.
    - overfeed 1y ago
      For (services) software people, 2020 was great: work from home, sky-high jobs demand (perhaps Zero-interest related), surging demand and revenue because by people were bored at home. Brick and mortar retail workers were screwed in 2020. It is possible that 2025 could be the opposite, the software jobs market os already spooky for juniors, and could get much worse with an AI bust - guess what companies will do to show investors they are making up for written-off AI investments? A recession will lead to a drop in demand for online services like streaming, online shopping as people tighten their belts, upward ratcheting of subscription prices will only make the drop worse.
      - entropicdrifter 1y ago
        I think with an AI bust we're more likely to see juniors actually start getting jobs at reasonable rates... but only after short-sighted layoffs of a bunch of more senior positions as opposed to dumping AI products that so many companies have already signed year+ long contracts for in advance.
    - Alive-in-2025 1y ago
      That view sounds like it's coming from a position of a white person, not married to a minority, not an immigrant. That describes me too. Software engineer, more secure economically. Even people with visas or permanent residency, or who even look like they might be Hispanic are justifiably worried about a random car pulling them over and breaking their window. If you aren't aware or concerned, I call that oblivious or a denial of reality. Or privilege (edit: corrected spelling). It's different in some ways of course than with covid.
  - throwaway422432 1y ago
    A week before the election I bought shares in Lynas, (the major rare earth producer outside of China) when it seemed Trump could win. Rare Earth exports was a known lever that the CCP uses in a trade war, and Trump was very likely to restart his previous one. However, the Pentagon putting money into MP Materials was quite unexpected, and people are still throwing money at them.
- littlestymaar 1y ago
  > Covid was a black swan event I beg to differ. Epidemiologists and public health planners always knew such a pandemic would happen eventually. In fact, it wasn't even surprising that it came from a coronavirus as this virus group was the most likely contender with the influenza family. The only open question was when. We dodged the bullet several times over the past two decades with SRAS, H5N1, MERS and H1N1 (notice, two influenza and two coronaviruses), but one virus slipping through was definitely the most likely outcome. And I can confidently tell you: it will happen again.
  - jvanderbot 1y ago
    Ah, so an asteroid obliterating NYC is not a black swan event because it's statistically likely to happen over long enough time horizons? If you can forsee the event, but not predict the time, it's just as bad as an even you cannot forsee.
    - margalabargala 1y ago
      Exactly. The only thing that could be considered a black swan event is something foreshadowed or predicted by no one ever, even in fiction. If all rivers suddenly turned to wine and killed all the crops? Not a black swan event, water gets turned to wine in the bible. As you can see this attitude makes the phrase "black swan event" very useful.
      - Rooster61 1y ago
        That would be a burgundy swan event.
    - ben_w 1y ago
      That's a grey swan: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_swan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grey_swan
    - littlestymaar 1y ago
      Because something likely to happen over the next billions of years and something that will most likely occur in your lifetime are entirely equivalent indeed… You guys should really go get some nuance at the retail store.
- harvey9 1y ago
  A contagious disease pandemic is not a black swan event. We have had many of them before and there are people whose day jobs are to model and plan for them.
  - array_key_first 1y ago
    It was the only such event in most people's lifetimes.
    - jcranmer 1y ago
      We've had, in this century, SARS, swine flu, MERS, ebola (× like 4), mpox (×2 apparently), Zika virus, and COVID-19. AIDS is a pandemic that's been going on since before I was born. Pandemics and pandemic scares are really friggin' common.
      - monooso 1y ago
        Several of those were not pandemics (I assume this is why you used the phrase "pandemic scares" as a catch-all). Regardless of official classification, I don't recall any of them having anywhere near the same global impact as COVID.
      - AlexandrB 1y ago
        How many of those resulted in worldwide lockdowns, masking mandates, and widespread testing requirements for travel? I believe the answer is: 1. This is a very pedantic counter argument that leans on the fact that "pandemic" has too broad of a definition. There was nothing else like COVID in my (40 year) lifetime.
        jcranmer 1y ago
        Half of them have, actually. The COVID response was heavily based off of the SARS response. The major difference with COVID is that it's the first time first world countries were asked to employ standard public health responses in many decades.
- onlyrealcuzzo 1y ago
  Tariffs can easily be turned off, and in December the supreme Court could rule that they majority of tariffs in place are illegal AND must be refunded. According to Polymarket, there's a >50% chance that happens: https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-supreme-court-rule-in-favor-of-trumps-tariffs https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-supreme-court-rule-in-...
  - jagraff 1y ago
    Polymarket gives a >50% chance of the tariffs being ruled illegal, not that they would be refunded - the market only gives a ~8% chance of the tariffs being ruled illegal AND and order to refund: https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-court-force-trump-to-refund-tariffs?tid=1760449476539 https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-court-force-trump-to-r...
    - hypeatei 1y ago
      Don't forget that Howard Lutnick, the Commerce secretary and tariff fanatic, has his sons betting against them at his former firm. Trump’s Commerce Secretary Loves Tariffs. His Former Investment Bank Is Taking Bets Against Them: https://www.wired.com/story/cantor-fitzgerald-trump-tariff-refunds/ https://www.wired.com/story/cantor-fitzgerald-trump-tariff-r... And the senate probe into said conflict of interest: https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-warren-probe-lutnick-firms-potential-conflicts-of-interest-related-to-massive-tariff-bets https://www.finance.senate.gov/ranking-members-news/wyden-wa...
  - mikeodds 1y ago
    I can push that market to 100% with 10k usd so I wouldn’t weight that too strongly as evidence, although I agree on the tariffs part.
    - names_are_hard 1y ago
      Can you explain how you reached that conclusion? If I'm reading the order book correctly, you'd need much more than 10k to remove all the opposing liquidity. And of course you can't assume that other participants will stand by idly, when you put in enough money to move the market away from what they believe is correct you might discover a lot more contra liquidity appears. So it might not stay where you want it for more than a moment.
littlestymaar 1y ago
A gigantic contracyclic fiscal policy was adopted to sustain demand. Do you think Trump and the GOP will do that anytime soon?
- glaucon 1y ago
  At least until such time as his polling stumbles the GOP will do absolutely anything he says. And Trump will do whatever it takes to keep the grease coming in, I really think him turning on the printing presses is a long from the least likely scenario. Would the GOP have to eat large quantities of excrement, yes. Have they become used to doing that (cf Epstein), yes.
yobbo 1y ago
> Guess what happened next? Stimulus and zero interest rate followed by 10% inflation.
- chii 1y ago
  and that inflation was (partially) due to the lack of supply of production (say, of cars). Which is due to the lack of supply of components (that was cancelled due to expectation of low demand, as well as various shipping/cargo issues in the ensuing period).

nxm 1y ago

Short the stock market then if you feel a recession is coming

omgJustTest 1y ago

tariffs could be an explanation. sometimes volume and total $ are not the same.

dawnerd 1y ago

My eBay sales have been way down this year too and so far q4 is not looking good at all. People are cutting back across the board and it’s going to be very ugly once wall street stops plugging their ears and covering their eyes.

culll_kuprey 1y ago
> My eBay sales have been way down this year too and so far q4 is not looking good at all. I had half the mind to start up an old project I abandoned after losing my job. I opened eBay and was floored to see how much costs have increased in my little niche.

dh2022 1y ago

This is an indicator that is very close to the sale time. If you can share and don't mind sharing, how did whatever you saw during 2020/2021 corelate with retail sales?

deleted 1y ago

[deleted]