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FOOD & PRODUCT SHORTAGEby Bill Blust Jr.For a couple months I have been hearing that in the near future there will be shortages of all consumer products. I have seen the videos of farmers saying they are being paid by the government to destroy their crops. I have read the stories about container ships at anchor off the coast of California. I have gone to local stores and seen a reduction of products on the shelves.My wife is the manager of her family owned restaurant/winery. Last night I mentioned I had just read an article about Costco possibly limiting how much customers could buy of certain products, namely paper and cleaning products.My wife does all the ordering from several different food vendors. She told me one vendor is raising the quanity of items required to order. Additionally, the same company will no longer make once a week deliverys, they will now only be delivering once a month. A couple weeks ago she couldn't get the full amount of chicken she ordered. Oftentimes, she has to go to local stores to try and purchase what her vendors can't provide.So, I feel it's fairly safe to say the rumors I have been hearing about severe shortages on everything in the near future is true. Since I'm retired, I do 95% of shopping for our household and even I have noticed some items are not stocked in quanity. And let's not even talk about how prices on everything has sky rocketed in the past eight months.Thankfully, I grew up in a home with not much money. I know,, that sounds odd. We weren't poor, but, we rarely had "extra" money. So I learned from my mom how to stock up on non perishable items. Today we call that prepping. So, over the years I have acquired a nice stockpile of food, water, and other items. It's my insurance for survival if something should happen. Almost two years ago our electricity went out.....in the Winter time. Couldn't run the furnace. Couldn't get water from our well. With an electric stove we couldn't cook food. Couldn't even flush the toilet. But, because I had prepped, we were just fine. I had cases and cases of bottled water, so flushing the toilet was no longer a problem. I got out the Coleman stove, no problem cooking food or heating up water for the coffee press. I had several propane heaters that are safe to use indoors. I had over 48 one pound bottles of propane and six 20 pound bottles. I have boxes and boxes of emergency candles. We were just fine. In case you didn't know, you would be surprised how much a room will warm up when burning a dozen candles.Anyway, I'm ready, are you? I know I'm going to spend a bit more money each time I go to the store because I want to prep some more. Good luck everyone and God Bless.