No, the reason ammo makers don’t want to invest heavily in new manufacturing facilities is because there is no actual shortage. This is a bubble. Given that .22 LR alone amounts to four or five billion rounds a year produced, there could literally be hundreds of billions of rounds of ammunition in the US alone. There is no shortage. This is the Tulip Bubble. Eventually, people will realize that there is all this ammo out there and demand will drop to virtually nothing, maybe for a long long time.
Bingo!
You only have to go back a year to see that what you said about increasing capacity is true. Just like before, everyone without ammo is calling for manufacturers to make big investments to increase capacity just because they lacked prudence. Supplies caught up quickly after the last bubble, and will again, barring government interference, which can’t be ruled out. Meanwhile, there are ways to overcome the supply issues, but putting on a pouty face and fussing at business owners ain’t one of them.
You mentioned tulips. Remember the Great Beany Baby Boom? I saw one go for $2500.
This is absurd and inane to the extreme. Conflating firearms and ammo with the Tulip Mania and the Beanie Babies BS shows a serious lack of reasoning power. Your government is going to control you though keeping tulips and stuffed animals out of your hands? There is a massive global black market for tulips and Beanie Babies? Inner city gangs are arming themselves with Beanie Babies? Cops are packing 30 tulip clips in their magazines?
I was discussing the market. You’re the one making bat-[bleep]-crazy assertions about someone pressuring manufacturers to not increase production.
Take your meds and go into your bunker for a nap, dipschitt.
All they have to do is flip that “increase production switch” and there would be plenty of ammo.
More inane and idiotic assertions. You must have done quite well in public school.
I laid out some basics, as have others, as to why there are MASSIVE motivations to invest in increased production. Since production is scalable to a large extent, there is only a small fixed barrier to the minimum outlay of capital to begin to step up production to meet permanent increased demand. And since "panic buying" has created a demand that far outstrips production for the next few years, and the manufacturers could charge at least 500% of what they charged just last January moving forward, the only barrier to beginning to increase capitalization of production is?
Go ahead and come up with a cogent answer. I'd like to hear one.
Lets see.....
Clinton in office 8 years, panic ensues. Leaves office, market stabilizes.
Obama in office 8 years, panic again. Leaves office, market stabilizes, and supplies are not only good, but cheap. The most pro-business, anti-regulation President in decades is in power, but no one takes advantage of that to build additional capacity that would make them rich beyond their wildest dreams, now and for the conceivable future meeting the incredible demand that some crackpot on an internet shooting forum is certain exists. The only possible explanation is that someone is pressuring them (threatening to kill a puppy, no doubt) to not make all that money. Can’t possibly be that the industry recognizes that the market will stabilize, leaving them with idle production capacity and surplus employees. Gotta wonder why those evil pressurers failed to stop them from catching up to and exceeding demand the last two times.
Just maybe the truth is you’re totally FOS, stupider than you accuse me of being, or delusional. I’m taking door number three.
Seriously, GFY you moron.
Where is all this excess ammo that keeps being produced when the market stabilizes? I don't think you understand much at all, but certainly not economics. You've got the insults down though. Your daddy must have taught you well. He'd be proud. Trump was in office the last year, and more guns and ammo were sold in that time period than ever before in history. Kind of blows a hole in your theory of what's driving the market. You should tweak it a bit.
Next question: when is the market going to stabilize again, if all we are dealing with is purely capitalistic market forces? Since you point to politics being the driver of this market instability, when do you foresee that politics will align with the market to stabilize it, and where is the ammo for all the tens of millions of guns sold in the last year going to come from? Will market stability make it magically appear? I don't think so.
Next question: do you not yet make the connection that government forces (politics) are steering this market (and causing skyrocketing demand for both new guns and more ammo), and have artificially constricted it (through Covid regulations), no conspiracy required?
You want to pretend this is all hoarders. Maybe it is. But most guys can't even shoot recreationally anymore. There are dozens of guys at a time in the classifieds just trying to get ammo for their hunting rifle since hunting season began last fall. The demand that no company plans on filling ever is still sky-high. I've been to over a dozen LGS in a 3 hour radius. They aren't getting it in. My brother lives in Utah along the Wasatch Front. They aren't getting the stuff in. I have other family throughout Idaho. Again, for months and months, they aren't getting it in.
But please, keep blowing smoke up other guys' asses. Maybe they'll be dumb enough to think you've made a point. I'll continue to think you are simple-minded, ignorant of basic economics, and FOS
