By Wolf Richter for WOLF STREET.
Dear Readers, thank you so much for your generous donations. Your support is crucial in helping WOLF STREET grow and build community without paywall and ad-blocker blockers.
On November 16, at 11 p.m. Pacific Time, one of the most momentous events in history occurred: I sent out the last WOLF STREET beer mug.
I send the mugs as thank-you gifts to readers who donate $100 or more, and who specifically say via email that they want a mug (many don’t). I re-ordered the mugs on May 31. Turns out, there is a glass shortage that has morphed into a blank beer-mug shortage that has morphed into the WOLF STREET beer mug shortage. Here is the story of the tangled-up supply chain of the mug.
On November 17, I heard from my distributor, Design a Shirt in Arizona. More complications in the supply chain tangle. One of the issues is that Libbey, a large US glass tableware manufacturer, filed for bankruptcy in 2020, and as part of its emergence from bankruptcy, transferred manufacturing operations from the US to Mexico and China. Since glass products are fragile and heavy, they’re expensive to ship, especially now with container rates out the wazoo, and some of Libbey’s US demand has shifted to Arc in the US, which manufactures the blank WOLF STREET mugs, and which is now hopelessly backlogged.
Arc and Libbey have stopped producing that specific mug months ago. Neither released production dates for the mug, said Sarah at Design a Shirt in an email yesterday, citing an email from the glass printer PyroGraphics in Iowa, which prints the three-color WOLF STREET dictum, “Nothing Goes to Heck in a Straight Line,” on the blank mugs. And “no one knows,” she said, quoting Pyro.
Sarah quoted from Pyro’s email: “Sorry I wish I had better news! All of the glass decorators like us are in this same mess. Glass is very hard to come by. I do have pint glasses though….”
You get the drift.
So if you requested a mug after the out-of-mug date, your name now graces the mug list, and as soon as, if, when, and God willing, the mugs get in, I will send them out.
And if you haven’t had a chance to donate yet...
If you were busy last Sunday and Monday when I laid out the issues of paywall, ad-blocker blockers, independence, and control, and if you missed the whole spectacle of the donation reminder, let me remind you now: Please donate.
Your support for the site is crucial. Donations are very special. They tell me that what I’m doing matters. I appreciate each donation immensely.
There are three ways to donate: Zelle; Credit Card via PayPal, and check via USPS mail.
- Zelle. If you are set up with Zelle, please contact me at howlatwolfstreet@gmail.com to get my Zelle contact info.
- Credit or debit card via PayPal. The donate button takes you to WOLF STREET’s PayPal page where you can use your debit or credit card. You do not need a PayPal account. If it asks you to set up a PayPal account, just back out. On that initial page, first enter the amount you wish to donate then click the white “Donate with a Debit or Credit Card”:
- Mail a check to (much appreciated):
Wolf Street Corp
1288 Columbus Ave. #196
San Francisco, CA 94133
Thank-you gift: that elusive WOLF STREET mug if you donate $100 or more.
If, when, but… I would love to send you one of these funny 15-oz mugs to thank you for your very generous donation of $100 or more if your address is in the US, and if you would like a mug (many people don’t).
If you would like a mug, please email me and include your shipping address in the US (I cannot ship the mugs outside the US) and your phone number (FedEx will not deliver without it). Send the email to: howlatwolfstreet@gmail.com
I will put your name on the mug list. As soon as, if, when, and God willing, the mug shipment arrives, I will send you a mug. A lot of patience might be required. My apologies for the WOLF STREET beer mug shortage.
Thank you, Dear Readers, for coming to WOLF STREET, and thank you for your support!!
Enjoy reading WOLF STREET and want to support it? You can donate. I appreciate it immensely. Click on the beer and iced-tea mug to find out how:
Would you like to be notified via email when WOLF STREET publishes a new article? Sign up here.
Suggestion: Set up a PATREON account to support Wolfstreet !!! That will allow people to contribute on a regular basis.
My platform is wolfstreet.com, not Patreon. People can contribute on a regular basis by checking the little box “Make this a monthly subscription” on the initial PayPal page that you get to when you click the donation button. Many people are doing this.
Patreon takes out even more in commissions than PayPal. It’s for people who don’t have their own platform.
Maybe you should consider going alcohol free and switching to coffee mugs? Or pencil cups. Or nerf dartboards. yeah, that’s the ticket. Nothing goes to hell in a straight line dart boards. For picking stocks.
Man you should have this comment moderated.
People use the mugs as iced tea mugs. Works great.
We use them for lemenaide and cranberry juice as well as an occasional Bud Light. I’ve got 2.
Oh gosh, I can just see it, on a hot summer day, after running around all day, a big mug with lemonade on ice, with condensation dripping down the sides… gotta remember that.
I just emailed the Treasury to put a stop payment on the cash I sent.
What’s wrong with changing the materials or design? Where are the Indian head pennies and Roosevelt dimes? How many copies of the original Mona Lisa were produced?
Anyone want a Trump coin BTW? A patient gave me one and said to hold on to it because it would be worth a lot of money some day.
Hitch your wagon to ESG and see what’s available in recycled materials. Glass is recyclable.
Change the artwork. Offer to put the donor’s face on the mug. Put Kamala Harris’s face on the mug and watch sales skyrocket as people keep asking for replacements that “fell off the shelf”.
And why just mugs that say the same thing? Wolfstreet Coffee blend, t-shirts, different slogans (Wolfstreet: “Think heavy, invest cool.”), glass espresso cups. Wolfstreet/Shaquille basketball shoes. Reusable soda straws. COLLECT THEM ALL.
Think outside the box. Does Amazon still just sell books? Netflix just mails dvds? Do you still use a typewriter?
Grow, evolve, exploit your customers. Work a deal with Wells Fargo. This is America!
We could start a retail operation — ecommerce is a thing now, I read recently — and you’re in charge of it, no? Job description: lotta work, no pay 🤣
Release a single. Followed by a folk album. A worldwide tour is just around the corner. Enjoy your yacht money.
1) Thanks for saving us from eviction and starvation.
2) Thanks for flush flood of money to shingle mums.
3) Thanks for pipi loans to small businesses and the online pickers jobs.
4) The more u helped, the more we hate.
5) The more u gave. the higher is the inflation rate.
6) The more injection, the more clogging.
7) SNL love u, CNN miss u, the swamp blame u.
8) U will never deflate. There will be no Anti despite all the antis
9) Happy Thanksgiving.
4) the more you help, the more we hate… (priceless)
“Libbey, filed for bankruptcy in 2020, transferred manufacturing operations from the US to Mexico and China.”
And so the terminal disease of American business continues unrelented. Is there any information on how much of Libby’s earnings went into stock buybacks instead of production improvements before bankruptcy?
I am certain that upper management was financially protected as they destroyed the company. As usual, there would have been no consideration of the plight of empoyees or customers.
Sounds as if the mug will stay out of production. I don’t presume to know the ins and outs of the exact mug design, but Anchor Hocking may have a viable option.
CM,
Agreed. WS mug, version #2. An instant collectible!
I’d buy one. I don’t need them to match.
I got like three fiddy
So you suppose a lot more manufacturing and American business is going to be offshored, in the midst of the greatest supply chain shortage in history? How many jobs are lost, and in what state? Well the Dems aren’t going to win points for this.
I tried to donate but PayPal keeps asking for a password and for me to agree to all their fine print even though I didn’t click on PayPal grrrrr
What IS the point of paypal?
Malthus,
Not sure what you did, but you ended up in the wrong place. On the initial page that you get to after you click the donation button, you need to click the WHITE button, not the big bold blue button. It will not ask you for a password but for your credit card data.
I was going to skip this one, because I’d donated fairly often lately.
Last night I watched the Sotheby’s auction to see if the “constitution” Bitcoin fraud would win. It didn’t. Presumably the organizers were working for a competitor of the guy who did win, forcing him to pay more than he wanted to pay.
During the rest of the auction, I saw atrocious scrawls and messes that deserve the attention of a janitor, not an art patron. These messes were selling for a million dollars instead of being scrubbed off the wall.
After comparing the INFORMATION and ART value of one Wolf graph to these messes, I decided to donate again.
Thank you!!
Your description of my charts made my day!
Wolf,
I know, a redundant post, but in your bio there’s a picture of you wearing a baseball cap. I propose that you make one available along with the mugs. Of course, with a catchy badge designed by Kitty Lopez.
I’ll buy one…
The paypal method works well for me. Donation took less than a minute and I’m back to my day. Cheers Wolf!
Hey Wolf
Wow, a T-shirt with your logo would be amazing. But probably a bit pricey?
Hell I’d buy one if it was available.
i’m late here because it’s been a helluva couple of weeks for me in play here in SF, and trying to figure out the world and my position in it is ever evolving, and i had a surprise existential attack (when you end up in the fetal position in a cold sweat, in awe of the size of the universe or this current global problem) but maybe next year or for next first Wolfmeet out of this thing, we’ll have a silk screen party ahead of the meet for making tshirts or something or whatever those at the party bring to screen print.
i’m not lying. this is how we used to do it. my friend had a print set up and i brought the beer and it was a party in her garage.
believe it or not, i’m waaaaay more fun in person.
(evil cackle)
x