Went grocery shopping today and was a little surprised at the # of empty shelves. I expected some but this was was a higher volume than expected. I thought that this was kind of a preview of life in the US under socialism with two significant differences. 1st, people were working hard to restock, they just couldn't keep up. And 2nd, no one is voting for corona virus. So I guess corona virus is kinda like socialism lite.
Thanks Tim!
Most people remember what they did the day of 9-11-2001.
I can tell you about the entire day, especially the early portion, when somebody here actually alerted us to the first plane crash on MarketForum.
Later that day, I took my 2 sons to their regular private piano lesson. After finishing, I couldn't back out of the driveway because there was a line of cars going up the street for a block. What the heck? This was a residential street without much traffic usually.
After I got out, we saw the reason. They were all lined up to get gas at the gas station around the corner.
Everybody was panicking because they thought that the 9-11 attacks were somehow going to cause our supply of gas to get cut out. Rationally, this made no sense.
So I called my wife and asked her what everybody at her work thought. She said they were all gone to get gas in their cars. I told her "Do not leave to get gas, you can get it tomorrow and not have to wait!"
Then I called my Dad in Detroit "Dad, DO NOT go to buy gas today, wait until tomorrow or later in the week!"
When I got home, I read about some stations price gouging, jacking up the price $1 to take advantage of the panic. Fortunately, Locally, I think they only increased the price 20c or so...................to take advantage of the panicked consumer but this was still pathetic because the people in that business knew with 100% certainty what was going on and there was a 0% threat of the supply disruption that everybody was panic buying over and they intentionally decided to take advantage of them because of their ignorance about how that market works.
https://www.consumeraffairs.com/misc/price_gouging.html
metmike: That situation is very relevant here. We are being price gouged at the pump right now for one thing. Yeah, prices have dropped at the pump and people are celebrating but 30-40c worth of the $1 price drop/cost to regional distributors is NOT being passed along right now.
Another element is peoples panicked buying of stuff at the grocery store. Pure emotion/fear of the unknown and speculating the worst.
I am all for these cancellations/shut downs to stifle the spread of the Coronavirus. It's a controlled action that makes good scientific/medical sense. For me, it's very reassuring that we are doing some smart things to keep this from getting too out of control.
But this is rational thinking.
Many folks are interpreting that to mean that they will lose access to food and toilet paper and basic necessaries so they better stock up now while they can................just like they waited in 1-2 hour lines to get gas on 9-11-2001.
In a couple months, the Coronavirus will still be around.......in diminished numbers and we will all look back at this time frame, yes, this exact time frame with regards to the PEAK panic with the perspective that it deserves.............. a very extreme over reaction of thoughts, fears and actions by people.
Again, shutting everything down was/is smart..............not an over reaction because that WILL take away the environments best suited to spread the virus.
I guess stocking up on 6 months worth of toilet paper means you won't have to buy toilet paper for a long time.
Funny thing is that this is how I buy normally. We still have a couple of months left.......I think, I haven't checked lately.
If I went in and bought another 6 months worth today, they would think I was doing it because of the panic.
I have not changed my shopping behavior, tho I am working from home for at least a few weeks... I go to Sams every couple months and stock up on basic necessities. Not because I'm worried about availability, but because I save a lot of money. I could start a black market toilet/paper towel operation. :-)
Hi Tim
If we had socialism I wonder if the supply on the shelf would happen as quickly as the hard working employees were re-stocking when you went to the store
Why work quickly when you are paid to be at work. Do you get a bonus for working quickly under socialism
Yes we have bare shelves of toilet paper also. The other side of the aisle was full of paper towels. The store simply put the boxes of toilet paper on the floor and people just reached in and took what they wanted.
Can todays young mothers cope with out a supply of pampers. I suppose they might have to learn. I don't know
My wife went to the grocery store for the first time in awhile.
I do all the grocery shopping and always stock up on everything.
If something goes on sale, I'll buy 6 months worth.
Can't do that with bananas and milk, so I asked her to pick some up for me.
She said she had never seen anything like it. Almost all the shelves were bare, They were out of almost everything but told her new supplies would be in tomorrow.
Funny thing about this. There is a near zero chance that these people stocking up will need it more urgently than they did at any other time. So they will have way more than what they need. Some of the stuff with a limited shelf life will probably go bad in their jam packed fridge.
With everybody making advance food purchases, I will guess that at some point. sales will plunge......especially as people realize "wow, I have way more food than I can use and no reason to keep so much on hand!!"
I really feel bad that people can be so captivated by fear of something that is such a minuscule threat to them.
OK, I just remembered that we had a gallon of milk that's been in the huge freezer downstairs since 2018................so we're good (-:
The grandkids are over today.
The first thing that my 13 year old grand daughter, Gigi told me was "Papa, don't go anywhere because I don't want you to get the Coronavirus!"
We can multiply that fear by 100 million in the US and maybe over a billion on the planet.
Insane and completely unjustified...............unless you were already petrified by the flu..............but this will never comes close to killing the number of people from the average flu season.