Posted on 03/22/2020 6:32:41 AM PDT by marktwain
Empty Shelves at Yuma Walmart March 18, 2020 Courtesy Dean Weingarten
Those in the gun culture can recognize the run on toilet paper as similar to the .22 ammunition bubble we experienced in President Obama's second term.
Toilet paper, like .22 ammunition, takes very specialized machinery to produce in bulk at historically low prices. People became accustomed to it being plentiful, cheap, and easily available. Capital investment has been tuned by the market to meet the demand. There is only a small surplus capacity.
Then, an event, unexpected by most, happened. People worried if they would have enough; with .22 ammunition, people who had been satisfied with 50 rounds wanted a thousand; the number of people who wanted much more than usual cleared out the .22 ammunition shelves in short order.
Small scale entrepreneurs bought all they could in bulk, and peddled the product for 5-10 times what they purchased it for, on the Internet. This caused severe shortages for those who kept only a small amount on hand.
We see the same thing happening with toilet paper. People are concerned they will be caught at home without it. The shelves have been cleared. The manufacturers are running their machines on three shifts, 24 hours a day. From cnn.com:
They're faced with tradeoffs. Many were already operating their manufacturing facilities 24/7 prior to the pandemic. Now, some are limiting their facilities to essential workers and contractors. It's unclear, however, what they will do in the event that those workers get sick.
“If you ask me why everyone is grabbing toilet paper, I can't really explain it,” said Tom Sellars, CEO of Sellars Absorbent Materials in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. His company is a processor and converter of paper and related products. “It's not like
(Excerpt) Read more at ammoland.com ...
Hoarders gonna hoard.
If I don’t have enough .22 ammo then the end of the world is gonna be worse than I thought. Long rifle. Hollow point. Bird shot.
Heretofore, known as “Asswipes”
“ Hoarders gonna hoard.”
*****
Yeh, but the supply problem is not at manufacturers or the supply chain to retailers. The problem is as you correctly is with hoarders. Just check out Craig’s List and EBay. Retailers need to limit purchases of TP and other paper products to one package per day and spread stocking shelves across at least two or three times per day. Control point should be at the check-out. Refuse to allow excessive purchases. I sat in front of local Costco past Thursday at 9:00am, doors opened at 10:00, by then the line was along the length of building probably at least 200 people. I’m 75 and walk with a cane so sat in my truck to see when line would go down, shortly after opening I started seeing shoppers coming out with two, three, even four of the huge packages of toilet paper. Obviously, resellers as that’s enough TP to last an average family for over a year. Costco can mange this better. They should be embarrassed by their inaction. As for hoarders and resellers they should be booked and fined.
I’ve decided that the gestapo won’t be raiding our homes for the guns. They are going to raid the homes looking for TP hoarders and will confiscate for re-distributing to the masses.
As far as ammo. If it gets that bad, just take the ammo off of the dead bodies.
Are we soon to see the threads below?
Neighborhood cats disappearing.
Can you get coronavirus from eating cat?
People in Missouri who have run out of TP find they get a bad case of chigger and seed ticks when scooting on the ground like a dog.
Horders?
No Black Market pukes are stockpiling expecting to sell it a roll at a time and make a huge profit.
Sick crap.
Costco has now set limits on purchase of TP (and others).
Some of those people you saw buying hoards of TP tried to return them to Costco when they found they had too much or couldn’t get rid of it. Costco refused returns on such products.
Costco restocking TP. You will see N95’s available in a month or so.
You can have my TP when you pry it from my cold dead hands
Used to be in Peachland NC, talking 75 years or more ago, the old folks would buy rabbits from the younger hunting guys. They wanted it dressed but with one foot still on it with the hide, to be certain it wasnt a cat.
Old tales you hear from towns with a population of less than 600.
I disagree -— this is one of those “government, save us” things.
TP is like any other item on the market in a free market economy. Supply and demand controls the price. Even if we have middle men on ebay and craigslist, what’s the difference between normal middle men/distributors?
In a free market price signals are everything.
The only reason the “official” middle men (distributors) aren’t doing it themselves is simple: government intervention. Otherwise it would be on the costco shelves for $400/bale.
This pricing would control the flow of TP. Demand would quickly dry up at that price, and then the price would fall to something not quite what we could call “normal”, but what the market would bear to keep inventory moving.
The law currently is such that this crazy behavior is being extended until the point where we will be starting new paper mills and chopping down forests!
Welcome to the corrupting hand of government.
I read last night that cats cooked in hedgehog grease were used to treat influenza outbreaks in the middle ages.
Bought a box of 375 rounds at a pawn shop yesterday for $13.00. I’m counting that as a win for me and a loss for whoever did their pricing.
Back during the summer of the year 22s were so hard to get, I switched to doing all my rifle practice with the AK, because there was plenty of that caliber in Steelcase.
Thanks, I was looking for that recipe.
The only problem is that the rate of consumption is still the same. Unless people develop the scours.
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