Yep. The only news story in this is that they’re trying to capitalize on everybody being afraid of things running out. This isn’t about shortages, it’s about taking advantage of the shortage-itis everybody seems to be having right now.
IOW, they are trying to instill panic and cause more panic buying like happened in spring of 2020.
Socialists are very big on control via rationing. And to have rationing, there must be shortages, real and imaginary. The reason for this is Gresham’s Law in economics.
That is, when you have two competing currencies, people spend the lower valued one, driving its relative value lower; and they save the more valued one, driving its relative value higher.
And the magic is that “anything of value with finite availability can be used as a currency.”
And what pushes socialism to the brink is that there are a vast number of things that are valued; so they must ALL be pushed into shortage and scarcity. Even fresh water and clean air can be rationed by a despotic enough socialist. In East Germany they rationed colored paint and music “solely to be used to honor the state.”
In the west, socialists always push out ideas like “peak oil”, “panic buying and hoarding”, and the “unhealthy nature of abundance”. It’s always about control.