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I don’t, actually. Different brands made by different companies are in my language different goods, with different suppliers and different demanders. So if even one manufacturer cannot, as it always could in the before times, get enough to stores to keep the shelves stocked for one or more of its offerings. that’s a shortage in my book.

And there have in recent weeks (as in the early months of CCP-19) been times when brands of things that I regularly buy are not available for several days.

Again, it’s not waiting seven years for a Soviet Lada. But the scope of genuine if short-term shortages has gotten noticeably worse in the last few weeks. We will have to see how the interruption of fertilizer supplies from Russia and Ukraine plays out.

I have long (justifiably) used supermarkets as an example of well-functioning markets writ large. You want something, it’s always there, even if the price is higher than you expected. Gasoline too; even after major shocks like 9/11 or the invasion of Kuwait prices go up, and within days the panicky lines disappear. Price deregulation in 1981 brought this about.

For gasoline that is still true. But for some grocery items, there really are in my observation shortages, which take days to resolve and then only intermittently.

Around here if you shop the sales and avoid packaged food, there isn’t a big difference. We live in a big agricultural area with tons of farms and meat-packing facilities, so that probably helps us out a lot.

Wet cat food is my biggest complaint.

But I will be gardening and canning this year, like last year. Every little bit helps, and putting up food during your local growing season, when food is relatively inexpensive because it isn’t getting tangled up in shipping, is the way we always used to do things. Its a good way to cut costs in the winter when home heating costs become a budgetary factor.