[Iris7]

Tires were tremendously short. Rubber had not been stocked in preparation for the War as had manganese, chromium, tungsten, and other items. The powers that be, Roosevelt cronies, said all along that we will just recycle the old rubber when we need new. Turned out it could not be done. Obvious you cannot de-vulcanise. Bunch of Doofusses.

Pretty much tires were strictly black market, criminal activity, I recall being told. Always has been no shortage of crooks. They seem to vote Democrat, naturally!

Gasoline was available, farmers had excess, and others. Not criminal but tertiary vendors, as it were.

Food rations look adequate to me. No problems except for butter that I can see. Non hydrogenated lard is a good substitute. You can live on 90% spaghetti, vegetables, and Spam and be totally comfortable. Bored, sure.

In reality not all foods were actually available, not for sale in your area. Actually the ration is generous and could have been cut in half or quarter without causing suffering if you could get the unrationed foodstuffs. That would have caused a lot of complaining, though!

The ration after the war in Germany during the occupation, American Zone, was 800 calories per day for working adults. Much worse than that in Japan. These are real hunger levels.

[SAMWolf]

Morning Iris7.

Thanks for filling in more info on rationing. We're still paying the Federal excise tax on rubber every time we buy tires. Seems old taxes never go away, who would have thunk it. ;-)

[snippy_about_it]

Obvious you cannot de-vulcanise. Bunch of Doofusses.

I have a thread I'm working on about the gas/rubber rationing. Lots of posters about the black market during those times.

My father used to tell us of growing up in a 'holler' during the depression in WVA and harvesting dandelions to add to the ruffage. Said they got a huge bag of sugar and flour once a month, had their own goats for milk and of course their own chickens. When war time rationing of food came around he was in the service but for those back home I expect it wasn't too much of a hardship for those who had lived through the depression. It just may have been worse for city folk. :-)