Opinions on the upcoming “Supply Shortage”?

I stocked up on some fava beans and fine chianti…

I live in hurricane country, so having a stash of emergency food and supplies is just part of living here. Like @Lightbringer, I use a Sharpie to know which items need to be used next and rotate so things don’t get stale and avoid wasting money. Not having to panic buy before a storm when everyone else is? Priceless.

Interesting info on baby formula:

Ignore the title, as it was just used to refer to an article in DailyMail or whatever, and mentioned for all of 10sec.

Seems there’s a formula factory that was shut down “for health reasons” and which hasn’t yet been reopened.

Also, in a pinch, there’s some… organisation (?)… that helps “connect” those in need with willing “donors” of breastmilk.

And bodybuilders buy human breastmilk?? Like, to drink? Wellp, I guess “milk does a body good”…

Aww, man, don’t get me started on those smoothbrains who hear for 2 f’n weeks straight about the Nor’easter-From-Hell that’s on its way, how it’ll dump 42” of snow all over the eastern seaboard, and wait ’til just hours before it hits to swarm the stores in a panic to buy not just food-staples like bread/milk/eggs, but also salt, sand, shovels(!!!), and so on.

Like, how do you NOT know that you don’t have shovels? Or food? And WHY wait ’til the last minute when all the other smoothbrains are out in force?

I thought it was pretty funny a coupla years ago when a tree knocked out the powerlines on the block literally a day before Christmas, how mine was the only house with the Christmas lights still lit (solar), and I had decent enough interior lighting (Zanflare lanterns) whereas everyone else was in the dark and maybe a few had candles or something.

(For the record, ConEd did a bang-up job getting the entire length of the block rewired in less than 24hrs.)

I’d like a way to keep the fridge (and freezer) cold through an extended blackout, but that’s for later. More interested in storing excess capacity vs selling it back to the powerco.

I’ve had multiple times where neighbors knocked on our door or called on the land-line and asked if we still had power. “Nope, it’s out here too.” Then they’d get really confused seeing table lamps glowing away. Even since the 1980s we’ve had battery-powered lamps in key locations around the house. Power outages were extremely common in my area at the time, not helped by the idiotic idea of running the power lines in the bottom of canals(!) Originally we used 12v RV bulbs in regular lamps, hooked up to a beefy battery w/charger hidden in the cabinet below the lamp. We also had 12v PAR recessed cans which lent themselves to this as well.

We even forgot about it at times. Unlike using a UPS, there’s no inverter or relay, so no noise when AC died. You’d be sitting in the living room and suddenly the TV would shut off, but the table lamp was unchanged.

I’ve encountered this more recently since most of my “emergency” lighting these days is warm white.

Where's the down side of stocking up on food and other necessary supplies? As long as it is stuff you will use. All it takes to start panic buying is one or two stores' shelves becoming empty. Then people start buying whatever is there regardless of whether they need it or like it (food) or not. One day can wipe out a store and once word travels other stores could be cleared out in a matter of hours.

If you do decide to store up be cautious who you tell about it. Do not let it be widely known that you have plenty of food, TP, PT, batteries or such or some people will expect you to share some or all.

Let's all hope this ends up as nothing but my personal opinion is there will be some serious shortages in every country. It may be food or gas or cars or electricity and so on. Once it starts it could be hard to see how it recovers.

Two things I hear a lot: 1. Be Prepared 2. Two is one and one is none.

Don't want this to be political but why would any country use corn in place of gasoline when they have already admitted there is going to be a serious food shortage? Yes the type of corn is slightly different but planting season is here now and ethanol is not going away.

It creates empty shelfs and starts what you describe. If everyone is taking two packages of whatever instead of one, the shelf will be empty, and all blame hoarders for this, not realizing they are either hoarders themselfs or being just late to the show.

That said, I got enough flour for approx 5 large pizzae, but thinking about stocking up when I find a shelf that’s not empty :person_facepalming: .

I think there is a difference between an individual deciding to increase his pantry stocks when normally shopping versus doing it as a hurricane bears down on her community, but regardless, by now everyone in America and most of the world should know that just as throughout all of history, be able to take of yourself and your family, supplies for your business or farm and animals, and that means maintaining a cushion for the unexpected times and events.

These last 2 or 3 years should remind even the non engaged that history isn’t over and never will be.

“history isn’t over and never will be”
Interesting turn of the phrase. Kinda makes my brain go sideways. :stuck_out_tongue:

Yeah, I’ve seen that “Twilight Zone” ep…

That’s why I go by the sales flyer. Just “stocked up” on jams/jellies/preserves as well as hot sauce because they were both on sale. I usually “time” my visits to Thursdays, while the sales are still on and the day after they get deliveries, so have time to restock the shelves.

Ragu/Rinaldi/etc., 3-fer-5? Time to stock up on those. Boxes of Ronzoni 4-fer-5 (used to be 5-fer-5), load ’em up. Etc. Strange looks? “Neighbor’s 25th anniversary… making lots of lasagna for the family!”

And even if something’s a great buy but there’s a limit, hit the same store twice, then go again a coupla days later. Once… I think it was TP on sale… I got the limit-2 and loaded up the car (along with plenty of other stuff, so it’s not like I went there just for that), but brought back some bottles and got the “receipt” from the machine outside. So I trek back in, “Oh, I forgot to cash this in and don’t want to lose it… mind if I go grab something rather’n just hand out the cash?”. Of course that seems better to the store, extra sale vs handing out cash, so I just scoot on over, grab another pack, then apply the returns towards that. :smiling_imp:

I got plenty of rice and sugar, but flour doesn’t really “keep” for that long, a few months to a year at best, before it starts to get a stank to it. And that’s assuming it doesn’t go buggy long before then.

Incidentally, that’s why people sift flour. Not to avoid clumps or to measure more evenly, as lore goes, but to make sure you’re not gonna be eating bugs.

This part of reserves is most important because you can actually look back to America production plants/business adopting “Just in time deliveries/parts” to setting up the current supply line shortages. Just adopting that mentality and risk factor.
Auto industry for just one example, it is said that the chip shortage is not so much for the big modern chips but rather the older (What were) cheaper chips that are needed. Now in the 1960’s and 70’s they would have had huge stockpiles of whatever because that is the way they rolled. Yes it cost them losses later on when they didn’t need 1.2 million points and condensers once electronic ignition became a thing, But they never ran out when they did need them.
Having too much of anything is better than ruunnning out with no backup.

Point is “just in time works great when the truck shows up fully loaded just in time” when it doesn’t the whole effing production machine breaks down.
I also think this crap accelerated when we started the China embargos/Tariffs whatever you want to call it. Too much worldwide sourcing with no viable backup/plan B options, sooner or latter it had to hit the fan and here we are.

JMHO
YMMV

Yeh, just like that guest in the Tim Pool video was saying, how he had at least a month’s supply of formula. Smart thing to do, as far as essentials.

That’s why nonperishables like TP, PT, detergents, soaps, etc., should be stocked up if you don’t want to do without. Then canned goods or anything with a long shelf-life.

If done slowly enough, there’s barely a ripple in the supply chain. Angry panicked mobs cleaning out stores at once? Yeah, it snowballs out of control very fast.

I would accept that as an axiom.

And there’s that smugness that goes along with it.

One of those reddit stories went on about how a supplier wasn’t going to be able to deliver some parts, Pointy-Haired Manager refused to allow anything to be bought from other suppliers who had the stuff, but at a higher price. So their production lines ground to a halt, nothing was made, nothing was supplied downstream, either, so that company had to pay penalties written into the contracts, costing the company something like a brazillion dollars.

The alternative-supplier prices were only like 10% higher.

They all tend to forget that JIT only works when everything works. It’s a big house of cards, and one flick can bring it all down fast.

They rely on the concept on paper, don’t plan on contingencies, and that first punch in the mouf brings down the entire system.

JIT only works when you respect its origins.

JIT from Toyota last I checked still requires you to have large stockpiles :stuck_out_tongue:

In France. The media have propagated that some food items such as cooking (sunflower) oil may be missing soon. Guess what? People rushed to buy all the cooking oil on the shelves :person_facepalming:

Same with flour, mustard, etc… :person_facepalming:

Toilet paper seems to have been spared this time :smiling_imp:

Ya’ know. Us Boomers didn’t have pre-made baby formula, disposable diapers, or car seats (or even seat-belts early on).
It’s amazing we made it through childhood alive.
And now we have the powers that be telling us that the stuff our moms used to make up to feed us is too dangerous to use.
All the Best,
Jeff

Amen… well said!

Yep — The Front Dashboard was the airbag and the Rear Dash was for napping :smiley:

Here is an old style playground from when men ran things.