Shortages?

Investment Analysis Clubs Macro Economic Trends and Risks
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While I think there are some very real shortages for a variety of reasons I think it is also apparent that some lesser shortages are amplified by those trying to make money of the shortage. The last decade or so has made it easy to resell items. There are some people who earn a living simply by looking for sales buying up product and then reselling it at closer to normal prices.

Now when there might be a shortage of a product, there seems to be people who go around trying to buy up stock and then sell it at very inflated prices. I certainly think that made some shortages much worse and possibly is amplifying the baby formula shortage.

Unfortunately most online platforms like Amazon, Walmart, etc. don’t see to make any attempt to control the prices. I’ve searched for items (just normal items) and as I scroll through the list of products I see prices that I can’t imagine anyone ever paying. Maybe an item that is listed for $2-$4 being sold by 3rd parties at $25 (yeah 10X+). Not sure who would pay that price when the lower price items appear to be in stock.

I guess as long as they get a cut of the sale it actually benefits them selling at inflated prices.

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There are some people who earn a living simply by looking for sales buying up product and then reselling it at closer to normal prices.

Arbitrage is a time honored activity…

the simultaneous buying and selling of securities, currency, or commodities in different markets or in derivative forms in order to take advantage of differing prices for the same asset: [as modifier] : profitable arbitrage opportunities.

The Dictionary

a.k.a Scalping

2 North American informal resell (shares or tickets) at a large or quick profit: tickets were scalped for forty times their face value.

The Dictionary

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Unfortunately most online platforms like Amazon, Walmart, etc. don’t see to make any attempt to control the prices. I’ve searched for items (just normal items) and as I scroll through the list of products I see prices that I can’t imagine anyone ever paying. Maybe an item that is listed for $2-$4 being sold by 3rd parties at $25 (yeah 10X+). Not sure who would pay that price when the lower price items appear to be in stock.

I guess as long as they get a cut of the sale it actually benefits them selling at inflated prices.

US business thrives on the ignorance and innumeracy of Americans.

I just got a price quote from Goodrx for a year’s supply of a med I take for $353. Four 90-day fills through my Aetna Medicare Part D plan would cost a little over $1,000.

How many people just accept the insurance company price without realizing that they’re getting a parking meter shoved up their behind?

intercst

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There is massive demand in the US economy. As long as loose money policies fiscal and monetary exist for the well off there will be major inflation.

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And there is the constant media screaming about “SHORTAGE!!!”

Remember the toilet paper “shortage” in April 2020?

In March of 2020, I was down to my last couple rolls, so, next trip to the store, I picked up a 9 roll package, from the fully stocked aisle.

A couple weeks later, the media started screaming “TOILET PAPER SHORTAGE”, and the idiots stripped the shelves clean.

There are probably people who have enough baby formula stockpiled right now to last a year.

last night, the local “news” was in “SHOCKING!!ALARMING!!!” mode about gas prices over Memorial Day. They were shrieking about some “forecast” that gas might hit $6.00/gallon, then ran an estimate of the cost to drive from Motown to Traverse City, assuming $6.20/gallon (remember, the forecast was maybe as high as $6.00) and a vehicle that gets 20mpg (even the big Ford Taurus-X SUV I used to have could top 26 on the highway) to reach some SHOCKING!!!ALARMING!!! total.

Steve

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It’s a shame that there never seems to be a shortage of junk food that pushes people towards real food instead. Sadly, there would be shortages of fruits and vegetables if everyone actually tried to comply with dietary guidelines.

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It’s a shame that there never seems to be a shortage of junk food that pushes people towards real food instead.

Actually, there have been. Tim’s offers a chicken panini, which I quite like, but there have been times they have been out of the chicken. Arby’s has a sign in the window at the drive-up that they may be out of some menu items from time to time.

There was an extended period where the grocery store coolers for Tyson chicken parts were completely empty.

there would be shortages of fruits and vegetables

There was a significant stretch last year where the grocery store was out of the nice, big, sweet, Washington state red delicious apples. Only the puny, dry, Michigan apples of that variety were available.

Steve

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I just got a price quote from Goodrx for a year’s supply of a med I take for $353. Four 90-day fills through my Aetna Medicare Part D plan would cost a little over $1,000.

I always check with two other sources (besides Part D)–Amazon Pharmacy AND an online bulk drug reseller. Prices vary wildly. Amazon will sell at bulk price without insurance–if they are allowed AND you want it.

Got a 6-mo supply (180 tablets) of a drug for $6. Just refilled it for the second half of the year.

Also checked the home delivered price (i.e. mail order) for a variety of tablets/pills from Express Scripts (quarterly delivery). I will only order non-perishable items (pills/tablets/etc) via mail order. Things requiring refrigeration, etc are delivered in person via Capsule Pharmacy (they are the only pharmacy that does it). That way, I don’t have to worry about temp control, etc with these highly perishable drugs while in transit. Lost package means the company has to eat a high price and replace at their expense–while I might need that item.

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… I picked up a 9 roll package, from the fully stocked aisle.
…
A couple weeks later, the media started screaming “TOILET PAPER SHORTAGE”, and the idiots stripped the shelves clean.

Maybe if you hadn’t primed the pump by buying those 9 rolls … :wink:

Or maybe it was THIS guy…

It started with an unsubstantiated rumor. “You can laugh now,” Johnny Carson said on The Tonight Show on December 19, 1973, “but there is an acute shortage of toilet paper.”

There wasn’t—but it didn’t matter.

The broadcast sent America into a mass panic. Millions of shoppers swarmed into grocery stores and began hoarding toilet paper.

Ex nihilo, a shortage was born.

The Scott Paper Company urged people to stop panic-buying the product. Nevertheless, for four months, toilet paper—absent from shelves—was bartered for, traded, and even sold on the black market.
https://www.theatlantic.com/video/index/608209/toilet-paper-…

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It’s a shame that there never seems to be a shortage of junk food that pushes people towards real food instead.

Thank goodness the people at Twinkie, Taco Bell, McDonald’s and Wendy’s don’t listen to the likes of you! :wink:

Junk Food Junky
The song tells the story of a man leading a double life: during the day he boasts of his natural diet lifestyle, however, at night, he indulges his secret addiction to junk food.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Junk_Food_Junkie

https://www.oldielyrics.com/lyrics/larry_groce/junk_food_jun…

Desert (with a Big Mac on my breath) Dave

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It started with an unsubstantiated rumor. “You can laugh now,” Johnny Carson said on The Tonight Show on December 19, 1973, “but there is an acute shortage of toilet paper.”

In the fall of 73, the media was hyping the “shortage” narrative. I have posted before the Newsweek cover from that fall of Uncle Sam staring into an empty cornucopia with the headline “running out of everything”.

People took a lot of what Carson said as truth.

Some may remember Melvin Dumar, who was named in the purported Howard Hughes will that was found at the LDS HQ in Salt Lake shortly after Hughes died.

The so called “Mormon will” was only the first of several purported Hughes wills that appeared over the following weeks.

One night, Carson made a joke about all the purported wills showing up, and announced “The Tonight Show Howard Hughes Will Writing Contest”. I was watching that night and remember him making that sarcastic joke, and giving the mailing address for the NBC studios in Burbank.

Carson came out a few nights later, and said that it had been a joke, but the studio mailroom was inundated with submissions for the will contest. He said they would follow through, sort through the submissions, and come up with a prize for the best “will”. A couple months later, when the flow of will submissions had tapered off, he read the three or five best submissions on the air…I remember one submission having money “for a dome over Richard Nixon’s head” (Nixon was still living in San Clemency at that time). I don’t recall what the prize was.

The Disney sequence about lemmings jumping off a cliff is widely dismissed as a total fabrication on the part of the Disney Company. Lemmings don’t act like that, but people certainly do.

The broadcast sent America into a mass panic.

USians must be a lot more gullible than they were 90 years ago. My dad lived in NYC in the 30s, including the night of the “War Of The Worlds” broadcast. Contrary to the mythology that has been built up about that broadcast, he saw absolutely zero hysteria in the streets of the city that night. Now, USians mindlessly run full tilt from one supposed crisis to another.

Steve

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