Now, if you want to talk about how we have zillions of brands of TP, but they’re all made by the same handful of companies (illusion of choice), I might argue that’s a failure mode of capitalism.
#ShitYouCantSayOnHN
it was a bit unsettling to see how much stuff was out of stock in the first few weeks of the crisis and wonder whether that was going to get better or worse. now the greatest hardship I face is having to settle for my second favorite brand of eggs sometimes. overall, I'm surprised at how resilient our system has turned out to be. despite the federal government totally dropping the ball, the individual states have more or less taken appropriate steps to handle their particular circumstances. I suspect we may be reopening a little early, but only time will tell.
also as an aside, there are certainly some positions that are very unpopular on HN. but if you post stuff like "#ShitYouCantSayOnHN", you will definitely get downvoted.
But, we are both fortunate to still have jobs, and places to store a small stockpile of these things. I literally was able to turn a spare closet into a dry pantry by putting a wire shelving unit in there. We still have basically a lifetime supply of rice, and a nice selection of staple canned goods, just in case things go further south. We were not real particular about brands. We have access to Amazon and Costco. We will be fine.
This was nowhere near Soviet bread line status. In the Soviet Union, perhaps you had to stand in line for bread, but, at least there was bread. Here, we let some people go without bread, because they're drug addicts, mentally unstable, or just don't want to have religion pushed on them.
I'm sure this also falls into #ShitYouCantSayOnHN, and I don't care about the downvotes. I know you can't say anything against the free market or capitalism and expect to win any points here. That mildly annoys me, but I'd rather have my gray comment out there for other people to see, and sacrifice a couple of fake internet points to do it. I win enough points back in technical discussions that I'm in no danger of losing my downvoting, flagging, or vouching capabilities, so it literally does not matter to me; I've net gained 12 points just today. I'd rather draw the lightning rod to myself so people can see how rabid free-market capitalists don't even bother to argue a point, instead mashing that down arrow.
People dismiss socialist perspectives here without even comment, which is sad. They don't even give the ideas the consideration that those who claim socialists are all economically illiterate 14 year olds in their mothers' basements do. They ignore that Albert Einstein, Stephen Hawking, and other prominent intellectuals espouse socialist philosophies.
Honestly, I'd be pleased to get downvotes, if there was any actual discussion, but that's appararently verboten here.
Soviets could not emigrate, they were prisoners in their own country.
As far as I know Einstein & Hawking political views aren't in line with what Soviet Russia was, nor pretended to be.
Which "socialist perspective" do you appreciate?
Please stop. this is outright demonstrably false by every account.
It's a nice reminder that someone with a lot of intelligence and dare I say talent in one area can be so wrong in another.
But seriously dude, please educate yourself on the history of socialism and how it's totally and completely failed everywhere it was tried from Germany to Colombia to Sweden it's never worked and every attempt has either resulted in a civil war, a world war, or just years of economic pain to walk it back.
In fact I’m getting this from the source. My own family lived there for most of their lives. Only left in the late 80s.
The majority of people in every place where media is tightly controlled will believe what parents, teachers, papers and TV tell them. North Koreans have a positive view of Kim Jong Il, mainland Chinese have a positive view of Mao. That doesn't mean that either of them weren't objectively horrible in terms of competent leadership or morality.
You appear to be somehow even more uninformed than they are. In no sense of the word has socialism been "tried" in these countries. FARC were Marxist guerillas and never came close to seizing power, and social democrats aren't democratic socialists aren't DDR-style socialists.
The bigger problem is the lack of any economic or physical contingency planning. There was some medical planning of a sort for a pandemic, but there seems to be no economic planning of any kind for catastrophes.
National governments seem to have improvised economic solutions to COVID with varying degrees of competence and success.
This is negligent and inept. Catastrophes are more or less guaranteed, and there should at least be some thought given to making sure that the first thing that falls apart isn't the national economy.
On the other hand...
Getting food to eat was never a problem at any point. And today, reliably getting meat, chicken, dairy, paper products even if not exactly what you want, most baking supplies, etc. is pretty much a non-problem.
The initial shock has past, and consumer product makers have had plenty of time to do whatever they were going to do.
"Recovery" is a word that sets up certain expectations. It seems to me that what happened during the first half of this year is more usefully considered "change".
Huh, so that is why Google Maps keeps asking me whether TP was in stock every time I go the store - I did not realize there were still actual shortages on that elsewhere, I thought it was just a couple of days of panicing in March and that Google was just being weird / behind the times.
FWIW, I haven't noticed such disruptions here (Finland) since March, so it probably varies a lot regionally.
I haven't heard of push notifications or whatever it is asking for feedback on in-store items.
The most common questions nowadays seem to be about wheelchair access, wheelchair-accessible parking, and whether the business accepts cards (which is another weird one for Finland - who doesn't accept cards here?).
For restaurants, they may ask whether there is takeout, lunch, vegetarian options, whether the place is romantic, etc.
(And of course you can turn the questions off, but I kinda like answering them.)
So it presumably has something to do with how US supply chains work compared to, say, Europe rather than being solely caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.
I understand that this is/was not the case across the country, and I have been a bit baffled about that. (Although I do recognize the supply chains to restaurants and to corporations (TP) and to grocery stores are not the same and don't easily switch on a dime. But, we have meat and yogurt and eggs and milk on the shelves, but some friends in Connecticut or NYC, for example, say that they do not. And I can not understand why.
Surely data are the aggregate set of anecdotes, but while I see a lot of spot anecdotes, I don't see much data.
However, I just saw packets of yeast for sale again. That was the last thing that I had trouble finding.
But take my observations with a grain of salt, because part of my response (and maybe others) to COVID is that I haven't felt like shopping around much; I mostly just go to one store and make do with what's there.
Makes sense. I never drive or shop, so I am kind of used to people bringing me off-brand stuff. And I buy in bulk, so I am already set regardless, but I am told by friends that the shelves are full (sometimes they even send pictures!)
Maybe we are lucky that so much is semi-locally sourced.
I don't think I have ever spent time going through comment or tweet histories, but I understand that that is a thing. (Sounds like a dull hobby)
That's why yesterday there were 3,787 new cases in TX and 803 in NY.
But NY is reopening and cases are going up, so maybe things will change.
I don't know about the rest of Texas, but the mayor here pretty much shut it down.