The lorry driver shortage inflicted by Brexit is starting to cause problems, though.
I'm drawn to die on this hill every time. The toilet paper shortage made sense.
At the start of the first lockdown in the UK, we were told to minimise contact with others. This meant that it made sense for a daily shopper to become a weekly shopper & a weekly shopper to become a biweekly shopper. And if you're shopping less frequently but consuming at the same rate, you'll be buying more volume each time. Shops don't have the means to react to an overnight doubling of demand, so the shelves became empty.
To be efficient is to stop being resilient. The world runs on JIT. And if you buck that trend and make things resilient, you can't compete on price. So it's a race to the bottom where all it takes is one off-white swan event for things to fall apart. Does your country have food security? Does your country have energy security? If it does, what would it take for that to stop being true?
1. Covid doesn't generally disable young and healthy people, so there will be no supply shortage.
2. It will be nice to have a reason to go out if I'm cooped up inside all day, and buying groceries is a good one.
Then of course, I ended up using napkins as toilet paper for a week, because everybody else thought different.
Almost all "panic buying" is calm and rational.
That never happened? Perhaps new sign-ups (at the company's discretion)?
I had groceries delivered before the pandemic and continued throughout, only affect was that for a few months slots would be booked up weeks in advance of normal, so had to plan ahead more.
I've had multiple conversations which run along the line of "I'm not panic buying, I am rational. I'm only buying this because others are panicking and there wont be any left for me. "
So yes the term is wrong but also people don't know what it is, and how they negatively contribute to the cycle.
People don't panic when they "panic buy". People don't see themselves as panic buying and they are not reflective
In my opinion the best solution to this in uncertain times is to have a decent supply of shelf-stable foods and good recipes with them before things get crazy. I try and keep at least a couple weeks of food on hand with a decent supply of shelf-stable stuff that'll last a while in emergencies. Its not a bad idea to be familiar with recipes that use mostly dry and canned foods that may only require water and a hot pot to cook. Most of the time it means we slowly cycle though meh-level canned meals once a month to keep the canned foods fresh(er), but when grocery stores go empty or you don't feel safe to go outside its pretty nice. That said, there's plenty of nice recipes where you can substitute canned chicken, canned veggies, or evaporated milk without taking too much of a hit on overall quality of the meal. On the plus side a lot of those dry food recipes often work pretty well on camping trips.
What. A. Coincidence.
(could well be true - but i did laugh out loud)
What Brexit did impact it was that it removed EU cabotage and availability of drivers. For example, cargo would arrive on a RoRo ship in Dover, without changing to a british driver. The same driver could take other cargo while in UK (for example having delivered to point A, then taking a load from point A to another british location at point B, and finally taking a load from point B to a continental destination at point C). With Brexit, you suddenly have extra demand (as even with dimnished cargo traffic you need more drivers to service ports as cargo no longer comes with its own drivers) and inability to hire (whether complete firms through cabotage laws or simply due to smaller pool of candidates.)
That's not to say that the UK government isn't characteristically unprepared, despite months or even years of warnings about these very issues, or that they couldn't have done better to mitigate problems.
This is pure supply shock
If that was any indication at least, it will last for a few days and then return to normal if supply can resume for normal demand (assuming it can for normal demand)
I believe it's more serious than just a mediagenic phenomenon, with only a few stations affected. From The Guardian: "Ministers are considering a range of options after BP said a third of its petrol stations had run out of the main two grades of fuel, while the Petrol Retailers Association (PRA), which represents almost 5,500 independent outlets, said 50% to 90% of its members had reported running out. It predicted the rest would soon follow." (https://www.theguardian.com/business/2021/sep/27/eu-lorry-dr...)
https://driverrequire.co.uk/ir35 https://www.contractoruk.com/news/0015112ir35_reform_fuellin...
Lorry driver shortage is a fairly common phenom in Europe atm.