Like a Shakespearean play

To be fair, that's not so much England as England's crazy uncle. Unfortunately, he's been around a lot lately...

The problem is that, once these things start, you have two (rational) choices - join in (if you're actually or very probably going to need whatever it is), or ride it out and take your chance on going without. Petrol was an insidious case; as soon as the news came out that BP were having to shut a few of their forecourts because they couldn't get fuel to them, I knew what the effect would likely be (and when I heard on the news that the government was saying that there was plenty of fuel, and people "didn't need to panic buy", I was stone-cold certain - telling people not to panic buy is THE guaranteed way to get them to do so). Probably, quite a few other people did as well. So - lots of people took the first opportunity to fill up in anticipation of a shortage. Causing a shortage. (I had half a tank of fuel and no definite big journeys to do; I didn't rush to fill up, and limited myself to short trips as much as I could. But my wife has an elderly parent who lives a couple of hundred miles away, and we've had to go over there on short notice a couple of times, so when I passed a station that seemed to have business-as-usual levels of customers, I topped up, "just in case". Doubtless adding to the pressure in my own, small way.)

"Just in time" is a great concept if your supply chain is rock-solid, but a lousy one if it's not, basically.

@Doghouse Are you saying you didn't fill up the five jerrycans in the trunk of your car as well?

@Louhikaarme Very few people did, in my perception. I saw one bloke carrying a couple of cans at one point, but he was definitely the exception.

It was interesting, actually. Our local (i.e. regional) TV news program interviewed a number of people who were in line to refill, in the early days. Every one of them gave what I'd normally have called a perfectly decent reason for filling or topping up. The problem is the average amount of fuel in our collective tanks is, at a guess, maybe 60% of total capacity; if everyone suddenly feels that they need to make sure they're pretty much full, or nearly so, that extra 40% in itself is enough to empty the filling station tanks.

@Doghouse Yeah, although it would be just a momentary spike. It's not like people would be driving more if they are unsure of the availability of fuel. They would likely drive only when necessary.

@Louhikaarme What happens is the news looks for extreme examples like that to show, because it gets more visits/views. In the process they make it look like things are significantly worse than they are, causing more people to panic buy, but they don't care, it's all about hits/eyeballs.

It's not a new phenomenon, but it has gotten worse in the past decade or two.

Brexit wasn't supposed to import face-eating leopards!

@Dan Hello, fellow redditor!

I see that the comment field here is a political battleground. So please, have peace!

'@Smartis' Can't.

As long as people are denying basic facts, as long as facts have been politicized, they will get angry if someone points out inconvenient truths.

How would they know that taking an important part of infrastructure and logistics would affect infrastructure and logistics? :P

Brits voting for Brexit so they can keep all the toilet paper for themselves is my new headcanon.

@Lilac you forget the bit where they forgot they stopped making toilet paper altogether because "it was cheaper to import" , and then decided they didn't need large stacks of it in Expensive Storage, and...

An then act surprised when a minor hiccup in the System makes TP more expensive *and* late to deliver. And that they don't have any way of producing it themselves on short notice anymore..

The brits are not the only ones, but they are *by far* the biggest whingers about it.

@Grikath

Unfortunately a corruption of the ideas of Adam Smith got introduced as lassiez faire economics, with everything controlled by the markets and minimal regulation which was presented as the most efficient system possible. It is IF you want to build up corrupt monopolies but not for much else. Unfortunately with rare exceptions its been the predominant economic 'idea' in Britain for most of the last ~150+ years and we have suffered very badly because of it. The problem when you have vested interests gaining too much power and directing government for their benefit.

@stevep59 "The problem when you have vested interests gaining too much power and directing government for their benefit."
You mean the old Unions, the state monolyths like the NHS and others of that ilk? hmyeah...

The biggest problem with Smith is that he ( as all his peers) still assumed the classic Rational Man actually existed.
A cynic would say that assuming Malice and Incompetence as the standard state of affairs gets you further, and ends up in a lot less disappointment.. ;)

@Grikath

I mean any large vested interests that gain too much power. I lived through the 1970's so I know that the unions then were over-powered. However what was needed was a re-balancing rather than an even worse imbalance in the opposite direction. Abortions like Amazon with its tax evasion and abuse of its staff would never have been allowed in the period 1945-79 and Britain would be better off without such scum. Ditto for many other such groups.

Smith didn't assume a fully rational man but he did state that full information of the facts is required, which is in some ways more difficult now than in his time. Its very easy for companies, even when not directly bribing politicians, to generate so much mis-information over what their doing to hide even basic facts. Good examples are the propaganda put out for so long to hide the impact of smoking on health or nowadays the old coal and oil industries to impede action on global warming and other environmental issues. Or how autocratic figures in many countries seek to deceive people on basic facts - Trump, Putin and Xi are recent examples. After all Smith himself mentioned the eagerness of merchants to defraud their markets. ;)

Being cynical to excuse your own behaviour is the lazy way of doing things. However allowing massive corruption and incompetence makes it pretty much certain to succeed and things worse for everybody, other than the scum who have risen to the top. I would rather fight and win some battles than never try and lose them all. Much better to live in a democracy, even if flawed than an autocratic system when power is owned by the few.

Best story I read was the cars that formed a convoy following a tanker, and were most disgruntled when it turned out to be delivering mortar to a building site.

I literally remember someone saying they were eager for Brexit so as to get all the foreign lorry drivers off the road.
I said Brexit wasn't going to remove foreign lorry drivers.
Seems we were both wrong..

@BinBin Every kind of racism is wrong, so damn weird and just the most disgusting thing ever.
@Bananajewell I know! It is a miracle!

@Smartis Problem with racism is where you put line, what you define as racism, don't you think so? There are so many nuances that many people use same word for different meanings... I will put myself as example:
Watching movie with only black actors - I can't get into it, I will drop it quickly.
Having a black soldier watching my back on battlefield? A soldier I know who is competent and experienced? Who is on my side? I will take him/her over any member of my family....

P,S. I don't expect reply. From what I know and learned from history all races/sexes omitted atrocities... Be it Whites, Blacks, Jews, Muslims, Asians, Orientals, Reds or others.... All based racism... It is just now these days Whites take all the blame for entire human history.... Wont debate my point anymore here but if you want to discuss and debate I am game. I will even accept live face to face chat. I am so sure of my point. And If I lose, well I will do whatever you want with me. (Well that sentence had extremely perverted meaning if you didn't get it)

@MiskisM I'm don't gonna challenge you, and I don't think to challenge your opinion. I holding my self on my own territory.

It's not just the Brits. The US is suffering shortages, too. Ours is mostly from dumbasses panic buying rather than no gas/immigrants, but it's still irritating. Especially when the ONLY diet soda I like is Cherry Pepsi, but they don't make it anymore because PANDEMIC!!!!

@miryasan85
#firstworldproblems

@miryasan85
Water grows on you after a little while of mostly drinking just water. After which, soda is just an occasional treat. Even diet contains all sorts of chemicals that aren't great for you. It also helps to see soda for what it is, sugar water.

Our problems have many parents.
There is the Just in Time delivery system, that has most stores having very little stock room.
Which was probably in part caused by our tax system, that had, and may still have, vendors taxed on not only their capital, but also their unsold stock. (Ever see an ad for furniture or cars saying that "everything must go", to get it out the door before the taxes are assessed?)
Combined with the cost to warehouse anything, regardless of whether or not it's taxed, making it more competitive to have very little on hand, so you don't have to maintain as much warehouse space.
Combined with models for consumer demand that can't take a shock like Covid, and still give meaningful data.

Then there were the industries that were ACTIVELY disrupted. One such being the consolidation of meat-packing, from every supermarket once having its own butcher slicing up their own steer and hog, to grocery stores getting rid of their expensive, highly-skilled and reasonably-paid, butchers and buying all their meat from Cargill and Tyson, meant that if one slaughterhouse got sick, it was potentially several hundred people who had to stay home and isolate and several thousand head of livestock that weren't slaughtered and shipped to grocery stores on time.

Let's see how well this new isolationism in a globalized world works out for the British...