Now none of us will be able to buy beef for a month because a small contingent of reactionaries are going to stockpile. At least that's what happened when there were reports of meat processing plants getting shutdown by COVID. Not to mention the famous toilet paper debacle. I'd almost say we need a legal way to prevent hoarding during these fake shortages, because it's the hoarding that creates the actual shortage.
This is the kind of false narrative that spreads like wildfire because it rests on a morality play we all love about how a small number of those people are ruining it for everyone else.
In reality, the toilet paper shortage was caused by people using their home toilets instead of office ones. Office toilets use different toilet paper (those giant rolls of pretty scratchy paper). Those rolls are manufactured on different lines, shipped through different supply chains, and sold in different stores. Paper companies have incredibly thin margins, and it took a while for them to retool and shift over to the new reality. The shortage was just the dip while that was happening.
Basically, sales of product A (residential TP) skyrocketed while product B tanked (office TP). No surprise that it became hard to find A in stores.
Hoarding didn't have a significant impact. (Think about it, how could it have? The shortage was a few weeks long. Think about how much toilet paper a small number of hoarders would have to have to cause a shortage of that scale. Did they literally fill their entire house with rolls?)
Rational people bought bidets or just used the shower already installed in their bathroom, rather than going full Road-Warrior in search of toilet paper. Non-rational people chose otherwise.
In this case, too, rational people will substitute other proteins for beef. As a beef producer, I'm glad most Americans aren't completely rational consumers.
