Thinking I’d get a jump on things, I figured I’d shop Friday night (which I do sometimes to avoid Saturday rush) and figured as schools are closing and events are cancelled and working from home looms as a potential for some of us (unfortunately, not enough of us), this was going to be one of those Saturdays.
I knew heading into Sam’s Club, wiping my cart handle down, that there would be no toilet paper. Not an issue – my wife and I are well stocked. We buy a large pack, a few times a year. But I admittedly was not prepared for what I found.
Thinking maybe I would get a whole chicken and a couple pounds of ground beef I headed for the meat department, only swinging by to pick up cat food, which we have a reasonable amount of but there are 3 cats and couple of weeks is long enough we would run out and they would kill us in our sleep and eat us. Mine are little angels most of the time, but when they’re hungry…
Swinging over to the meat isles I was instantly stunned. Each section was completely empty, excepting the Tomahawk Ribeyes which were 2+ pounds and represented a similar investment as graduate school.
No Chicken, Pork or Beef. No milk. No eggs. Grapes and Bananas completely gone (?). Over to the frozen meat. Only a few bags of chicken nuggets left (now remember, this is a bulk buy retailer – huge inventories). Plenty of prepared meals available but very little. I found a small box of 12 frozen hamburgers Some Italian chicken sausage, half and half. As I looked around, stares of disbelief which likely mirrored my face.
There was even a substantial dent in the available bags of Doritos and Cheetos and I did grab one of each, so if you find my dead body with a strange, presidential looking orange dust on it, I went out, but I went out happily. It ain’t easy being cheesy.
A few more things and I was on my way. Stopping over at Target to get a few things I found a similar situation. Almost all meat (well, they did have some Bison, but it was $9 a pound and wasn’t doing that. A few cans of soup. Some Smarties which I use in a pinch instead of diabetic glucose when my blood sugar drops, of which they are the cheapest supplier but are almost always out of. I’m not sure why, sugar is eminently abundant.
Giant Eagle was more of the same, although they still had a lot of fresh Salmon and a few frozen ducks. I guess Duck is not “shelter in place” food.
As I was coming out of the last store, I ran into a friend and coworker and she reminded me of a thought I had earlier. In this world of just-in-time inventories, they only stock and plan on runs for Thanksgiving and Christmas. Snack foods for the super bowl. Milk and Toilet paper in substantially bad weather.
Inventory in fact, in our capitalist minds, exists as a necessary evil. But because of it, re-supplying will slow down. Manufacturing will slow down. Wall street and subsequently business, thrive on predictable outcomes and they scream in pain when they are not.
And that is infinitely funny. Because the Stock Market is a game of chance, but one whose players complains when they have to take a chance. Insurance companies and banks too, when they aren’t allowed to manipulate their bets into sure things. Oh, they’re fine with tossing the world for the little guy, overextending credit, charging high interest rates and late fees.
They’re only geniuses in the sense that they have put themselves in a position to gamble, but not in the sense they would actually want to gamble. And then you realize (if you hadn’t long ago), the issue for the market isn’t the deaths Covid 19 will cause or disruption to lives. It’s of course, the monetary impact, but even more, the unpredictability of it. And it effects a lot of us. Our retirement savings, which is invested there.
And those same people who run businesses that push for predictability, want to take away social nets that save families medically and economically – that make their lives more predictable (at least to the point where they can live and eat).
This is a mild version of what might happen if this virus was say Ebola. We are not ready. Which is why we need a socially responsible democratic government to pair with our capitalist economic model. Capitalism is ultimately not built to govern or deal with people. It’s brutal. Supply and demand, right there in Sam’s club. Fortunately, it’s not life or death for me. But it is for many. Many without health insurance, without jobs, without homes. We need systems that cushion the reality of Capitalism for the little guy, where it is so brutal. The rich can lose money, but can remain rich. You cannot lose your health and remain alive. You cannot lose your sole income or ability to make that income and remain alive.
And if we need to remind the rich, more than a 70% of the world lives below the poverty line and overf 10% in the USA, the worlds richest country, do. We don’t need to save the rich. They will save themselves. It’s time for us to vote to save ourselves and our fellow humans.
It turns out in the Zombie Apocalypse, the zombies are just wandering around Sam’s club, trying to decide if they should try “meatless chicken” or subsist on Pop Tarts. They’re not dead, they are people who are seeing their social footing shake beneath them. And if the people in Washington are only concerned about the same things as the people on Wall Street, we’re screwed. Better vote.
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