‘Shipwrecked in the 21st century’: how people made it through Europe’s worst blackout in living memory
We went shopping.
Oven and cook top are electric. So, off we went and bought a bbq. Which we need anyway. Plus some charcoal. So we had hamburgers. OK. Wifey did insist on something to boil water as well – we’d not want to have to wait for fire up the barbie to boil water for morning coffee. So, €20 on a little gas camping stove.
And that was it really. So not hugely exciting.
We did find that one supermarket chain – Continente – is v well prepared. Their tills were still working. And the multibanco payment systems were – couldn’t get cash from the hole in the wall but could pay by card. Not that that mattered to us I had, as I usually do, a couple of hundred cash.
But it was possible to see how buying panics start. So, while we’re buying the bbq in one shop someone in hte line to pay says “The supermarket’s run out of water” so everyone in that line picks up another 20 to 30 litres of water. Some were buying 100 litres etc. No stocking system can really deal with that sort of immediate spike in demand. Stripping the shelves bare etc.
Saw the same thing with the bread (bread is a bv important part of the P diet) in the supermarket that had power. People buying 3 and 5 days supplies, vast piles of rolls and loaves. Yet the supermarket had enough power that it was still baking fresh. The mass buying wasn’t – perhaps = wholly logical. But again we can see how just a twitch in the system can lead to shelves stripped bare.
All of which is why, of course, economists like rationing by price. If the supermarket had couble, tripled, the price of bread then perhaps the shelves wouldn’t have been bare. Folk would have taken what was needed, not hoarded.
Yes, you’re right, there are many social reasons why the supermarket didn’t. And even some of the complaints – but only the rich can get bread! – have validity too. And yet by hte standards the economists care about it does in fact work. How do we pread available – and now limited – supply over current demand? Change prices because that’s efficient. It makes people think about how much they actually do need and so limits that demand on that limited supply.
Whether the answer’s “right” is a bigger question than the economics. But within economics it’s a pretty good answer.