Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Reelya]

Raise the prices, you fuck the poor. A story as old as time.

It's much like rent. You already have a tenant; you already profit off him; so why must the rent go up when the demand goes up?

Supply and demand is treated like gospel, when it's more greed-induced voodoo than reality.

I'm aware of the issues. but the result is as you see. If demand rises but the market doesn't accommodate that, you get a first-served-only-served situation, where the "price" is "low" but you simply can't get any. For pensioners, the reality here is that they now need to wipe their ass with newspaper because they can't get toilet paper, because it's at a fixed price but demand went up. So sure, the "price didn't go up" but you can't actually get any, so it's sort of moot at that point.

with the rent situation, if demand is high but rents are controlled that just means that if you were lucky enough to be grandfather-claused into a rent-controlled property, you're ok, but otherwise homeless. Over time, the rent controls fuck over younger people, as most older people will ruthlessly hold onto their rent-controlled apartments, and there's no incentive for private development to build more rental properties, since they're artificially unprofitable.

The solution is to not try and enforce pricing, but bring in alternative support for the poor: food banks and public housing rather than trying to force price controls on supermarkets and landlords.

[nenjin]

People just need enough to survive the two week panic rush. Conceivably most people aren't going to go the grocery store to buy 2 months of supplies every two weeks. What were seeing now is system shock when large populations all try to do the same thing at the same time.

After a couple weeks, the biggest initial hit of Corona in the US and elsewhere will processing, and as long as prevention controls mean it doesn't increase exponentially beyond that initial shock, purchasing habits are going to return to normal.

What will possibly fuck us though is the supply chains are effected. If they're short staffed due to the virus, if their mobility is restricted or interstate commerce is blocked on the grounds of controlling the spread of the virus, then shit is going to get bad. Then people are going to have to start eating "whatever they can" instead of being like "I always eat chick peas and there's no chickpeas left wah."

I've gotten about half away from processed food in general. But I stocked up a little today on stuff like ramen that I don't even eat anymore because, hey, if the supply chain gets seriously damaged, what it's made of no longer really matters, what matters now is just pure calorie count. What I eat a ton of though is restaurant food. Today my regular place closed indefinitely until the situation changes, and I expect we'll see more, especially if the Trump administration goes ahead and instructs all eateries and bars to close down until the situation improves.

So if infrastructure and shipping prove themselves to be fragile or the spread of the virus gets as bad as people are fearing, everyone is going to have to get used to a new normal. That may mean eating what's available rather than what you want, or what's optimal for you. But it's still too early to freak out about that yet, as things are still adapting.

Hell, my whole company moved to Discord as our main communication tool, and today the day we try to actually run our business through it in full, the servers just herped and derp in the middle of a 8 person video conference and died and half of people's clients just shit themselves. I've been using Discord for over a year and never seen it crap the bed like that.

All systems are adapting to the massive, rapid shift in human behavior, whether that's tech, logistics or infrastructure. THAT is what is causing most of our worries, and MOST of it is a self-fulfilling prophecy.

wipe their ass with newspaper

Probably the last generation to even have a lot of newspaper on hand.

food banks and public housing rather than trying to force price controls on supermarkets and landlords.

Food banks in a time of emptying shelves, and public housing in a time about disease hysteria. I'll be honest, the armchair anything about Coronavirus is starting to get to me. My brother called yesterday and wanted to chat up hypotheticals and I was just like "I don't really want to hear about the collapse of the supply chain being good for us in the long run so we learn to rely on external sourced goods less." I kind of find myself getting annoyed by the ipso facto logic, even though I just practiced it above. It's like, just generating a shitload of anxiety and little else.

[Reelya]

why would public housing be a virus threat? That just means that the city government owns apartment buildings and they rent them out to low-income earners for cheap. It doesn't mean people share a bathroom or anything.

Also, food banks are a great failsafe in times of "shelves emptying out". You go into one of those, show your card that says you're a low-income earner, then they give you a bundle of essential items. They need to be funded properly however so that they're not just relying on rejected goods, but have a proper supply. At least one of the main supermarkets here is already partnering with charities to provide toiletpaper to seniors directly.

[mko]

Raise the prices, you fuck the poor. A story as old as time.

Neither really works in panic.

Store raise prices? People will still panic buy like idiots, and poor people have problem.
Hoarding? See current situation
Rationing in mild "one pack per person" version works relatively well in case where there is no true shortage, just people being stupid. Hopefully full scale rationing will not be necessary and people will soon run out of place to store toilet paper.

It's much like rent. You already have a tenant; you already profit off him; so why must the rent go up when the demand goes up?

Supply and demand is treated like gospel, when it's more greed-induced voodoo than reality.

Supply and demand gets crazy during panic (as demand gets irrational and crazy). But attempting to ignore it for housing is simply stupid. To reduce prices of housing - build more housing. Rent control/irrational zoning will only make situation worse long term. For truly crazy forbid construction of housing and block price increases.

In a healthy situation landlords with very high profits (or even profits expected to be high) will result in more housing being build, what reduces prices. If you forbid construction, you get higher prices or officially low prices but becoming a new renter is nearly impossible.

Long term rent control are generally idiotic, though short term in case of people being ridiculously stupid are a good idea.

[nenjin]

why would public housing be a virus threat? That just means that the city government owns apartment buildings and they rent them out to low-income earners for cheap. It doesn't mean people share a bathroom or anything.

Also, food banks are a great failsafe in times of "shelves emptying out". You go into one of those, show your card that says you're a low-income earner, then they give you a bundle of essential items. They need to be funded properly however so that they're not just relying on rejected goods, but have a proper supply. At least one of the main supermarkets here is already partnering with charities to provide toiletpaper to seniors directly.

Having worked in a food bank, I can tell you most of their product are rejects, promised donations of over and back stock and expired goods. When the supply chain is threatened, those goods have more value and don't make their way to charitable organizations.

As for public housing, it's just that. Public. High turn over. Lots of bodies moving in and out, of varying hygiene levels. During a viral outbreak. You don't have to be shitting where someone else shits to get something. People touching the same wall rounding a corner can be a vector. Interior apartment buildings (where your doors are all inside rather than having exterior doors) are basically dorms. They share ventilation and door handles and wall spaces. All of those are potential vectors. Versus someone that owns a home with 4 walls and a lawn separating them from their neighbor. My apartment is largely isolated from my neighbors EXCEPT via the heating and AC ventilation.

[mko]

Nothing that you mention is specific to public housing. Apartments or buildings without lawn around are typical in Europe in cities. For good reasons, urban sprawl with single-family houses + lawns is horrible form for a city.

And I am dubious about massive difference, as long as at least part of people goes to work/shops. Lawn is not some impenetrable barrier.

[Reelya]

Public housing does not in fact have a high turnover rate. The waiting list is often a couple of years to get a place.

I'm not talking about shelters or anything like that, but apartments that you rent.

Edit: also, studies done of the effects of the San Francisco rent controls:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rent_control_in_the_United_States#2017_study_of_the_San_Francisco_housing_market

In 1994, San Francisco voters passed a ballot initiative which expanded the city's existing rent control laws to include small multi-unit apartments with four or less units, built prior to 1980. (about 30% of the city's rental housing stock at the time). In 2017, Stanford economics researcher Rebecca Diamond and others published a study which examined the effects of this specific rent control law on the rental units newly controlled compared to similar style units (multi-unit apartments with four or less units) not under rent control (built after 1980), as well as this law's effect on the total city rental stock, and on overall rent prices in the city, covering the years from 1995 to 2012.

They found that while San Francisco's rent control laws benefited tenants who had rent controlled units, it also resulted in landlords removing 30% of the units in the study from the rental market, (by conversion to condos or TICs) which led to a 15% citywide decrease in total rental units, and a 7% increase in citywide rents.

So, 70% of the people in the rent-controlled units got along fine, but 30% of the others got booted out so that the units could be converted to something more profitable.

[WealthyRadish]

This is off topic, but personally I think a better solution than public housing is a very high LVT distributed as a cash dividend, while recognizing that most municipal/local governments are heavily influenced by local landowners interested mostly in using zoning ordinances and regulations to drive up rents (so a land value tax could effectively deal with lack of affordable housing by both providing a universal income and hurting the private interests driving the crisis).

[ChairmanPoo]

People just need enough to survive the two week panic rush. Conceivably most people aren't going to go the grocery store to buy 2 months of supplies every two weeks. What were seeing now is system shock when large populations all try to do the same thing at the same time.

After a couple weeks, the biggest initial hit of Corona in the US and elsewhere will processing,

At this point I think that expecting this to be down significantly after a couple of weeks is way too optimistic.

Actually, I´m fairly sure it´s going to be much worse

[nenjin]

Yeah but in terms of there being runs on particular goods and items, that can and hopefully will normalize pretty quickly. Hand sanitizers and disinfectant are probably going to be scarce for a while but I'm pretty sure they'll ramp up production because this I think this a trend they can capitalize on for years.

[mko]

Yeah but in terms of there being runs on particular goods and items, that can and hopefully will normalize pretty quickly. Hand sanitizers and disinfectant are probably going to be scarce for a while but I'm pretty sure they'll ramp up production because this I think this a trend they can capitalize on for years.

Yeah, how much toilet paper you can stockpile? And for example in Poland one of major petrochemical companies switched some production lines to medical-grade sanitizers.

[nenjin]

Frankly if people obsessively hoard canned goods and non-perishables and leave all the fresh meat and produce alone.....I can live with that scenario. I managed to snag a 24-pack right as all this nonsense started so I should be good for months.

Just as long as half the people who tend, raise, harvest, package and ship the stuff I want don't get sick.......things should be ok.

[Frumple]

Yeah but in terms of there being runs on particular goods and items, that can and hopefully will normalize pretty quickly. Hand sanitizers and disinfectant are probably going to be scarce for a while but I'm pretty sure they'll ramp up production because this I think this a trend they can capitalize on for years.

Yeah, how much toilet paper you can stockpile? And for example in Poland one of major petrochemical companies switched some production lines to medical-grade sanitizers.

I mean, it depends on how much storage you have? TP takes up a lot of space, generally,  but it's also easily stackable and long lasting. So long as you're willing to have less space for others stuff and/or go floor to ceiling you can jam a lot of it even into a fairly small area.

... actually, now I'm wondering how long before we hear news of a house burning down due to having too much toilet paper stacked up in it. I'd be disappointed, but unsurprised

[MetalSlimeHunt]

People who burn toilet paper rolls tend to soak them in lighter fluid first - do they really burn well on their own?

[Stench Guzman]

Do not call 911 if you run out of toilet paper.