Hoarding

Modern toilet paper with 

splinters

Photo: Ileana Johnson 2015

Throughout history, when governments have intervened in the smooth operation of the free market based on supply and demand, the results have been disastrous, not the least of which is hoarding and the emergence of black markets. I am not talking about the psychological problem of hoarding personal items when people have a hard time getting rid of anything they own, even old and dirty scraps of paper. I am talking about fear-based hoarding, the result of fear of shortage or imminent societal collapse.

Natural disasters such as announced hurricanes or tornadoes often compel people to buy excessive food, bottled water, gasoline, a generator, milk, but especially toilet paper. Civil unrest or fear of disease such as this corona pandemic can also force people to hoard food and other necessities, including toilet paper. In a category of its own are the preppers who are ready for any end of the world, political holocaust unrest scenario. They purchase food with the shelf life of 25 years or more and build shelters/bunkers underground, in caves, or decommissioned bunkers.

Hoarding goods in excess of immediate need is caused by artificial scarcity. Artificial scarcity can be cause by unnecessary government intervention that scares people into hoarding behavior, i.e., panic driven by government forcing the closure of businesses and locking down the working population which can no longer produce necessary goods for society to function properly. Best example of this is the recent Covid-19 interference in the market. This action is yet to reveal the entire disaster which has wrought on the economy as the domino effect of unintended consequences is making chips fall.

An example from the past of government interference in the market is price controls at Valley Forge when farmers, who needed to feed their families, did not abide by the government’s price controls and sold their produce to the British for gold while Washington’s continental army was running at near starvation mode.

Economists believe this is what happened after 1971 when President Nixon decided to experiment with price controls. The economy suffered a plague of shortages, “we ran out of nearly everything” and, after price controls ended in 1974, most of the shortages disappeared.

Monopolies and cartels such as OPEC can also cause artificial scarcity of one product/service they offer. Holding a patent for a new drug can cause shortages and high prices as a result.

The New Deal issued the Agricultural Adjustment Act (AAA) which was “designed to boost agricultural prices by reducing surpluses. The government bought livestock for slaughter and paid farmers subsidies not to plant on part of their land.” This act caused artificial shortages.

Deliberate destruction of goods such as in a war situation can cause panic hoarding driven by the fear of starvation. Such items in short supply become mediums of exchange, more valuable than currency, i.e., cigarettes, bullets, chocolate, soap, women’s pantyhose, medicine, and vitamins.

Destruction of goods because there is no longer a distributor or buyer for that good can also cause hoarding. The recent Covid-19 action by the government has caused farmers in Florida to destroy tons of tomatoes, squash, and other vegetables which were previously bought by now closed restaurants. Farmers have also dumped thousands of gallons of milk as schools, universities, and restaurants were closed indefinitely. At the same time, a shortage of milk in grocery stores forced grocers to impose a purchase limit of one bottle or one gallon. People thus hoarded milk.

People engaged in what is called panic-buying of certain products in anticipation of a disaster, shortage, or large price increase. Some example of panic-buying through history include the first and second world wars when everything was in short supply; the 1918-1920 Spanish flu pandemic when people stored quinine and remedies for flu such as Vicks Vapo//Rub; Cuban missile crisis in 1962 when people bought excess quantities of canned food; any hurricane or tornado causes people to buy excess milk, bottled water, bread, and toilet paper; Coronavirus pandemic caused people to panic-buy food, facemasks, rubbing alcohol, hand-sanitizer, anti-bacterial wipes, anti-viral wipes, and toilet paper. Panic-buying causes price gouging by both individuals and grocery stores.

The most glaring example of constant hoarding occurred during the entire existence of the socialist republics of the Iron Curtain which were run by the highly inefficient centralized government of the Communist Party. Citizens of such countries like Soviet Union, China, Poland, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Czechoslovakia, North Korea, Vietnam, and Cuba were forced to constantly hoard items in short supply. Most products were in short supply because of the absolute mismanagement by Communist Party apparatchiks.

In these socialist/communist countries hoarding was punishable by law, and those caught served jail time. Both a black market and a barter market emerged from the severe shortage of everything. People were accustomed to carry around large sums of money and jute shopping bags in order to join a line in progress because they knew, whatever was on sale, they needed it.

But why hoard toilet paper? It is a basic instinct to be and stay clean. There is also the knowledge that, unlike food where there are substitutes, toilet paper has no substitute unless you consider paper towels, newspapers, and leaves.

People stockpile toilet paper because it is not perishable and are afraid that the domestic production and distribution will be disrupted. If needed, toilet paper can also be used as cosmetic wipes and tissue. Toilet paper under the centralized Communist Party economy had huge splinters in it and was always in short supply. Finally, people engage in mob mentality, ‘everyone is hoarding TP, I should too.’

There are 150 companies that manufacture toilet paper and the average person uses under 100 rolls a year, some much less. The U.S. demand for toilet paper stands at about 3 billion rolls a year. We import about 10 percent of our needs of TP.

If hoarding from grocery stores is not an option, people turn to canning and drying fruits and vegetables. If you freeze a lot of food, remember that, if the power goes out, the cache will spoil. Twice we lost the contents of our freezer and refrigerator due to spoilage after hurricanes when electricity was out for days and even weeks.

No matter what you hoard for survival, you will eventually run out if production and distribution are disrupted for extended periods of time.

Toilet Paper with Wood Chips

Photo: Ileana Johnson

Huffing and puffing, I lug the large package of toilet paper from our local Costco into the house. It’s not that the price is better; I just don’t want to go to the store more often than I have to. I stood in lines enough during my twenty years of living under the boot of communism.

I am always tempted to ask the cashier if that’s enough toilet paper for the average food intake. I never do it because the cashiers are all foreign, barely speak English, and my meek attempt at potty humor would be met by strange stares.

I kept a pink sample of pink toilet paper I brought with me from our first trip back to Romania after communism had “fallen” 25 years earlier. The tissue looks like crepe paper with splinters of wood embedded here and there, visible to the naked eye and painful to the rear end. Progress after decades of dictatorial communism is very slow in some aspects and fast in others.

It is still an improvement from the years I grew up when toilet paper and other necessities Americans take for granted were so scarce, people lined up for blocks to buy a couple of rolls and many left disappointed when the month’s delivery ran out.

People carried emergency walking-around cash and jute expandable shopping bags just in case they ran into a long line which may have been formed for something they needed, i.e., toilet paper, shampoo, oranges, butter, bananas, flour, oil, and sugar. Nobody knew exactly what was on sale that day; asking people around did not help, they did not know either; eventually, as they inched closer to the window, they found out what was delivered that day that people lined up for blocks for a chance to get the rationed amount.

Now in the twenty-first century America, the Snowflake college students are “triggered” by banana peels carelessly discarded on a tree. It makes one wonder, what is the progressive-approved non-racist method of disposing of banana peels after one eats a banana?

During the 1977 earthquake in Romania, the American Bible Society donated Bibles printed in Romanian which were meant to be distributed to the thousands of people who had lost their homes, their loved ones, and felt defeated. Biblical passages would have been inspirational and calming at such a time of profound grief. Instead of distributing them, Ceausescu’s regime recycled them into toilet paper. The print was so good or their recycling so bad that, one day, I found an entire roll of toilet paper with faint words, still legible, which turned out to be passages from the Bible. As scarce as toilet paper was, we kept it in the pantry because it was too sacrilegious to use it in this way.

As Americans, we never think how grateful we should be every day to the Scott Brothers of Watertown, Massachusetts, who invented the toilet paper in the 19th century!

Since people were embarrassed to buy it, the Scott Brothers thought they had a dud invention on their hands until they had the brilliant idea to give it freely to hotels. Hotels agreed to place it in rooms because they were fed up with their small pipes being clogged all the time. Until then, people used corn husks and newspapers which clogged the small sewer pipes. Customers loved the toilet paper for that very reason too and began buying it. And the rest is history.

In Romania's outhouses, we used corn husks and communist party propaganda newspapers because we did not have Sears and Roebucks catalogs or any catalogs for that matter. Once in a while a German tourist would leave behind one of their catalogs and we enjoyed looking at the abundance of everything we did not have, so we never used those for toilet paper. We especially enjoyed wiping with pages which had the dear leader Ceausescu's face on them.

Later on, when toilet paper was finally made, it was coarse light brown paper with wood chips still embedded in the paper, or, if white, it had faintly visible words on it from the books which were recycled into toilet paper.

I still have the few strips of pink toilet paper embedded with wood chips. I showed it to a lot of my former students but it did not seem to make any impact on brain-washed students who love communism and Che Guevara. Listening day and night to Hollywood and the academia extolling the wonderful virtues of communism, young people aspire to overturn their wonderful country built by capitalism and replace it with the tyrannical and egalitarian notion of communism. They believe this because they are young, idealist, often fat and well fed, restless for violent action, and never had to stand in line for anything except the latest electronic gadgets or concert tickets.

 

 

Scott Brothers of Massachusetts

We don't think about it but we should be grateful everyday to the Scott Brothers of Watertown, Massachusetts, who invented the toilet paper in the 19th century!

Since people were embarrassed to buy it, the Scott Brothers thought they had a dud invention on their hands until they had the brilliant idea to give it freely to hotels. Hotels agreed because they were fed up with their small pipes being clogged all the time. Until then, people used corn husks and newspapers which clogged the small sewer pipes. Customers loved the toilet paper for that very reason too and began buying it. And the rest is history.

A more modern outhouse in Romania

Photo: Ziarul Prejmereanul

 

In Romania's outhouses, we used corn husks and communist party propaganda newspapers because we did not have Sears and Roebucks catalogs or any catalogs for that matter. Once in a while a German tourist would leave behind one of their catalogs and we enjoyed looking at the abundance of everything we did not have, so we never used those for toilet paper. We especially enjoyed wiping with pages which had the dictator Ceausescu's face on them.

 

Communist Romania toilet paper I brought back from my 1985 visit

 

Later on, when toilet paper was finally made, it was coarse light brown paper with wood chips still embedded in the paper, or, if white, it had faintly visible words on it from the books which were recycled into toilet paper, including American Bibles donated during disaster reliefs. I still have a strip of more modern pink toilet paper, less coarse but wood chips are still visible in the paper. This strip dates from four years ago. Progress after communism is very slow.